Five Truths About Happiness

Truth # 1: The Desire for Happiness is Universal

“We all want to be happy. In the whole human race there is no one who does not assent to this proposition.”

St. Augustine of Hippo (quoted in “The Catechism of the Catholic Church” paragraph 27)

The desire for happiness is undeniable. Before we could reason clearly, before we could articulate that desire, we were seeking happiness. Happiness could be considered the primary goal of our lives. Every human being desires happiness. Why, then, are so many of us unhappy?

Everything we want, everything we do, is in pursuit of happiness. As a child, we want that latest toy, certain it will make us happy. As we age, it’s a new car, a job, honors, the love of another person, a challenging task, a pleasurable experience. In our quest for happiness, we reach for good things (sometimes in excess) and grasp at things demonstrably not good for us. These things can bring pleasure, usually fleeting.

Truth #2: God Wants You to be Happy

“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in you.”

St. Augustine, Confessions (chapter 1)

God is a loving creator; you are his beloved (and unique) creation. God wants us to be happy. One hunger within us is bodily, and it is good. Importantly, God gives a spiritual hunger too. It’s been said that, “I am a body and I have a soul.” Alternately, “I am a SOUL that has a body.” The revealed reality is we were created body and soul, with material and spiritual desires. Blaise Pascal describes the latter as a “God-shaped hole” which we “try in vain to fill with everything around us, seeking in things that are not there the help we cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.”

Truth #3: Virtue is the Road to Happiness

“Do not conform yourself to this age, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good, and pleasing, and perfect.”

Romans 12:2

If God really loves us and wants us to be happy, why is there pain and suffering? God’s word is a guide to happiness. Within scripture he provides two specific lists on how we should live. The Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17) are instructions on what we should and should not do. When God says, “Don’t do this” he is not being a killjoy. God is saying, “I love you. Don’t hurt yourself.” Pain and suffering are often a consequence of wrong choices, ours and those around us. Pain is an indication that something is not right, a signal to stop doing what we’re doing. As C.S. Lewis wrote, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, but shouts in our pain. It is a megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

In the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12), Jesus tells us how to live a happy life. Beatitudo (Latin) means “supreme happiness,” as in the beatific vision. Some items on the list Jesus provides seem counterintuitive. Among them are humility, mercy, peacemaking, purity; a hunger and thirst for righteousness vs. a worldly desire for power, pleasure, honor, and material goods. The beatitudes are a list of heavenly virtues, a recipe for supreme happiness. The saints are models of the virtuous life. Show me a saint who was sad. All the saints were happy because they conformed themselves not to this passing age, but to God’s will for their lives. If you want to be happy, be holy!

Truth #4: Living a Virtuous Life is Hard

“We often live as if our happiness depended on having. But I don’t know anyone who is really happy because of what he or she has. True joy, happiness, and peace comes from the giving of ourselves to others.”                    

Henri Nouwen, “Life of the Beloved”

Living a virtuous life is hard. It is a habit to be developed, a daily choice. What makes it harder is that our culture often denies virtue and promotes vice, “calling good evil and evil good” (Isaiah 5:20). Look at the list below and consider this: The definition of love is “to desire the good of another.” A mentor gives this definition of sin: “God, I know what you want. But I want what I want.” Feelings are important, but in our universal quest for happiness we tend to confuse other-centered love with self-focused (and sometimes sinful) feelings.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) defines virtues as, “habitual and firm dispositions to do the good. The virtuous person, with God’s help, tends toward the good, pursues the good, and chooses the good.” (paragraphs 1803, 1810, emphasis added). Do you want to be happy? Pursue virtue. Choose the good.

Truth #5: The Sacraments Strengthen You to Live a Virtuous Life

“Be who God meant you to be and you’ll set the world on fire.”

St. Catherine of Siena

“The virtuous person, with God’s help, pursues the good.” God knows living a virtuous life is hard. That is one reason he gives us the Sacraments to strengthen us, the grace and power of the Holy Spirit to periodically top off the “God-shaped hole” within us. Happiness comes through God’s help, and by habitually tending toward, pursuing, and choosing the good.

“The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for.”

Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph 27

Finally, four keys to being open to God’s help:

• SILENCE: Taking time each day to pray silently with God.
• SCRIPTURE: Daily reading and reflection upon God’s word.
• SACRAMENTS: Regularly receiving Jesus in the Eucharist and Confession.
• SERVICE: Humbly working toward the good (and happiness) of others.