You Philip are one of those, and your gift of expression in words makes every day a happy day for me. I often feel helpless in what I can do for the Kingdom of God here on earth but try to help others as I can and stay ready to rise up each morning with Matthew’s words 28-,18 – 20 at work in my heart and on my mind. Thanks Philip for your Purpose. Steve

You’re right, forgiveness is hard! Look at how much Joseph went through before he was able to forgive his brothers. I would recommend books by Lewis Smedes on forgiveness, such as Forgive and Forget.

I agree with your points that true happiness must be rooted in reality, is fleeting, and that it often involves struggle and pain. As you were the one who connected me with Theodore Dalrymple, I’ll mention that his chapter “Goodbye, Cruel World” in ‘Life at the Bottom’ mentions one source of unhappiness: the boredom of self-absorption. This is one of the problems in societies that easily put people on welfare. When you have few interests outside of yourself & when you have no meaningful job, happiness is not expected. “The boredom of self-absorption is thus one of the promoters of attempted suicide, and being attached to a cardiac monitor for a time or having an intravenous infusion in one’s arm helps to relieve it. I’m treated, therefore I am.”

I also thought of a bit from Dalrymple’s “The Frivolity of Evil” in ‘Our Culture, What’s Left of It’. “There is something to be said here about the word ‘depression,’ which has almost entirely eliminated the word and even the concept of unhappiness from modern life. Of the thousands of patients I have seen, only two or three have ever claimed to be unhappy: all the rest have said they were depressed. This semantic shift is deeply significant, for it implies that dissatisfaction with life is itself pathological, a medical condition, which it is the responsibility of the doctor to alleviate by medical means. Everyone has a right to health; depression is unhealthy; therefore everyone has a right to be happy (the opposite of being depressed). This idea in turn implies that one’s state of mind, or one’s mood, is or should be independent of the way that one lives one’s life, a belief that must deprive human existence of all meaning, radically disconnecting reward from conduct.”

Here in small-town Virginia, I have seen so many people in my medical practice who don’t work, who are on welfare, lots of medications (and usually cigarettes) and who don’t strike me as being very happy. I think this is where Dalrymple and Frankl agree, that meaning is important to a human and to take this away – which is too often self-induced by those looking to stop working in order to get on the government dole – is to take away one’s contentment & happiness. Work can be tiring, even depressing at times. But it is also a key ingredient to happiness. (By work, I mean not just vocation but avocation, as people who are retired also need something meaningful to do. This is where women usually outshine men, especially housewives, who never really retire but continue to work domestically for most of their lives.)

So I think you made a nice conclusion in writing, “The pursuit of happiness may have been one of the motivations for founding our country. But the pursuit of meaning may guarantee its future.”

Beautifully expressed. I’m reading Bonhoeffer’s letters from prison right now, and he did perish in the snow, and in the process his life makes the very point you mention. And you’re absolutely right about Christianity/eastern religions similar thinking on happiness. Our Bible includes Ecclesiastes, after all–is there a better description of happiness pursued in vain?

Perhaps- Those aren’t reasons for decline in happiness, but outward symptoms of inner unhappiness already going on.

Thank you for your wonderful writings and openheartedness.