Happiness Points: #50-56
Sunday, January 17, 2021
Peace to Live By Happiness Points: #50-56 - Daniel Litton
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(Tap or right-click link to download broadcast)
[Transcript may not match broadcasted sermon word for word]
Happiness Point #50: People are Responsible for their Characters
It is the oldest game in the book—blaming someone else or something else when something goes wrong. Remember? That’s what Adam did the first time he sinned. He blamed Eve. He didn’t take responsibility. Recently, I watching a pastor prepare to give a sermon at highly esteemed church in the evangelical world. He was reading over the passage of Scripture and thought he lost his place. So what did he do? Did he take responsibility? Even in this minor infraction, the pastor blamed the reason on the fact he had just purchased a new Bible. It kind of bothered me while I was listening to his sermon. I thought, “How much pride that one cannot even take responsibility for something so small?” I know, I am being nit picky here. But my overarching point is that I am trying to show that it’s important for us to take responsibility.
We are all responsible for our own characters. That’s the simple truth. Yet, neither you nor I have lived up to this ideal. We’ve all failed in both small and large ways. In the same breath, I’m not saying that every time something goes wrong that we are at fault. A lot of times we are, and sometimes it is just a matter that we could have done something a bit better, with a more effective approach. Nonetheless, we see it all around us in our world. We see people not wanting to take responsibility for what has happened and try to blame someone bigger. Organizations are blamed. News is blamed. Responsibility is thrown back to people who are no longer living. Indeed it seems that every facet of anything that is, has faced taking on the burden of undue responsibility.
So, how do we solve the problem? Well, it’s true that none of us can get people to take responsibility. That’s a personal decision that everyone has to make within themselves. However, we do have great control over ourselves, or at least, we should have. In that case, we can then take responsibility for our own behavior when we need to. This probably won’t be easy because it requires us to relinquish our pride. That pride that has built up inside of ourselves, that self-righteousness. It needs to go. And the more perfectionistic a person is, the harder this is going to be. Perfectionism is dumb really because nothing in this world is absolutely perfect. Even your English Bible translation has some errors in it.
Once we begin the process of giving up our pride then, we can really start to experience life and all that it has to offer. We can increase our level of happiness. This is because it feels good to admit when we are wrong. It brings healing to even long-drawn out situations. It makes God happy. It makes it so that each of us are seen in a more realistic light, and not some hyped up, artificial light that we, or even others, have created about us. It makes us relatable to others so that our personhood is not lifted up on some pedestal for all to see. People know we are human, and then we can relax. We can relax because we don’t have to keep aiming at that perfectionistic bar that has been set so high.
Happiness Point #51: Giving versus Getting
Most people spend their lives going after things that are trivial at life’s conclusion. It becomes so obvious when you stop and think about it. Pursing possessions may seem fun, and there it is an element certainly that is fun about it, or why would anyone do it? Nonetheless, in pursing possessions we can miss some of the best things in life. We can miss out on enjoying what we currently have because he have the next ‘thing’ in focus. We only enjoyed our ‘new thing’ for a moment, and now we are already pursing another ‘new thing.’ Getting can get in the way of even enjoying the people who are around us.
What makes this even worse is that most people will spend money they don’t even have to obtain those possessions that they want or that they think they need. This is double the trouble. It’s one thing to spend too much of our time pursing the next possession, but it’s quite another thing to not only be doing that be then to be in debt at the same time. Debt enslaves. It takes away a person’s peace. It’s very difficult to enjoy any peace of mind when you know that you owe money, or even that you have creditors after you. The future becomes uncertain because your always wondering when the car will be repossessed, or the house will be foreclosed on.
It’s also true that when we are focused on getting more, that we can lose out on becoming a better person. I mean, think about it. Instead of focusing on how we can improve ourselves, improve our characters, we are focusing on what we are getting next. This also means that you may have to work even harder than you currently are, take a higher paid position at work, or even work a couple jobs to pay for all the possessions that you are pursuing. This all takes more time. It takes more time away, again, from our self-development, and it takes time even away from family and friends. Nah, we are too busy trying to earn more money to get things that we don’t even need.
