Specifications of Happiness

Perhaps it is a good time to remind ourselves again that mere things are not as important as is our attitude toward them. It is possible for people to put themselves in a frame of mind and many of them do where they know they can’t be happy unless all that pertains to their material world comes up to certain arbitrary specifications the house they live in, the car they drive, the clothes they wear, and the pleasures they pursue. We can readily make ourselves unhappy by setting our hearts upon things which are not essential to happiness. Most of us are happy in the years of our youth, with only small things to make us so. It is not until we complicate our lives or until we let someone complicate them for us until we become victims of our environment, victims of false standards, of wrong thinking that we find great unhappiness. It might be well on occasion to sit down soberly and confront ourselves with this fact: Our pioneer and pilgrim forefathers, and uncounted millions of others in present and past generations, have been sincerely happy without the material things which we think are so essential to our happiness. There come pertinently to mind these words that Paul wrote to Timothy: “But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.”¹ It would seem that the superstructure that complicates our lives should be recognized for what it is, and that non-essentials, desirable as they are or sometimes seem, should not be permitted to confuse and warp our thinking and make us unhappy if we don’t have them. With proper perspective there is profound pleasure in simple and commonplace things. And with freedom, with straight thinking, and with clear objectives, any generation can learn to live happily without unlimited material comforts and encumbrances.