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Reflections
Faith and Life
Question:
Why Didn't God Make Us All Happy?
Answer:
God did not make us either happy or unhappy. There is a greater joy for God in providing the opportunity for people to make themselves happy through their attitude towards the complex of life they are involved in.
Choice and Potential
If God had made us happy, we would have no choice but to be happy, and thus no possibility to be unhappy. We would not know what it meant to be happy, since we would never be unhappy, to compare it to.
We would no know no contrasts, have no motivation, find no fulfillment and be automatons with no real identity. I had rather be free to be happy, and know what it meant to be happy, than to have no option.
If we have the possibility of being unhappy, this means we have the possibility of being happy. If I did not know unhappiness, what fun would there be in being happy? If we could never knew unhappiness, then happiness would have no meaning.
Attitude
Additionally, being happy does not depend on one's situation or external circumstances, but on one's attitude towards the situation or circumstances.
Thus many people choose to be unhappy, by refusing to be responsible for themselves to become happy. They want others to make them happy or their situation to produce happiness. Happiness is an attitude and we can often decide to be happy, even when unhappy, or in unfortunate circumstances.
Purpose
On another tack, there is no reason to believe that the purpose of our being alive is to be happy. The overall good of the whole of humanity and creation is much more important than my particular state of mind, and my purpose is to contribute to that greater good and ultimately this will promote happiness for all -- including myself.
A Joint Effort
Likewise, it is in everyone's interest for each of us to give some attention to the happiness, or general state of mind, of those around us. We are all in this together!
OBJ
Notes first written in an Internet discussion group in 2001
Last edited and Posted 18 December 2004
Orville Boyd Jenkins, Ed.D., Ph.D.
Copyright © Orville Boyd
Jenkins 2004
Permission granted for free
download and transmission for personal or educational use. Other rights
reserved.
| Email: orville@jenkins.nu |
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