So, we can gain all these ‘things’ that we want, but then what happens at the end of our lives? We gained the whole world, right, but what did we lose? We lost the goodness of life, giving into other’s lives because we were too selfish. We were too busy pursing things that are now going to stay behind on the earth while our spirit transcends to the third-level of existence. And when the Creator calls our name, when it becomes time for us to get new things for what we contributed on the earth, it is only going to take him a short time. There isn’t going to be much of a list, not much to say. He will whip through our list really fast because all that we strove for we left behind on the earth, and we weren’t able to bring it up here.
Happiness Point #52: Take Responsibility for What You Believe
We were all raised with certain values, whether those be spiritual or lacking in that department. I think a lot of people go through life without ever taking ownership of what they believe. There are certain people that just believe what they believe because that’s what they were taught as a child. If a person was raised in a strict church setting, for instance, those beliefs can become so ingrained that the person just naturally accepts them. Or perhaps, there is great fear of breaking away from them.
Regardless, a person needs to be able to say, “I believe what I believe because I really believe it.” Their beliefs need to be their own, and not just someone else’s beliefs that they are carrying on. If a person has inherited certain beliefs, that person needs to decide whether to keep them, to make them their own, or to let them go, to get rid of them. It is when responsibility isn’t taken that happiness is reduced. Really, there can’t be much happiness because what you believe isn’t what you really believe. I mean, you are saying you believe this or that ‘just because,’ or because you are afraid to give up those beliefs.
God himself cannot even work with a person who isn’t honest with themselves. I mean, everyone who comes to God has to exhibit that certain honesty, right? Certainly. When a person comes to God, they acknowledge how they are wrong and how God is right. That’s why they are ‘coming to God’ because they weren’t with God ‘previously.’ God cannot make a person come into relationship with him, and nor would he want to. That would be artificial, it wouldn’t be real. So, if you yourself don’t want to be artificial, it’s time you start being honest with yourself about what you really believe.
A lot of times with people, they end up saying that they do indeed agree with what they were taught growing up as a child. They know deep within themselves that, “This isn’t just what my family believes, this is now what I personally believe.” And sometimes a person may continue the beliefs, but take a different approach with them. Still thirdly, after evaluation, a person may just decide that they don’t believe what they were taught. Nevertheless, all three of these people have taken responsibility. It is the person who continues to believe ‘just because’ is the one who is really in trouble.
Happiness Point #53: Don’t Look for the Answers Now
It is easy in the middle of a life difficultly to frantically want to find the answer to what is currently going on. For most of us, our minds in twenty first century America have been programmed to think rationally, to try to understand everything, if possible, the best we can. Nonetheless, we need to realize that typically during a difficulty in life we don’t have the answer at that time. Any answer that we try to come up with will most likely be incorrect. That’s because, to use an old saying, we can’t see the forest for the trees. We are blinded by our trial, and we don’t have clear vision on it. Only later, sometimes much later, will we be able to look back and say, “Ah, now I understand.”
It is true as well that as we study things we will come up with questions inside our minds as to why this is this way and that is that way. Questions are inevitable. The temptation then invariably comes to immediately try to solve those questions. We think, “I am smart. I can figure this out.” There are some things in life, though, where it is only through waiting and perhaps even experience that we can truly understand something. Not everything can be comprehended from a textbook. Nor is everything easy to solve. Nor are our minds capable of figuring it all out now.
My experience has been that the answers come later in time. Sometimes a couple months later, but sometimes a couple years later. And still yet, there are questions that remain unanswered. Perhaps not every question will be answered in this life. And that’s okay though. We need to be able to accept that not all questions can in fact be given answers, at least, in the here and now. The important thing is that we stay close to God, and that we do not place blame on God when we don’t have the answer, no matter what the situation or question may be. If we keep God in the forefront of our lives, with nothing as important as him, then truly not having the answers starts not to matter much anymore.
