Happiness

“In my view, the category of happiness is hardly ever discussed in the Church, and for me it is a puzzle. We have nine Beatitudes: blessed are the merciful, blessed are the pure in heart, blessed are the peacemakers... If we translate the word “blessed”, it means “happy”. Happy are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, happy are the meek, happy are the merciful, and so forth. These are the commandments of happiness. But, unfortunately, in Orthodoxy happiness is not spoken about for some reason. For many it means some heavenly, unusual happiness. It seems to me that someone who is happy in God is truly happy. If you ask him, “Are you happy?” he will say, “Yes, I’m happy.” If an outsider sees such a person and we ask him if this person is happy, he will answer: “Yes, he is, because happiness is visible and can be felt.” (Priest Alexei Shishkin)

“Christ took the initiative in drawing sinners to Himself. They who felt lost in life came into His presence and felt found. They came with troubled conscience, and in Him they found peace of mind. They loved Him because He first loved them. These sinners felt that the secret to their happiness lay in Him, and they believed that He alone had the key to their new selves.” (Matthew the Poor)

“There is an element which derives from God, and another which derives from our own zeal. The one is entirely His work, the other involves striving on our part. However, the latter is our contribution only to the extent that we submit to His grace and do not surrender the treasure nor extinguish the torch when it has been lighted. By this I mean that we contribute nothing which is either hostile to the life or produces death. It is to this that all human good and every virtue leads, that no one should draw the sword against himself, nor flee from happiness, nor toss the crowns of victory from off his head.” (St. Nicholas Cabasilas)

“When people achieve a thousand times more by earthly standards, they are unhappy, but this person, who seemingly lives a very boring and uneventful life and has not attained the heights, is happy. This is happiness in God. It is sometimes incomprehensible to people, but I can say for sure: he who leads a proper church life and makes efforts to get closer to God becomes happy. And this is noticeable both to himself and to others…The world tells us true happiness, true human flourishing, comes from things like wealth and fame, but only when Boethius lost these things did he clearly see the source of true happiness: communion with God.” (Priest Alexei Shishkin, Dylan Pahman)

“Love does not depend on time, and the power of love continues always. There are some who believe that the Lord suffered death for love of man but because they do not attain to this love in their own souls it seems to them that it is an old story of bygone days. But when the soul knows the love of God by the Holy Spirit she feels without a shadow of doubt that the Lord is our Father, the closest, the best and dearest of fathers, and there is no greater happiness than to love God with all our hearts, with all our souls and with all our minds, according to the Lord’s commandment, and our neighbor as ourself. And when this love is in the soul, everything rejoices her; but when it is lost sight of man cannot find peace, and is troubled, and blames others as if they had done him an injury, and does not realize that he himself is at fault – he has lost his love for God and has accused or conceived a hatred for his brother.” (St. Silouan)

“Happiness is the state of a calm, joyful, and cheerful soul, and only a man with a clear conscience can experience it. If a man’s heart and soul are troubled, agitated, and worried, then even a man living in wealth and honors still won’t be able to be happy. And conversely, when a man is calm and balanced, when he’s satisfied with his position and grateful to God for all things, even if he’s poor and lacking in many necessities, he’s happier than all rich people. A cheerful, hardworking man with a pure, undefiled conscience, who, moreover, doesn’t seek much but is content with the little given him by God, will certainly be as happy as possible for a man in this earthly world. But a stingy, insatiable man, whose soul is filled with malice, will never know happiness, for where there is no peace, there is no happiness.” (St. Gabriel of Imereti)

“Of course, our lives are also shaped by circumstances and decisions. Frequently, what we describe as our “life” is the narrative created by those circumstances. Such considerations bolster the notion that we ourselves are the captains of our own ship. “My life is mine” – we imagine. This conforms well to the myths of modernity. In a world dependent on extreme consumerism, it is important to nurture a sense that every purchase, every choice, every decision, is shaping our happiness and creating our destiny. A spiritual discipline that perceives our life to be a gift – a gift shaped by a God-given telos – is bad for sales. People might become too comfortable with what they already have.” (Father Stephen Freeman)

“Riches and poverty are often relative to attitude not merely of circumstances. Some who are rich consider themselves poor and some who are poor consider themselves rich. The difference in outlook is the degree of contentment. In this vein, Paul writes in 1 Timothy: “Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content” (1 Timothy 6:6-9). The word here translated as “contentment”…refers the perception of sufficiency. To be content, we must have a sense of “enough.” Paul writes that the desire for riches leads to temptations and frivolous lusts that finally end in destruction (vs. 6). That perilous desire for wealth is a craving that never has enough. These observations lead to the thought that we will feel rich or poor depending on our feeling of having enough. Thus, if we are to measure ourselves and others at all, it should not be on wealth or poverty but on contentment.” (Fr. Basil) 

