Some Common Causes of Happiness in Man

1.       Sin: like I always say, many formators have failed to realize the reality of the evil of sin as the cause of pain and unhappiness in people. Sin is in the first place a moral evil; it is the willful deviation from the prescription of the Eternal or natural moral law. Sin is also a disorder for it involves the choosing of lower things over higher ones (e.g. the preference of an earthly and temporal end over an eternal one). This disorder proceeds from the will of man; from his soul. Consequently, it scatters the heart of man, fills it with desires that can never be attained to, and thereby causing great disorder in him. Whenever man commits sin, this is what happens: he is cut off from God and community, his life ceases to have any direction, and therefore he cannot have happiness. Happiness here means Joy not pleasure. Surely everyone can have pleasure, but not all people can have joy. Pleasure is of the flesh and is temporal while joy is of the soul and is enduring. An appeal to our own experiences shows this basic difference: it shows that things that pertain to the flesh cannot bestow lasting joy, they are temporal and so is the enjoyment there from, they may even begin to cause disgust. Example, you love a particular food, it gives your heart great pleasure, but do you not notice that whenever you overfeed, you begin to hate that food you once loved; you begin to feel disgust for it; it ceases to be desirable. So it is with anything temporal: sex, drinking, relaxation etc. But things that pertain to the soul never breeds disgust; it is always desirable and joy-giving. Example, the joy of a good conscience, the discovery of a truth etc. In sinning, the sinner willfully abandons true joy in order to satisfy his flesh which in turn punishes him for such disorders. Since the primordial fall, man has lost happiness, but with the death of Christ it has been restored unto him. The Devil tempted our first parents with a false type of happiness which sought to please self and displease God; a type of happiness that bases itself on the flesh; on self. Man, upon realizing that no happiness can proceed from himself, feels sharp pains for the harm he has done unto himself. Happiness is not something we acquire; it is not something that we give to ourselves (else we would have all been happy since no one would ever want to deny himself this life-changing gift); it can never be a fruit of sin or evil; it is rather a gift. So the person who abandons the will of God to pursuance of his own desires must know that he has run away from happiness. For happiness is not something we are capable of putting in ourselves, it just comes. It is not something that other people consciously put into our lives, it just comes. It comes from someone higher than we; from someone higher than our friends and family; from someone who is Truth, Life and Love; someone we love to call God. I conclude with the words of John Berger: “Publicity speaks in the future tense and yet the achievement of this future is endlessly deferred. How then does publicity remain credible- or credible enough to exert the influence it does? It remains credible because truthfulness of publicity is judged, not by the real fulfillment of its promises, but by the relevance of its fantasies to those of the spectator buyer. Its essential application is not to reality but to daydreams. No two dreams are the same. Some are instantaneous, others prolonged. The dream is always personal to the dreamer. All that it does is to propose to each one of us that we are not yet enviable- yet could be.”