Prescription for the Heavyhearted…

Sometime we suffer the symptoms of disease we don’t have. And sometimes we suffer

the symptoms of unhappiness simply from overemphasizing the negative side of situations. This

is easy to do, since time seems to move more swiftly when we are happy and more slowly when

we are heavyhearted. And so we might suppose that we are unhappy more that we are. Life

isn’t easy at all times for any of us. And if for anyone else, it seems to us to be so, it is only

because we don’t know enough; it is only because there is a side we fail to see. We are all

subject to uncertainties and to some discouraging circumstances, some in one way, some in

another. Furthermore, no matter what we have, it seems that there are always things we want.

But those who have what we want – or what we think we want – are not necessarily happier

than we are. Happiness is not confined to any material set of circumstances. It is not

guaranteed by wealth or ease. It is not the monopoly of any place or people. Its component

parts, or some of them at least, are faith and work, gratitude, a sincere purpose, a sense of

being wanted, and the ability to see the hopeful side. All these elements are essential, but faith

and useful willing to work would seem to underlie all else — faith in God, faith in ourselves, faith

in life and in its everlasting plan and purpose – and work: work not only to satisfy physical

wants, but work for the sense of doing something worthwhile – work because men are so made

that they cannot be as happy without work as they can be with it. The right to work is God-

given, and the obligation also, and the necessity for it is inherent in man’s very nature.

Paradoxically, there is another element that enters in, and that is this: Some of the people we

think might not have reason to be as happy as others, are often among the happiest, most

grateful people there are, perhaps because their sense of values has been stripped of some of

the superficialities, perhaps because they have learned the great blessing of simple essentials. It

all adds up to the fact that we have more reason to be happy than we sometimes suppose, and

if we were to lose what we have – or see someone who has never had what we have – we may

well find the contrast convincing.