Everyone wants to be happy. Even The United States Declaration of Independence states that the pursuit of happiness is our right. Also, the international community sets aside March 20 each year as the international day of happiness.
So what is happiness? In simple terms, happiness is an emotion that depends on something good happening. How many good things happening do we need over and above negative things happening to make us happy?
Do we think that having more income would make us happy? The problem here is that an increase in income may provide temporary happiness, until we want more. And when more is knocking at our door, we need to remember that even though the accumulation of material things is at an all-time high, so too is the number of unhappy people.
Happiness research tells us that our connections with family and friends are important to our happiness. And it is not our pursuit of self-gratification that makes us happy, but rather our contribution to society.
So what makes us happy? What are our happy triggers? Maybe there is a person, thing, or activity that brings us a feeling of happiness. We should schedule time each day to enjoy a least one of them.
But if we want to experience lasting happiness that I define as a constant state of inner peace (also called joy) then God’s Word tells us that we need to spend time with Jesus. Sure we can experience some periodic joy without including Jesus in our daily life, but if we want to experience the fullness of joy, we need to spend time with him throughout the day. Why? Because in Psalm 16:11, God’s Word tells us that fullness of joy occurs when we are in his presence. In fact, true happiness is a by-product of spending daily time with Jesus.
At pages 21-32 in my book titled Created For Greatness—Living Your Best Life Through God’s Word, I discuss ways to maintain our happiness/joy by feeding our body, mind, and soul with the right food and by living the way that God created us to live. Also, at pages 32-35, I discuss the importance of filling our spiritual tank by turning our mind toward God and filling our service tank by turning our mind toward others.
Doing the things discussed above put us in the best possible position to live a happy and joyful life.