Happiness Point #54: Pick What You Want to Do
Recently I was watching a sermon online from a famous Christian Orthodox minister. He was saying that what we value in our lives is a matter of the heart. A man can work two jobs, but for two different reasons. If one works the two jobs in order to provide for his family, his wife and children, that is all well and good. Nonetheless, if the man works two jobs in order to make more money so that he can buy something he desires, while neglecting his wife and kids, well, obviously that’s bad. The important thing is that we decide what we value. That we don’t put our foot through one door while keeping the other foot outside of it.
As I have said before in the past, God never told us we had to get married. God never told us we have to have children. Both those things are good, but we don’t have to do them. We can be solely a career oriented person if we want to, but we have to make that choice beforehand. We cannot make that choice after we are married and have three kids. At that point, in this latter case, you cannot decide you are going to focus so much on your career that you neglect your family. If you have a family, God wants you to focus on your family. If you are spending too much time away from them, you are going to have to make a change.
Making change isn’t always easy. I knew a man once that realized he need to spend more time with one of his sons. He didn’t want to neglect him. So what did he do? Well, he decided to neglect our leadership meetings instead to spend more time with his son. Was this the correct answer? Obviously not. It wasn’t necessarily wrong that he wanted to spend more time with his son, but he needed to pick one or the other. He tried to have both and what ended up happening is our leadership group suffered as a result. What he should have done was opt out of the leadership group at that point. So, people have to be careful when making change. You may have too much on your plate and need to drop a thing or two.
We cannot do everything. We are going to have to pick what we prioritize and what we choose not do to. This is especially true for those who are married. Whether man or woman, a person can stretch themselves too thin. I think the important thing is that a person focuses on God’s call for their life—that is, their career, the work God has given them to do. And, the other thing is that they should focus on their family. But, besides those two things, everything else will have to be negotiated. A person just can’t be a participant in everything, even when others want or even beg them to. We have to protect our lives by protecting our extra time.
Happiness Point #55: Your Children Will Grow Up Fast
Whether we have children of our own, or whether we’ve known children in our lives, we know that not before too long, they are all grown up. We see a child entering their teenage years and think, “Man, I can remember when he was three. Seems like yesterday.” Yup, yesterday came and went, and now it is today. Kids grow up fast. That means that if you have children, you are going to want to become aware of this fact. You are going to want to stop and realize that your child will only be four, five, and six one time each. They aren’t five years old for five years. Not realizing that fact can cause you to miss out on some of the most important years of your life.
Children rely on their parents to mold and shape them. They rely on them to actually spend quality time with them, and do fun things with them. They need to be taught and disciplined. But if you are never around your kids, or you don’t spend enough time with them, how are they going to have a good childhood? It’s simply going to hurt their childhood if you don’t participate. You were a kid once. If your mom or dad didn’t spend quality time with you, you’d probably admit that was a disadvantage to you, or at least, you missed them. So, in the same line of thinking, you don’t want to be sparing on the time you spend with your kids.
Church plays, Christmas concerts, basketball games, golf tournaments, whatever, each of them only happens once. Your child’s fifth birthday only happens once, as does the seventh and the tenth. Christmases come and go. Life goes by quick. Time doesn’t stop for anyone. Rather, it is up to us to become aware of our time, to learn to live in the moment. And I think that’s becoming harder and harder these days. It can be difficult to stop and enjoy the moment because our minds want to focus on the next thing, the next event, the next worry. All this thinking can get in the way. It can cause us to actually miss out on life.
One thing the Apostle Paul told us in Scripture is to make the most of our opportunities, and make the best use of the times that God gives to us. This just isn’t for church stuff. This is for life stuff. All of life matters, especially the time spent with your children. You’ll be a grandfather or grandmother before you know it. You don’t want to look back and say, “Man, I missed it all.” Or, you don’t want to look at one of your children whom, deep down, you think could have been more successful in life if, perhaps, just perhaps, you had spent more quality time with them instead of focusing on your career so much.
