Happiness...

For one who considers himself “Prone to despair,” I believe I have a unique outlook on life and those who believe they are where they want to be. For my next Book Club Review, I am reading, Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor E. Frankl. I am going to write a thorough review upon his book when I finish within the next few days, but I can’t help but write a little about it right now for my main Blog.

The truth is, I don’t really consider myself prone to despair, but rather I feel as if I am prone to wondering what it is that will cause me to ultimately be happy, and that makes me depressed. In the preface to the book, Frankl writes, “Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: You have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run – in the long run, I say! – success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.”

Wow, what a statement. I wonder how many of us, and I use “us” frankly because I am the main being within the word “us” when I use it and am not intentionally forcing my projections solely upon everyone else, so, yes, I wonder how many of us actually do what our conscience commands us to do in any given difficult moment as opposed to doing what it is that will be the most immediate thing to relieve our surface discomfort.

But where I say does one draw the line between doing what their conscience commands, and being able to live a relatively happy life by doing what will bring them a consistent happiness from moment to moment. I have done a lot of things that I feel my conscience has commanded me to do, and many of those things in and of themselves have broken my heart because of the outcomes, nevertheless, in those moments of doing those things I felt as if I had to do them because they were the right things to do.

There is a deeper sense of “conscience” decisions, (not conscious decisions) then the moment to moment choices we face every day, and those are the decisions that will lead us through the gates of eternity. For instance, my conscience has been commanding me to do something I greatly need to do. And that is to change my life patterns. I have goals and things I want to accomplish, but a great deterrent in accomplishing those things I’ve found for myself is that even though those things will be good for me, I’ve realized that they will not bring my happiness. For example, I want to get my book published, but that truthfully will not make me happy, so I get caught in this rut of thinking “why do it if it won’t make me happy?” I want to explain this thing called happiness the way that I see it, then evaluate my happiness. I’ve noticed in my life and many other’s lives whom I associate with that they say that they are happy, but the very things that “are causing them to be happy” are things that they look at with their beautiful eyes tilted down and to the left. I say with all of the conviction in my soul that the habits of one’s eyes clearly mirror their unspoken, true feelings. They are the windows of the soul so they naturally give, albeit subtle clues to one’s desires. This strange thing is where I live, because though I am still within the midst of great confusion and uncertainty at this point in my life, I am an advocate of truth. And one’s eyes tilting down and to the left signify preoccupation with possibly what their conscience is commanding them to do, for their own true benefit and ultimate happiness.

Now, I say why will not getting my book published cause me to be happy. Well, truthfully I suppose it would to some degree, but when one has experienced as much true happiness as I have at times in my life, getting my book published is easily one of those things of which my eyes tilt down and to the left whilst a smile crosses my face. Why would I be preoccupied? Because maybe getting my book published is not ultimately what I am searching for and should only be in and of itself a stepping block to true success.

I will step up the scenario here. One day I wish to be married in the Temple. This however is an issue of great concern for me, because I cannot enter into a vow with a daughter of God unless I know my eyes will always and forever look straight forward into hers and never tilt to one side or the other. The truth is that the act alone of being married will not bring me happiness either. So, what on earth is it that will cause a person to be happy? As far as I have read, Francl has said, “For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself.”

I say that marriage might force one to dedicate their life to another, which supposedly will, in Francl’s words eventually cause happiness. But, as true and profound as I believe that statement is I easily saw that there is more to this than the original intent or meaning of what he said. Do not misinterpret my words, what he said is true, but I say that far too often people “pursue” and I’ll use the example of marriage as a means to gain their happiness, when in reality the act alone of getting married does not bring happiness. Then after the act of it, if one pursued marriage as a means of happiness, instead of finding eventual peace and happiness in their decision to be married as a natural next step in the process of life, one is forced by the binding powers of marriage to dedicate their lives to the person they chose to marry even though they only did so originally to be happy. What is wrong though with what I just said? It is the word “force.” When one is forced to dedicate one’s life, the very essence of the meaning of dedication is skewed and ultimately unfulfilling.

Please know that I am not degrading or downplaying the importance of marriage. I believe that we all should be married. But I am only emphasizing the importance of pursing it for the right reasons. One should not get married to become happy, and I believe that that is the reason for far too many marriages. We should not stop getting married but rather we should start understanding that marriage in and of itself will not make you happy.

I say the reason we are married in the first place, is to ultimately attain Godhood. Why is it that we need to be married to attain Godhood? Well, the answer is simple, because God cannot be God without His wife. Why is that though? Because, what would God have to dedicate Himself to unless he were not bound freely to another? Ah, but it is God’s purpose to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man, so that is what he can dedicate himself to. But I say that without his wife there would be no man.

It is true that we must be married, and even those who find that marriage is not the very epitome of becoming happy, they can find their happiness within their children, because there is no coercion in loving a baby child, because there is nothing but beauty in their eyes. And that type of love stirs a desire for dedication that cannot be described with words and there is no looking down and to the left when looking into the eyes of your very own baby child. But alas it is this type of desire that should be felt in the very first reasoning’s of becoming married, and I just think that that doesn’t happen enough, which really just breaks my heart.