I just watched Evan Almighty this weekend. While it doesn’t have the best production quality and attempts to do a lot more than they should have, it has a very good storyline. One line by God (aka Morgan Freeman) really stuck out to me:
Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage, or does he give him opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other?
Similarly, I’ve lately been thinking about happiness. I’ve always assumed that happyness was a continuum stretching from displeased to elated. After a long conversation with Jamieson, then having a while to let it simmer in my head, I’ve decided that happiness is more of a state of being. We are either happy or we are not. Saying that we are elated or wonderful or [insert your favorite synonym] just puts our happiness into context. None of these states are any “more happy” or better than another.
What does this mean for my struggle to find a better state of being? Well, I can never again give up on [Thing A] with the false delusion that “[Thing B] is going to make me ‘more happy’.” Of course, that assumes [Thing A] is not entirely depressive and slowly killing me. In which case, I would just be like “[Thing A] is killing me and it cannot be a part of my life anymore.”
