What in the world is happiness? I read the blogs of random people, some who know me, some who don't, and people fool themselves so well. They say "I'm happy when I'm with so-and-so" and then two days later "I can't believe so-and-so won't grow up" or "I don't things are gonna work out with so-and-so" or "I freaking hate so-and-so..." Bullshit. Every last bit of it. Why? Because people are stupid. They don't realize that emotions come and go. You can be riding on top of the world one minute, and then just one tiny minute change of circumstances can cause it all to come crashing down. People build so much of their lives on how they feel...It's just total horse manure.

Not that I deny that feelings and emotions are good things. Because they are. But some people let their lives be dictated by those emotions. "I'm going to do this because it makes me happy," or "I think I'll say 'no' because it doesn't feel right..." Contrary to popular belief, it is possible to know things without having to feel them. You know someone will hurt you in the end even though you feel like you're in love with them.

And that's another thing. There seems to be an overwhelming generality that people confuse "love" with "being in love." I shall quote C.S. Lewis on this one:

The idea that `being in love' is the only reason for remaining married really leaves no room for marriage as a contract or promise at all. If love is the whole thing, then the promise can add nothing; and if it adds nothing, then it should not be made. The curious thing is that lovers themselves, while they remain really in love, know this better than those who talk about love. As Chesterton pointed out, those who are in love have a natural inclination to bind themselves by promises. Love songs all over the world are full of vows of eternal constancy. The Christian law is not forcing upon the passion of love something which is foreign to that passion's own nature: it is demanding that lovers should take seriously something which their passion of itself impels them to do. (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity)

Being in love is not the whole story. It's merely the opening chapter. We can fall in love with any number of people or things, male, female, human, animal, idea...Love itself is more than just a passing passion. It's an idea that real love is a promise, a commitment to action, to looking out for someone and remaining true to them even if the feeling eventually fades...Another quote:

A promise must be about things that I can do, about actions: no one can promise to go on feeling in a certain way. He might as well promise never to have a headache or always to feel hungry. (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity)

So what does this have to do with happiness, the title of said entry? Everybody go get a piece of paper and a pencil and write this down, because if I ever say anything that means anything this will most likely be it...HAPPINESS IS NOT A FEELING...Happiness is action, forcing yourself to be content with your life. In that way, happiness is not dependant upon outside circumstances. It only depends on your own decision to be happy. If you are not happy, do not go blaming outside forces. If you are happy, don't pin the credit on them either. Only YOU can make yourself truly happy.

One might attempt to argue as to how I can believe in happiness in our own grasp while still believing in the need for an all-powerful God. To him, I say that life comes down to one big choice: you either follow Christ, or you don't. There is no road in between. You can find temporal happiness either way, but to find eternal happiness, well, there is a subject not even I have the vanity to wax philosophical about. All I know is that I choose to be a disciple, and with that choice I receive eternal happiness and temporal happiness. I am happy because I know that regardless of what happens in my life, regardless of the people I meet, the ones I never will, the ones I love, the ones I loathe, the ones I forgive, the ones I forget, the circumstances that lift me up or the ones that drag me down, I still have love because I still have God. And because I have that love, I choose to be happy...

~November 1, 2003