Happiness Point #56: Increasing Wealth Doesn’t Increase Happiness
It can often seem like the more money we could have, the happier we’d be. Right? I mean, that seems to make sense on a surface level. And certainly, it should be said that being of lower income certainly makes life harder. But I don’t believe the opposite is true. I don’t believe that being more wealthy necessarily makes life happier. At least, that’s been my experience. Generally speaking, the more wealthy we become, the more we just end up spending, which, in turn, ironically, means that we really aren’t more wealthy, are we? Nah, with increased wealth often comes increased desire.
I find that if I have a good amount of money that I am generally happy. I don’t have to be incredibly wealthy to be incredibly happy. I am able to buy the things I want, and generally have some money left over, no matter how small, to go into the bank account. I know, if I think inside my head, that if I was to obtain more money that I already have things I would buy. That means that I really wouldn’t be saving more. I would just be increasing my wants. I mean, think about it. If someone said to us, “I’ll give you a million dollars but you cannot buy anything with it or change your living standards in any way,” most of of us would lose enthusiasm pretty quickly. Funny how that is.
We all know that some of the richest people in the world are some of the most unhappy. We also know that some of the most modest people we know seem to be the happiest. I just personally don’t see any correlation between wealth and happiness. Wealth can be good if we know what we are doing with it, if we know how to manage it effectively. But we also know that the more the increase, the more things there becomes to be concerned about. Increased possessions causes increased worldly concern. That’s why we know some famous wealthy people live lives of simplicity.
I think the important thing is that we have our happiness founded in God and not money. Remember, Jesus said we get to choose. He said we can’t choose both of them, but we can choose one of them. A person can value money the most, or a person can value God the most. I think it is experientially true looking at the lives of those I know and looking at my own life that those who value God more are indeed the happiness. With God comes happiness. With wealth, well there is happiness too, but it is a different kind of happiness, a temporary and uncertain happiness.
- Daniel Litton
Happiness Point #50: People are Responsible for their Characters
It is the oldest game in the book—blaming someone else or something else when something goes wrong. Remember? That’s what Adam did the first time he sinned. He blamed Eve. He didn’t take responsibility. Recently, I watching a pastor prepare to give a sermon at highly esteemed church in the evangelical world. He was reading over the passage of Scripture and thought he lost his place. So what did he do? Did he take responsibility? Even in this minor infraction, the pastor blamed the reason on the fact he had just purchased a new Bible. It kind of bothered me while I was listening to his sermon. I thought, “How much pride that one cannot even take responsibility for something so small?” I know, I am being nit picky here. But my overarching point is that I am trying to show that it’s important for us to take responsibility.
We are all responsible for our own characters. That’s the simple truth. Yet, neither you nor I have lived up to this ideal. We’ve all failed in both small and large ways. In the same breath, I’m not saying that every time something goes wrong that we are at fault. A lot of times we are, and sometimes it is just a matter that we could have done something a bit better, with a more effective approach. Nonetheless, we see it all around us in our world. We see people not wanting to take responsibility for what has happened and try to blame someone bigger. Organizations are blamed. News is blamed. Responsibility is thrown back to people who are no longer living. Indeed it seems that every facet of anything that is, has faced taking on the burden of undue responsibility.
So, how do we solve the problem? Well, it’s true that none of us can get people to take responsibility. That’s a personal decision that everyone has to make within themselves. However, we do have great control over ourselves, or at least, we should have. In that case, we can then take responsibility for our own behavior when we need to. This probably won’t be easy because it requires us to relinquish our pride. That pride that has built up inside of ourselves, that self-righteousness. It needs to go. And the more perfectionistic a person is, the harder this is going to be. Perfectionism is dumb really because nothing in this world is absolutely perfect. Even your English Bible translation has some errors in it.
