Skip to main content

Do What Makes You Happy

The other day I was in a store.  As I walked past the lingerie, one in particular.  It made me stop and think.   It was not provocative or skimpy something that would turn heads.  It was what was printed on the nightie that bothered me.  It said, “Do what makes you happy.”  


I know most of you who are  reading this will think, “What’s so wrong with that?” Well, first, “happiness” is relative.  Happiness, not a one size fits all thing.  For example, I love running, it makes me happy.  You, on the other hand, might hate exercise of any kind so it would not make you happy.   “That’s not necessarily a problem,”  You might say.  And you are right, it might not be a problem.  But consider this; I live in town, and my son is quite noisy in the morning.   However, he is happiest when he is loudly talking to himself outside.  If he did what made him happy, my neighbors would all be awake at 7:00 a.m. with him.  Call me crazy, but I am willing to bet that my neighbors do not want him to do what makes him happy.  There are many other instances where doing what makes me happy would be the worst thing in the world.  If someone cuts me off in traffic and what would make me happy is to ram the back of their car then maybe I should reconsider doing what makes me happy.  I don’t need to go on; you get the point. 

Am I saying that we should not be happy? By no means!  We should have and live life to the fullest.  I am suggesting that happiness is a choice.  I can choose to be happy or not happy in any circumstance life throws at me.   I can elect to consider those around me when deciding what will make me happy.  The absolute best example of wanting others happiness and not his own is the example of Christ; when he was hanging between heaven and hell.  We would say that there is no way he could be happy suffering in that manner.    The writer of Hebrews said, “For the joy set before him he endured the cross …”  It seems that what brought Jesus happiness was suffering so that we could be brought near to him. 
 

Perhaps the same is true for us also.  When we consider the happiness of others as of greater value than our happiness, then our definition of happiness changes also.  We find happiness and even, dare I say it, joy in considering the needs of others as more important than our needs.  So even though my son would be happy to go outside and talk very loudly at 7 in the morning.  I do not let him because I know my neighbors would rather sleep a little longer, that and I don’t want any rocks thrown at my house.  Jus’ sayin’

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Doctors and Taxes

Tonight, I’m doing something I absolutely hate.  My husband and I are working on a budget.  I imagine that most of you feel the same way. It’ kind of like taxes and doctors, we dislike them and breathe a sigh of relief when they are done. Truth be told; we really don’t enjoy working on a budget at all.  Yet it is one of the necessary components in knowing exactly how much you have and what you can spend. If indeed we are responsible to God for how we handle the resources that God has given us, then we need a clear picture. One piece of the puzzle that can bring the whole puzzle into focus is a budget.  It allows you to see and compare what you spend with what you have.  Sometimes as I’ve done a budget and looked at what I saw, I could see that the problem was little things that add up.  I realized that the problem was that I forgot the advice I had been given long ago, little things add up.  As we do a budget, we often see little things th...
Post a Comment
Read more

Perfect for Me

Tomorrow my sweetie and I will be celebrating twenty- nine years of marriage.  What an amazing journey!  I have to confess that when we were first married I had some preconceived ideas of what love and marriage would be like.   I thought love was having my spouse with me all the time, holding hands doing everything together, never having a disagreement.   I thought my darling sweetheart would never let me down or hurt me and everything would be perfect for the rest of our life.   Wow!  Can you believe how incredibly naïve I was?  After twenty-nine years what I realized is that no one could live up to the ideals that I had set because we live in an imperfect world and we are imperfect people.  I know, you’re thinking, “It took you twenty-nine years to realize this?” Nah I realized it after the first year.   I still smile how over the years God has changed my definition of love.  Don’t get me wrong there is n...
Post a Comment
Read more

Speak Christ In Your Actions

Every day the situations we are put in define what we really believe.  Sometimes how I respond to the irritations that life throws at me, sometimes daily, is critical.   I work in food service.  I love it.  It puts me in a position to see a variety of different in a day. One thing I especially love is watching their reactions and responses to little things. I have seen people upset because there was .01 more than they asked for. I have seen little children holding out their hands for popcorn chicken as their parent walks by.  I have been yelled at and made to feel less than human because an order was missed.  I have also watched a nicely dressed lady show a ton of class when soda shot all over her.  She just laughed and declared, “Guess I need a shower now.”  She could have been angry and upset but instead she chose to laugh and “let it go, let it go” as the song says. Most of the time it serves a great reminder for me to watch my attitude...
Post a Comment
Read more