The Obligation to Find Happiness

“There is an evident effort in nature to be happy,” says an old and respected source: “Everything blossoms to express beauty, as well as lead to fruitage. Even the inorganic fashions itself into crystals, that absorb and flash back the sunlight. . . . If one examines nature with the microscope. . .or considers the heavens at night, he finds three things: truth as inherent, beauty beyond that which can be spoken, and goodness everywhere. . . God,” says this observer, “speaks through all things, with an eternal desire to create happiness. Man has no right to be an exception the only pessimist in the universe. The deep distress of the world comes in when we lose our anchorage of faith in Him.”

This thought, that “there is an evident effort in nature to be happy,” and that the Creator “speaks through all things with an eternal desire to create happiness” leads to this concept from another source: “. . .men are, that they might have joy.”

Much has been said of the right to search for happiness, the right to pursue it. But further than this, we would say that man has not only the right to search for and pursue happiness but also an obligation to find it. To be happy is indeed a duty. To this end man was made. And happiness cannot be found by running contrary to law, contrary to conscience, contrary to keeping the commandments.

What would a loving Father plan for His children for those He has made in His own image but their happiness, and peace, and growth, and everlasting life? And what he asks of us is to learn and to live in such a way as to be more like Him.

“There is an evident effort in nature to be happy”and it should be so in men. The Creator “speaks through all things, with an eternal desire to create happiness.” And it comes by keeping the commandments God has given.