Once we begin the process of giving up our pride then, we can really start to experience life and all that it has to offer. We can increase our level of happiness. This is because it feels good to admit when we are wrong. It brings healing to even long-drawn out situations. It makes God happy. It makes it so that each of us are seen in a more realistic light, and not some hyped up, artificial light that we, or even others, have created about us. It makes us relatable to others so that our personhood is not lifted up on some pedestal for all to see. People know we are human, and then we can relax. We can relax because we don’t have to keep aiming at that perfectionistic bar that has been set so high.
Happiness Point #51: Giving versus Getting
Most people spend their lives going after things that are trivial at life’s conclusion. It becomes so obvious when you stop and think about it. Pursing possessions may seem fun, and there it is an element certainly that is fun about it, or why would anyone do it? Nonetheless, in pursing possessions we can miss some of the best things in life. We can miss out on enjoying what we currently have because he have the next ‘thing’ in focus. We only enjoyed our ‘new thing’ for a moment, and now we are already pursing another ‘new thing.’ Getting can get in the way of even enjoying the people who are around us.
What makes this even worse is that most people will spend money they don’t even have to obtain those possessions that they want or that they think they need. This is double the trouble. It’s one thing to spend too much of our time pursing the next possession, but it’s quite another thing to not only be doing that be then to be in debt at the same time. Debt enslaves. It takes away a person’s peace. It’s very difficult to enjoy any peace of mind when you know that you owe money, or even that you have creditors after you. The future becomes uncertain because your always wondering when the car will be repossessed, or the house will be foreclosed on.
It’s also true that when we are focused on getting more, that we can lose out on becoming a better person. I mean, think about it. Instead of focusing on how we can improve ourselves, improve our characters, we are focusing on what we are getting next. This also means that you may have to work even harder than you currently are, take a higher paid position at work, or even work a couple jobs to pay for all the possessions that you are pursuing. This all takes more time. It takes more time away, again, from our self-development, and it takes time even away from family and friends. Nah, we are too busy trying to earn more money to get things that we don’t even need.
So, we can gain all these ‘things’ that we want, but then what happens at the end of our lives? We gained the whole world, right, but what did we lose? We lost the goodness of life, giving into other’s lives because we were too selfish. We were too busy pursing things that are now going to stay behind on the earth while our spirit transcends to the third-level of existence. And when the Creator calls our name, when it becomes time for us to get new things for what we contributed on the earth, it is only going to take him a short time. There isn’t going to be much of a list, not much to say. He will whip through our list really fast because all that we strove for we left behind on the earth, and we weren’t able to bring it up here.
Happiness Point #52: Take Responsibility for What You Believe
We were all raised with certain values, whether those be spiritual or lacking in that department. I think a lot of people go through life without ever taking ownership of what they believe. There are certain people that just believe what they believe because that’s what they were taught as a child. If a person was raised in a strict church setting, for instance, those beliefs can become so ingrained that the person just naturally accepts them. Or perhaps, there is great fear of breaking away from them.
Regardless, a person needs to be able to say, “I believe what I believe because I really believe it.” Their beliefs need to be their own, and not just someone else’s beliefs that they are carrying on. If a person has inherited certain beliefs, that person needs to decide whether to keep them, to make them their own, or to let them go, to get rid of them. It is when responsibility isn’t taken that happiness is reduced. Really, there can’t be much happiness because what you believe isn’t what you really believe. I mean, you are saying you believe this or that ‘just because,’ or because you are afraid to give up those beliefs.
God himself cannot even work with a person who isn’t honest with themselves. I mean, everyone who comes to God has to exhibit that certain honesty, right? Certainly. When a person comes to God, they acknowledge how they are wrong and how God is right. That’s why they are ‘coming to God’ because they weren’t with God ‘previously.’ God cannot make a person come into relationship with him, and nor would he want to. That would be artificial, it wouldn’t be real. So, if you yourself don’t want to be artificial, it’s time you start being honest with yourself about what you really believe.
