thankfulness and happiness
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/jeff/jacoby112300.asp
Rush Limbaugh was discussing an interesting subject this afternoon. The topic was 'happiness.' Specifically, El Rushbo was discussing such questions as "What makes a person happy?" and "Are there many happy people in the world?" and "Can money buy happiness?" I was somewhat surprised to hear Limbaugh's take on such matters. For a guy who usually locks right on to the truth and who is normally pretty insightful, The Great MahaRushie sounded fairly discombobulated as he sought to explain the truth as he saw it. First he said that the phrase "money can't buy happiness" is a myth perpetrated by the wealthy so that we commoners don't feel bad about not being rich. Then he said that true happiness comes from within your own heart and soul--you just have to go in and get it. Then he said that money really will mess you up if you let it. The poor guy was all over the map and never did get to the real truth. That's OK; even the great ones strike out once in a while.
The link above will take you to a Thanksgiving column written by Jeff Jacoby for the Boston Globe back in November of 2000. This column should be required reading in every schoolhouse and in every church in America. Parents should teach the lessons contained in this column to their kids, and not just at Thanksgiving. The complete, very simple truth contained in this column is summed up in the following words:
Gratitude is nothing less than the key to happiness.
For this penetrating insight into gratefulness, I am grateful to Dennis Prager, author of the shrewd and perceptive ''Happiness is a Serious Problem.''
''There is a `secret to happiness,''' Prager writes, ''and it is gratitude. All happy people are grateful, and ungrateful people cannot be happy. We tend to think that it is being unhappy that leads people to complain, but it is truer to say that it is complaining that leads to people becoming unhappy. Become grateful and you will become a much happier person.''
This is a keen observation, and it helps explain why the Judeo-Christian tradition places such emphasis on thanking God. The liturgy is filled with expressions of gratitude. ''It is good to give thanks to the Lord,'' begins the 92nd Psalm. Why? Because God needs our gratitude? No: because we need it.
Learning to be thankful, whether to God or to other people, is the best vaccination against taking good fortune for granted. And the less you take for granted, the more pleasure and joy life will bring you.
This is profound wisdom right here, boys and girls! Making more money won't make you happy. Accumulating more "toys" won't make you happy. Meeting the right woman/man won't, all by itself, make you happy. Partying with the "cool kids" or wearing the "right" clothes or driving the "right" car or losing weight or gaining weight or landing the perfect job---none of those things will, in and of themselves, bring you happiness. What will bring you happiness? Being grateful for what you have will bring you happiness. Giving thanks for the blessings God has bestowed on you will bring you happiness. Spending your time looking outside yourself and counting your blessings rather than getting all wrapped up in self absorbed "stinkin' thinkin' " will bring you happiness. Reflecting God's love so that you are a "light of the world" to all who so desperately need that light will bring you happiness.
Pretty simple, right? Why don't we all just get on with it and be thankful? Well, because it's so unbelievably hard for us as sinful humans to be grateful for anything. Sin gets in the way of gratitude by creating self-pity and envy and greed and pride and feelings of entitlement. You can't possibly be thankful if you have all of that other crud bubbling around inside you.
I guess what we need to do is to spend time each day reading God's Word and praying to God that He would make us wiser and more grateful for the blessings He has given us.
It is good to praise the LORD and make music to your name, O Most High,
to proclaim your love in the morning and your faithfulness at night,
to the music of the ten-stringed lyre and the melody of the harp.
For you make me glad by your deeds, O LORD; I sing for joy at the works of your hands.
How great are your works, O LORD, how profound your thoughts! --Psalm 92:1-5
Rush Limbaugh was discussing an interesting subject this afternoon. The topic was 'happiness.' Specifically, El Rushbo was discussing such questions as "What makes a person happy?" and "Are there many happy people in the world?" and "Can money buy happiness?" I was somewhat surprised to hear Limbaugh's take on such matters. For a guy who usually locks right on to the truth and who is normally pretty insightful, The Great MahaRushie sounded fairly discombobulated as he sought to explain the truth as he saw it. First he said that the phrase "money can't buy happiness" is a myth perpetrated by the wealthy so that we commoners don't feel bad about not being rich. Then he said that true happiness comes from within your own heart and soul--you just have to go in and get it. Then he said that money really will mess you up if you let it. The poor guy was all over the map and never did get to the real truth. That's OK; even the great ones strike out once in a while.
The link above will take you to a Thanksgiving column written by Jeff Jacoby for the Boston Globe back in November of 2000. This column should be required reading in every schoolhouse and in every church in America. Parents should teach the lessons contained in this column to their kids, and not just at Thanksgiving. The complete, very simple truth contained in this column is summed up in the following words:
Gratitude is nothing less than the key to happiness.
For this penetrating insight into gratefulness, I am grateful to Dennis Prager, author of the shrewd and perceptive ''Happiness is a Serious Problem.''
''There is a `secret to happiness,''' Prager writes, ''and it is gratitude. All happy people are grateful, and ungrateful people cannot be happy. We tend to think that it is being unhappy that leads people to complain, but it is truer to say that it is complaining that leads to people becoming unhappy. Become grateful and you will become a much happier person.''
This is a keen observation, and it helps explain why the Judeo-Christian tradition places such emphasis on thanking God. The liturgy is filled with expressions of gratitude. ''It is good to give thanks to the Lord,'' begins the 92nd Psalm. Why? Because God needs our gratitude? No: because we need it.
Learning to be thankful, whether to God or to other people, is the best vaccination against taking good fortune for granted. And the less you take for granted, the more pleasure and joy life will bring you.
This is profound wisdom right here, boys and girls! Making more money won't make you happy. Accumulating more "toys" won't make you happy. Meeting the right woman/man won't, all by itself, make you happy. Partying with the "cool kids" or wearing the "right" clothes or driving the "right" car or losing weight or gaining weight or landing the perfect job---none of those things will, in and of themselves, bring you happiness. What will bring you happiness? Being grateful for what you have will bring you happiness. Giving thanks for the blessings God has bestowed on you will bring you happiness. Spending your time looking outside yourself and counting your blessings rather than getting all wrapped up in self absorbed "stinkin' thinkin' " will bring you happiness. Reflecting God's love so that you are a "light of the world" to all who so desperately need that light will bring you happiness.
Pretty simple, right? Why don't we all just get on with it and be thankful? Well, because it's so unbelievably hard for us as sinful humans to be grateful for anything. Sin gets in the way of gratitude by creating self-pity and envy and greed and pride and feelings of entitlement. You can't possibly be thankful if you have all of that other crud bubbling around inside you.
I guess what we need to do is to spend time each day reading God's Word and praying to God that He would make us wiser and more grateful for the blessings He has given us.
It is good to praise the LORD and make music to your name, O Most High,
to proclaim your love in the morning and your faithfulness at night,
to the music of the ten-stringed lyre and the melody of the harp.
For you make me glad by your deeds, O LORD; I sing for joy at the works of your hands.
How great are your works, O LORD, how profound your thoughts! --Psalm 92:1-5
posted by hondo at 7:51 PM
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