Many aren’t sure what happiness is

I want to suggest to you, first of all, that one of the reasons that many people are free to pursue happiness but don’t find it is that they’re not sure what the “happiness” is they are pursuing. Because they’re not sure what it is, it will be very difficult for them to know what it is they’re chasing after.

For many people, happiness is dependent on their happenings, and if their happenings are happening to happen the way they happen to want their happenings to happen, they are happy! But if their happenings don’t happen to happen the way they happen to want their happenings to happen, they are unhappy. Do you get my drift? I’ll give it to you again. Many people feel that their happiness is directly related to their happenings, and if their happenings happen to happen the way they happen to want their happenings to happen, they are happy. But if their happenings don’t happen to happen the way they happen to want their happenings to happen they are unhappy! Is that true? I believe it is true.

Advertisement

There are some people who have an Oklahoma kind of happiness. “Oklahoma” is a musical. One song from the musical says, “Oh, what a wonderful morning, Oh, what a beautiful day. I’ve got a wonderful feeling everything’s going my way.” Happiness!

Now this kind of approach to happiness means that people spend an inordinate amount of time, money and energy trying to manipulate their happenings, so they happen to happen the way they want their happenings to happen. But the sad reality is this: There comes a time when you realize that all your skills, and all your time, and all your energy, and all your money cannot manipulate your happenings so they happen to happen they way you happen to want your happenings to happen -- and unhappiness is an inevitability!

So why is it within a nation where we are granted by our Creator the inalienable rights to pursue happiness, that there are so many unhappy people? I submit to you, it is because, first of all, they don’t really understand what happiness is.

Now there is a second reason.

Many look for happiness in the wrong places

I believe one of the reasons that there are so many unhappy people is that while they have the freedom to pursue happiness, they also have the freedom to pursue it where it isn’t, and if you pursue it where it isn’t, you won’t find it!

Let me give you an illustration. I first arrived in America, it must be forty years ago now -- I don’t remember the exact date but I do remember it was New Year’s Day. I remember very well being parked in the Read House Hotel in the center of Chattanooga, Tennessee. I remember going to my room, and thinking it was a sauna, because it was heated to 70 degrees. I’d never been in a room heated to seventy degrees in my life before. I tried desperately to open the windows, I couldn’t do it, and I sat there sweltering. Seventy degrees! It doesn’t read seventy degrees in a heat wave in England! However, I decided to console myself in this uncomfortable situation, by switching on the television. I switched on the television and I saw the most amazing picture, the like of which I had never seen before.