“We cannot be content with what the world offers us. The world cannot quench our thirst and desire for God. The world feeds us on bad food, chemical food. God alone knows what He has put into a person, and God alone truly calls us. But we cannot lay our hands on God in the sense of saying rationally: “Behold, I have found God, I have discovered God.” Before you wanted to lay your hand on God, He had gently touched your heart. So, we cannot say that we can discover God only with our mind. With what? To find God within yourself using your reasoning?...God has certain moments when He calls us to Himself. We only need to have sensitive hearing to hear this true call in our souls (because there are many screams, howls, and desires in them). And there are such special moments in life.” (Protosinghel Galaction Dominte)

“A contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world.” (Joseph Addison)

“…how often do we tend to look upon Christ’s divine commandments with some degree of resentment, or with fear, or even with an overwhelming sense of loss? How often do we feel — at least on some subconscious level — that God is perhaps even trying to rob us of something precious by forbidding the very things which we believe will bring us happiness, the very things which some deep part of us looks upon as life itself?” (Hieromonk Gabriel)

“Follow your heart. You can be anything you desire. Reach for the stars and don’t let anyone stand in your way. The only limit upon what you can accomplish is yourself. I could conjure a dozen clichéd phrases shaping the ideals of contemporary culture that expressed, at heart, Nietzsche’s belief that our happiness, the true fulfillment of human endeavor, lies in the kind of self-realization that shatters limit, that asserts its power and potency by overcoming other obstacles and selves…Spiritual happiness is gained not by empty words but by putting our good intentions into practice.” (Sarah Clarkson, St. Bede)

“…the things of this world are genuinely real and good, and only become idols when we treat them as the heart’s final resting place. When we enjoy something idolatrously, we love it for its own sake instead of as a means for drawing us to the ultimate happiness we can find only in God…the transcendent beauty and intelligence behind the things of this world is none other than the Logos of Christian Scripture.” (Robin Phillips)

“The world around us believes—and always has believed—that happiness comes through power, through control, through wealth. The world teaches us that happiness is born of the ability to satisfy one’s own desires. In the Church, however, we know a greater happiness, the happiness of thanksgiving. This does not mean giving thanks just for the things that we enjoy, the things that appeal to us, the things that satisfy our appetite and our self-conceit. Christian thanksgiving is the thanksgiving of St. John Chrysostom, who, dying in exile, unjustly persecuted, far from friends and homeland, departed this mortal life with the words: “Glory to God for all things!”” (Metropolitan Tikhon)

“For me, as a Christian, happiness is to be with Christ, to carry Him in my heart, and to see Christ in every person—beginning with my loved ones, my family, my wife, and my children. In this sense, family is also happiness. To be united in Christ! Of course, this does not come easily. It requires constant effort—working on oneself and one’s many shortcomings. It is painstaking daily, even hourly, work. Sometimes you feel strong and full of energy, and other times you feel sad, burdened, weary, or even lazy.” (Priest Sergei Nikulin)

“Many of us experience time periods in which we are unhappy with ourselves, or unhappy with the situation we are in, or perhaps even feel unhappy with life in general. We may imagine that the only solution is changing things around us or even those around us. Sometimes in wishing to change everything around us, we realize the unhappiness is something in our own hearts and minds – it is a choice we make whatever situation we are in. Changing the externals, won’t always change what is in our hearts. Almost 50 years ago, I penned the following words, perhaps in a moment of teen angst: I once thought to escape reality, but discovered reality is in me.” (Fr. Ted Bobosh)

“…happiness is a by-product of meaningful ends other than the pursuit of happiness itself. The research even suggests that a life of ease—a life in which everything goes well for us in the external world—often blocks a person from achieving an inner sense of well-being…“The research overwhelmingly shows that genuinely happy people are those who have given up the pursuit of happiness and have learned to be content in all circumstances, including the circumstance of not feeling happy.” (Robin Phillips)

“The will to meaning is simply the pursuit of meaningful goals beyond a person’s own subjective happiness. Paradoxically, however, by living a life of meaning, especially when that meaning is directed toward serving others, we increase our opportunities for happiness more than if happiness had been our direct goal…It is the very pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness. The more one makes happiness an aim, the more he misses the aim.” (Robin Phillips, Viktor Frankl)

“No worse or frightening pain is possible for us than to realize that our capacity for love or beauty or happiness is limited. No further outward effort is possible if our inward capacity is wounded…“Looking for happiness in all the wrong places, as if happiness was a thing ‘out there’ I have to possess, rather than a state of heart or mind which I choose to live by. As the Lord Jesus taught: “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, ‘Lo, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:20-21) Of course, sometimes we need to change our environment or friends in order to bring about a change in our hearts and minds. But it is also true that it can be our heart or mind which needs to change to adapt to life and to cope with reality for happiness is within us and does not come from the outside.” (Robert A. Johnson, Fr. Ted Bobosh)

“Happiness can only be achieved by looking inward and learning to enjoy whatever life has, and this requires transforming greed into gratitude…On a deeper level than the economic, avarice is a great unwisdom, a philosophical foolishness, for it assumes that happiness comes from possessing, from having things. That is a lie. Happiness can come only from being, not having.” (St. John Chrysostom, Peter Kreeft)

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