“It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy that makes happiness.” – Charles Spurgeon, English preacher
This time of year is often a time of reflection. Oh, there are the turkeys and pies, family get-togethers and football. But as the year draws to a close, we all have a chance to reflect on how we’ve lived our lives. And what we might want to change.
Happiness is an important part of that reflection. The problem with happiness, though, is that it can be defined in so many ways and can mean something different to so many people.
If I were to ask my five-year-old what happiness is, I’m pretty sure he’d tell me it was ice cream and going to the park. If I asked my husband, he might say it’s a nap on his day off. I’d probably save a cleaning service.
All these answers really would make us happy. But notice they are experiences, things that happen and then end. Happiness is often talked about like it’s a constant state of being to strive for.
But can anyone sustain happiness indefinitely? Would we want to?
Why happiness can’t be a constant state of being
If I gave my son ice cream after every meal and we visited the park every day, he would be ecstatic. For about a week. And then it would become old hat.
Human beings can get used to anything. We usually say this when it’s something bad, but it can also refer to good things. Like happiness.
We can grow numb to something that makes us happy, take it for granted, and steal its very power to make us happy. When we overindulge our wants to try to make us happy as often as possible, we land up only making ourselves feel worse.
How can we be happy?
It really isn’t how much we have—things, money, friends, power. It’s how we enjoy them. It’s the pleasure we take from what we do have, not what we could have.
Overindulgence is a big topic this week as we set out our massive feasts, ask for one more piece of pie, and scour shelves and sites for Black Friday deals. But as easy as it is to think that the flashes of happiness that these delicious foods and great buys give us will last, they will fade.
Do we keep chasing that high, again and again? Until our waistlines have expanded and our houses are overstuffed? Or do we step back from the excess that society sells us as happiness, and instead enjoy what we have?
Our health. Faith. Families. Friends. Our homes. Accomplishments. Our pasts and our futures.
Finding happiness in the everyday is where we will be most content. And that is something we can sustain, day after day, year after year.
So don’t chase the ethereal highs of happiness as the world sees it. Instead strive for contentment in all that you already have. And you’ll find yourself happier than you’ve ever been.
Have a blessed Thanksgiving!
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