happiness & doubt

"Do smoking and drinking affect your relationship with God?" we asked a group of Muslim boys at the hookah bar.

"Yes."

I've been thinking for months now about what this could mean: what are the implications of such decisions? Why do we directly disobey our own beliefs? Why do we do things that keep us from happiness? What is happiness?

Happy [hap-ee] (adj)

1. delighted, pleased, or glad, as over a particular thing
2. characterized by or indicative of pleasure, contentment, or joy

But what does it really mean to be happy? What does that look like?

I think the boy answered that way because he recognized, as many of us do, that it is easier to do what feels ok rather than what is ultimately good for us. Of course we know that smoking leads to lung cancer and drinking to liver disease, but we do it anyways. Just like how we worry about tiny concerns or eat that second piece of cake--because it takes us out of our fears and into a feeling of --dare I say it?-- peace.

 

In a documentary called Happy, the interviewers ask people in different regions of the world what the most important aim in life is. They all say "to be happy" then go on to describe what brings them joy. I am still amazed by the simplicity of it--a rickshaw driver loving his job and his family, and that is his joy. Why do we find ourselves so wrapped up in nonexistent complexities and still fail to see the simple joys?

 

I have been using happiness and joy synonymously,  but I don't think that is true. I think you can find spurts of joy in the midst of depression, but it is the lasting happiness that we ultimately seek.

And how does God fit into it all? If we ignore the earthly pleasures (be they drinks or worry) and turn to God, will we know happiness? Surely the answer is dependent on what a reader's view of God is, if at all, but speaking from a Christian God perspective, I feel a bit lost over it due to my constant recognition that those earthly pleasures seem to offer more than the silence of God.

 

It goes back to the long-term perspective: what is ultimately good for us. We are taught that overindulgence (note: over) in earthly joys leads to consequences (as stated above: a few examples). We are taught that obedience, faithfulness, & repentance to God promises us eternity. I think the hardest part of that is that it's so difficult to envision this "eternity" when all we know is what we've seen--the current world around us.

 

All of these sorts of speculations fascinate me, knowing that I will never have the answers. I can only believe. How do the questions & the doubts affect my current search for happiness? Sometimes I get so wrapped up in the confusion of spinning circles of "what ifs" and "buts" and "hows" and "whys". It's a distraction that sucks me in like a blackhole, taking over and consuming me to distract from my initial destination of the boundless universe of imagination.

I continuously return to the Rilke quote "love the questions like locked rooms". It's the nearest encouragement I have to love the questions from a distance rather than being enveloped.  Sometimes it's incredibly frustrating: even just the knowing that I'll never know. Sometimes it's totally freeing: it could be anything; eternity could be anywhere or anything--the mystery of the outskirts of the universe.

Will we be happy when we know what's next, or can we learn to know happiness when we accept the unknown?