A lot of times with people, they end up saying that they do indeed agree with what they were taught growing up as a child. They know deep within themselves that, “This isn’t just what my family believes, this is now what I personally believe.” And sometimes a person may continue the beliefs, but take a different approach with them. Still thirdly, after evaluation, a person may just decide that they don’t believe what they were taught. Nevertheless, all three of these people have taken responsibility. It is the person who continues to believe ‘just because’ is the one who is really in trouble.
Happiness Point #53: Don’t Look for the Answers Now
It is easy in the middle of a life difficultly to frantically want to find the answer to what is currently going on. For most of us, our minds in twenty first century America have been programmed to think rationally, to try to understand everything, if possible, the best we can. Nonetheless, we need to realize that typically during a difficulty in life we don’t have the answer at that time. Any answer that we try to come up with will most likely be incorrect. That’s because, to use an old saying, we can’t see the forest for the trees. We are blinded by our trial, and we don’t have clear vision on it. Only later, sometimes much later, will we be able to look back and say, “Ah, now I understand.”
It is true as well that as we study things we will come up with questions inside our minds as to why this is this way and that is that way. Questions are inevitable. The temptation then invariably comes to immediately try to solve those questions. We think, “I am smart. I can figure this out.” There are some things in life, though, where it is only through waiting and perhaps even experience that we can truly understand something. Not everything can be comprehended from a textbook. Nor is everything easy to solve. Nor are our minds capable of figuring it all out now.
My experience has been that the answers come later in time. Sometimes a couple months later, but sometimes a couple years later. And still yet, there are questions that remain unanswered. Perhaps not every question will be answered in this life. And that’s okay though. We need to be able to accept that not all questions can in fact be given answers, at least, in the here and now. The important thing is that we stay close to God, and that we do not place blame on God when we don’t have the answer, no matter what the situation or question may be. If we keep God in the forefront of our lives, with nothing as important as him, then truly not having the answers starts not to matter much anymore.
Happiness Point #54: Pick What You Want to Do
Recently I was watching a sermon online from a famous Christian Orthodox minister. He was saying that what we value in our lives is a matter of the heart. A man can work two jobs, but for two different reasons. If one works the two jobs in order to provide for his family, his wife and children, that is all well and good. Nonetheless, if the man works two jobs in order to make more money so that he can buy something he desires, while neglecting his wife and kids, well, obviously that’s bad. The important thing is that we decide what we value. That we don’t put our foot through one door while keeping the other foot outside of it.
As I have said before in the past, God never told us we had to get married. God never told us we have to have children. Both those things are good, but we don’t have to do them. We can be solely a career oriented person if we want to, but we have to make that choice beforehand. We cannot make that choice after we are married and have three kids. At that point, in this latter case, you cannot decide you are going to focus so much on your career that you neglect your family. If you have a family, God wants you to focus on your family. If you are spending too much time away from them, you are going to have to make a change.
Making change isn’t always easy. I knew a man once that realized he need to spend more time with one of his sons. He didn’t want to neglect him. So what did he do? Well, he decided to neglect our leadership meetings instead to spend more time with his son. Was this the correct answer? Obviously not. It wasn’t necessarily wrong that he wanted to spend more time with his son, but he needed to pick one or the other. He tried to have both and what ended up happening is our leadership group suffered as a result. What he should have done was opt out of the leadership group at that point. So, people have to be careful when making change. You may have too much on your plate and need to drop a thing or two.
We cannot do everything. We are going to have to pick what we prioritize and what we choose not do to. This is especially true for those who are married. Whether man or woman, a person can stretch themselves too thin. I think the important thing is that a person focuses on God’s call for their life—that is, their career, the work God has given them to do. And, the other thing is that they should focus on their family. But, besides those two things, everything else will have to be negotiated. A person just can’t be a participant in everything, even when others want or even beg them to. We have to protect our lives by protecting our extra time.
