Happiness

Happiness can be a lot of things to a lot of people. In one instance Happiness was the name of a store I walked by in a mall on one occasion. 

The name of that store has made me think of an implied message of many stores. It seems to me that the “hidden message” of so many stores is, “If you will come in and buy some of what we sell, you will be happy.”

I’ve never had the nerve to walk into any store (even one named Happiness) and ask them to wrap up a year’s worth of happiness for me. I wonder what they would do. 

I imagine that somewhere in the conversation they would try to make the point that they do not, in fact, sell happiness. I’m sure that, at the same time, they would try in some way to convince me that they can sell me things that will make me happy.

The sad truth is that this way of thinking is also a lie. Things do not and cannot make us happy. We are all aware of people (maybe even the ones we see in our mirrors) who keep accumulating things, but are not at all happy. 

It is interesting that, in some translations of the Bible, the people spoken of in what we sometimes call The Beatitudes (Matt. 5:3-10) are referred to as blessed. In other translations, they are described as happy. 

It makes sense that people should be happy if they are blessed by God, so I am not going to quibble about which word is the more accurate. What I think is more beneficial is to read through The Beatitudes and see who these people are. 

Does God bless the getters or the givers? Does He bless the served or the servers? Are the belligerent, proud, and forceful the ones who are blessed or does God bless those who are peacemakers, humble, and gentle?

It seems to me that, when we find the answers to those questions, we will find where we can really find happiness.

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Photo background credit: Mahmud Rassel on Creative Commons