Happiness

By Rachel Chase

Laman and Lemuel are notorious for “murmuring”. Especially in comparison to their obedient younger brother, Nephi, they seem to complain a lot. Therefore it didn’t surprise me when I came upon 1 Nephi 17:21 and found that they were complaining…again. They said: “Behold, these many years we have suffered in the wilderness, which time we might have enjoyed our possessions and the land of our inheritance; yea, and we might have been happy.”

It is the implications of what Laman and Lemuel were saying, especially the last phrase, that particularly caught my attention. They believed that if their lives had been easier they would have been happier. This poses a vital question: Does easiness create happiness? To explore this, we must first define what happiness is.

According to the Webster’s dictionary, happiness is defined as fortunate, content, or joyous. There is another word found in the Webster’s dictionary. It is often used as a synonym to happiness, but is, in fact, an antonym. This word is pleasure. Pleasure is defined as desire or inclination, enjoyment, and a source of delight.

President Faust spoke on this subject and his words were published in the October 2000 Ensign. He said: Pleasure is often confused with happiness but is by no means synonymous with it. Pleasure, unlike happiness, is that which pleases us or gives us gratification. Usually it endures for only a short time. As Elder David O. McKay, then of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, once said, “You may get that transitory pleasure, yes, but you cannot find joy, you cannot find happiness. Happiness is found only along that well beaten track, narrow as it is, though straight, which leads to life eternal” (in Conference Report, Oct. 1919, 180).

As human beings, we certainly enjoy easy tasks. This explains why we like easy classes that don’t give very many homework assignments, easy jobs that pay a lot but don’t require much effort, and easy lives where we have many hours of leisure. But enjoyment can be said, according to the definition of pleasure, to be an emotion associated with pleasurable things. And pleasure does not bring happiness.
Therefore, easiness isn’t the best way; it certainly isn’t the happiest way to plod along life’s course. Even though we enjoy easy tasks, they do not bring lasting happiness and joy. No, real happiness only comes from honest effort.

I am a harpist, and just as any instrumentalist does, I practice my music daily. Is this task easy? No. Sometimes I have to wake up very early to squeeze it in and I endure the practicing, even when I don’t always feel like doing it. The reason why I keep practicing regardless of the difficulty of it is because I know that in the end my efforts will be worth my while.

Life is exactly like practicing a harp. Anything worthwhile takes our full efforts and is difficult. But that only makes the results that much sweeter, because we know how hard we worked for them. It is difficult to appreciate things when they are just handed over to you, or when they are easy to obtain. God knows this. And he, being all wise, creates hills in our earthly paths so that we can build muscle and become strong.

Elder Boyd K. Packer explained: “It was meant to be that life would be a challenge. To suffer some anxiety, some depression, some disappointment, even some failure is normal. Teach our members that if they have a good, miserable day once in a while, or several in a row, to stand steady and face them. Things will straighten out. There is great purpose in our struggle in life” (“That All May Be Edified” [1982], 94). The last sentence of this quote is one that illustrates this point beautifully. It should give each and every one of us hope to know that the hardships in this life will be worth it, because there is a purpose in struggling.

It takes effort to create a relationship with our Heavenly Father; it takes effort to pray and read the Holy Scriptures; it takes effort to go to church; it takes effort to repent of wrong-doing and change your life. In short, it takes effort to be a true disciple of Christ. I don’t know about you, but this truth does not make me sad, in fact it gladdens me. If it were easy, it would not be worth it.

Laman and Lemuel did not understand this concept because they did not have a relationship with God. They saw his commandments as confining rules that stopped them from enjoying life rather than principles that were a part of God’s great plan of happiness for them. But C. S. Lewis made a great point when he said, “People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, ‘if you keep a lot of rules, I’ll reward you, and if you don’t, I’ll do the other thing.’ I do not think this is the best way to look at it. I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you…into something a little different than it was before…all your life long you are slowly turning toward or away from God.”

The difficult thing about change, about turning toward God, is that it is hard. It is painful. It requires work on our part. But the reason why I, and all other followers of Christ, choose to do it anyway is because I have felt the happiness, the peace that comes from growing close to God.

So many of our brothers and sisters miss out on this sweet happiness that we as latter day saints find in the gospel, because they do not include God in their lives. It is a sad, reoccurring incident. C. S. Lewis also declared, “All of human history…is the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.”

And let’s face it, the solitary way to gain the only true, lasting happiness is through our Heavenly Father and the atoning blood of Jesus Christ. Even if I did not believe that obeying his commandments in this life would help me gain eternal life in the next, I am convinced that I would still live by them. The commandments are not only a roadmap to return back to God, but also a recipe for happiness in our mortal sojourn. The building up of families, the joyous keeping of covenants, the gift of serving others…these are the things that bring true joy.

The enticing lures of worldly pleasures may seem exciting but they do not bring the deep, satisfying happiness that the gospel does. Alma revealed this to his son when he counseled in Alma 41:10: “…Behold I say unto you, wickedness never was happiness.” In fact, wickedness is emptiness. It fills the shallow pools of the hunger for pleasure but fails to fill our souls with lasting joy. The unfortunate element of this is that wickedness is easy. It is not difficult to give ourselves over to Satan, to satisfy the desires of the natural man. That’s what makes life’s decisions so challenging. Without making the effort to grow closer to God, you are making a choice to slide into the slump of sin without even consciously choosing such a thing.

But we our not alone in our endeavors for righteousness. God and Christ want us to be happy just as much as we want it for ourselves. Christ knows our pains and struggles better than anyone else because he paid for us with his blood. When Christ spoke in John 16: 33, he was speaking of this very thing: “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”

So when things are not easy along the path of life, do not despair. The effort it takes to hike up the hills is what makes the journey worth it. For when we finally reach the top, we can enjoy a beautiful view, one that was worth every painful step.
I know that God lives and that he loves all of his children, all of us, more than we can ever imagine. I know this because he gave up his only begotten son for us, in the hope that we would be able to live with him again. But much of that depends on us. Christ has already paid the price and he stands ahead of us, pleading for us to come unto him. It is up to us to take those steps. And if we do, the blessings of heaven, including those of eternal happiness, will accompany us.
In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Sources:
*lds.org
*Book of Mormon
*Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis
*October 2000 General Conference talk by James E. Faust
*The King James version of the bible