Happiness Point #55: Your Children Will Grow Up Fast
Whether we have children of our own, or whether we’ve known children in our lives, we know that not before too long, they are all grown up. We see a child entering their teenage years and think, “Man, I can remember when he was three. Seems like yesterday.” Yup, yesterday came and went, and now it is today. Kids grow up fast. That means that if you have children, you are going to want to become aware of this fact. You are going to want to stop and realize that your child will only be four, five, and six one time each. They aren’t five years old for five years. Not realizing that fact can cause you to miss out on some of the most important years of your life.
Children rely on their parents to mold and shape them. They rely on them to actually spend quality time with them, and do fun things with them. They need to be taught and disciplined. But if you are never around your kids, or you don’t spend enough time with them, how are they going to have a good childhood? It’s simply going to hurt their childhood if you don’t participate. You were a kid once. If your mom or dad didn’t spend quality time with you, you’d probably admit that was a disadvantage to you, or at least, you missed them. So, in the same line of thinking, you don’t want to be sparing on the time you spend with your kids.
Church plays, Christmas concerts, basketball games, golf tournaments, whatever, each of them only happens once. Your child’s fifth birthday only happens once, as does the seventh and the tenth. Christmases come and go. Life goes by quick. Time doesn’t stop for anyone. Rather, it is up to us to become aware of our time, to learn to live in the moment. And I think that’s becoming harder and harder these days. It can be difficult to stop and enjoy the moment because our minds want to focus on the next thing, the next event, the next worry. All this thinking can get in the way. It can cause us to actually miss out on life.
One thing the Apostle Paul told us in Scripture is to make the most of our opportunities, and make the best use of the times that God gives to us. This just isn’t for church stuff. This is for life stuff. All of life matters, especially the time spent with your children. You’ll be a grandfather or grandmother before you know it. You don’t want to look back and say, “Man, I missed it all.” Or, you don’t want to look at one of your children whom, deep down, you think could have been more successful in life if, perhaps, just perhaps, you had spent more quality time with them instead of focusing on your career so much.
Happiness Point #56: Increasing Wealth Doesn’t Increase Happiness
It can often seem like the more money we could have, the happier we’d be. Right? I mean, that seems to make sense on a surface level. And certainly, it should be said that being of lower income certainly makes life harder. But I don’t believe the opposite is true. I don’t believe that being more wealthy necessarily makes life happier. At least, that’s been my experience. Generally speaking, the more wealthy we become, the more we just end up spending, which, in turn, ironically, means that we really aren’t more wealthy, are we? Nah, with increased wealth often comes increased desire.
I find that if I have a good amount of money that I am generally happy. I don’t have to be incredibly wealthy to be incredibly happy. I am able to buy the things I want, and generally have some money left over, no matter how small, to go into the bank account. I know, if I think inside my head, that if I was to obtain more money that I already have things I would buy. That means that I really wouldn’t be saving more. I would just be increasing my wants. I mean, think about it. If someone said to us, “I’ll give you a million dollars but you cannot buy anything with it or change your living standards in any way,” most of of us would lose enthusiasm pretty quickly. Funny how that is.
We all know that some of the richest people in the world are some of the most unhappy. We also know that some of the most modest people we know seem to be the happiest. I just personally don’t see any correlation between wealth and happiness. Wealth can be good if we know what we are doing with it, if we know how to manage it effectively. But we also know that the more the increase, the more things there becomes to be concerned about. Increased possessions causes increased worldly concern. That’s why we know some famous wealthy people live lives of simplicity.
I think the important thing is that we have our happiness founded in God and not money. Remember, Jesus said we get to choose. He said we can’t choose both of them, but we can choose one of them. A person can value money the most, or a person can value God the most. I think it is experientially true looking at the lives of those I know and looking at my own life that those who value God more are indeed the happiness. With God comes happiness. With wealth, well there is happiness too, but it is a different kind of happiness, a temporary and uncertain happiness.
- Daniel Litton