Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the
path that sinners tread… Psalm 1:1.
Just about everybody wants to be happy. You dream of happiness, you
plan for it, and perhaps pay any price to achieve it. Searching for
happiness, one person will try to make a lot of money; others give all
their money away. In the same search one woman will have five or six
children; another enters a convent. Ask the average person what he or
she wants out of life, and the chances are they’ll reply without
hesitation, ‘I just want to be happy’.
Occasionally you meet someone who enjoys being miserable – and who gets
a perverse delight in making others unhappy. Woody Allen apparently
wasn’t joking when he said: ‘If my film makes one more person feel
miserable, I’ll have done my job!’
Having more of anything – leisure or brains or money or power or fame -
doesn’t make you happy. Aristotle Onassis said just before he died:
‘I’ve just been a machine for making money. I seem to have spent my
life in a golden tunnel looking for the outlet which would lead to
happiness. But the tunnel kept going on. After my death there will be
nothing left.’ His daughter, Christina Onassis, seriously attempted
suicide at least once.
Help me to distinguish, Lord, between what is passing away and what is
eternal. Amen.