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The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness

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The Measure of a Life Well Lived: Henry Miller on Growing Old, the Perils of Success, and the Secret of Remaining Young at Heart

By maria popova.

More than three decades later, shortly after his eightieth birthday, Miller wrote a beautiful essay on the subject of aging and the key to living a full life. It was published in 1972 in an ultra-limited-edition chapbook titled On Turning Eighty ( public library ), alongside two other essays. Only 200 copies were printed, numbered and signed by the author.

Miller begins by considering the true measure of youthfulness:

If at eighty you’re not a cripple or an invalid, if you have your health, if you still enjoy a good walk, a good meal (with all the trimmings), if you can sleep without first taking a pill, if birds and flowers, mountains and sea still inspire you, you are a most fortunate individual and you should get down on your knees morning and night and thank the good Lord for his savin’ and keepin’ power. If you are young in years but already weary in spirit, already on the way to becoming an automaton, it may do you good to say to your boss — under your breath, of course — “Fuck you, Jack! You don’t own me!” … If you can fall in love again and again, if you can forgive your parents for the crime of bringing you into the world, if you are content to get nowhere, just take each day as it comes, if you can forgive as well as forget, if you can keep from growing sour, surly, bitter and cynical, man you’ve got it half licked.

He later adds:

I have very few friends or acquaintances my own age or near it. Though I am usually ill at ease in the company of elderly people I have the greatest respect and admiration for two very old men who seem to remain eternally young and creative. I mean [the Catalan cellist and conductor] Pablo Casals and Pablo Picasso, both over ninety now. Such youthful nonagenarians put the young to shame. Those who are truly decrepit, living corpses, so to speak, are the middle-aged, middleclass men and women who are stuck in their comfortable grooves and imagine that the status quo will last forever or else are so frightened it won’t that they have retreated into their mental bomb shelters to wait it out.

Miller considers the downside of success — not the private kind, per Thoreau’s timeless definition , but the public kind, rooted in the false deity of prestige :

If you have had a successful career, as presumably I have had, the late years may not be the happiest time of your life. (Unless you’ve learned to swallow your own shit.) Success, from the worldly standpoint, is like the plague for a writer who still has something to say. Now, when he should be enjoying a little leisure, he finds himself more occupied than ever. Now he is the victim of his fans and well wishers, of all those who desire to exploit his name. Now it is a different kind of struggle that one has to wage. The problem now is how to keep free, how to do only what one wants to do.

He goes on to reflect on how success affects people’s quintessence:

One thing seems more and more evident to me now — people’s basic character does not change over the years… Far from improving them, success usually accentuates their faults or short-comings. The brilliant guys at school often turn out to be not so brilliant once they are out in the world. If you disliked or despised certain lads in your class you will dislike them even more when they become financiers, statesmen or five star generals. Life forces us to learn a few lessons, but not necessarily to grow.

Somewhat ironically, Anaïs Nin — Miller’s onetime lover and lifelong friend — once argued beautifully for the exact opposite , the notion that our personalities are fundamentally fluid and ever-growing, something that psychologists have since corroborated .

Miller returns to youth and the young as a kind of rearview mirror for one’s own journey:

You observe your children or your children’s children, making the same absurd mistakes, heart-rending mistakes often, which you made at their age. And there is nothing you can say or do to prevent it. It’s by observing the young, indeed, that you eventually understand the sort of idiot you yourself were once upon a time — and perhaps still are.

Like George Eliot, who so poignantly observed the trajectory of happiness over the course of human life , Miller extols the essential psychoemotional supremacy of old age:

At eighty I believe I am a far more cheerful person than I was at twenty or thirty. I most definitely would not want to be a teenager again. Youth may be glorious, but it is also painful to endure… I was cursed or blessed with a prolonged adolescence; I arrived at some seeming maturity when I was past thirty. It was only in my forties that I really began to feel young. By then I was ready for it. (Picasso once said: “One starts to get young at the age of sixty, and then it’s too late.” ) By this time I had lost many illusions, but fortunately not my enthusiasm, nor the joy of living, nor my unquenchable curiosity.

And therein lies Miller’s spiritual center — the life-force that stoked his ageless inner engine:

Perhaps it is curiosity — about anything and everything — that made me the writer I am. It has never left me… With this attribute goes another which I prize above everything else, and that is the sense of wonder. No matter how restricted my world may become I cannot imagine it leaving me void of wonder. In a sense I suppose it might be called my religion. I do not ask how it came about, this creation in which we swim, but only to enjoy and appreciate it.

Two years later, Miller would come to articulate this with even more exquisite clarity in contemplating the meaning of life , but here he contradicts Henry James’s assertion that seriousness preserves one’s youth and turns to his other saving grace — the capacity for light-heartedness as an antidote to life’s often stifling solemnity:

Perhaps the most comforting thing about growing old gracefully is the increasing ability not to take things too seriously. One of the big differences between a genuine sage and a preacher is gaiety. When the sage laughs it is a belly laugh; when the preacher laughs, which is all too seldom, it is on the wrong side of the face.

Equally important, Miller argues, is countering the human compulsion for self-righteousness. In a sentiment Malcolm Gladwell would come to complement nearly half a century later in advocating for the importance of changing one’s mind regularly , Miller writes:

With advancing age my ideals, which I usually deny possessing, have definitely altered. My ideal is to be free of ideals, free of principles, free of isms and ideologies. I want to take to the ocean of life like a fish takes to the sea… I no longer try to convert people to my view of things, nor to heal them. Neither do I feel superior because they appear to be lacking in intelligence.

Miller goes on to consider the brute ways in which we often behave out of self-righteousness and deformed idealism:

One can fight evil but against stupidity one is helpless… I have accepted the fact, hard as it may be, that human beings are inclined to behave in ways that would make animals blush. The ironic, the tragic thing is that we often behave in ignoble fashion from what we consider the highest motives. The animal makes no excuse for killing his prey; the human animal, on the other hand, can invoke God’s blessing when massacring his fellow men. He forgets that God is not on his side but at his side.

But despite observing these lamentable human tendencies, Miller remains an optimist at heart. He concludes by returning to the vital merriment at the root of his life-force:

My motto has always been: “Always merry and bright.” Perhaps that is why I never tire of quoting Rabelais: “For all your ills I give you laughter.” As I look back on my life, which has been full of tragic moments, I see it more as a comedy than a tragedy. One of those comedies in which while laughing your guts out you feel your inner heart breaking. What better comedy could there be? The man who takes himself seriously is doomed… There is nothing wrong with life itself. It is the ocean in which we swim and we either adapt to it or sink to the bottom. But it is in our power as human beings not to pollute the waters of life, not to destroy the spirit which animates us. The most difficult thing for a creative individual is to refrain from the effort to make the world to his liking and to accept his fellow man for what he is, whether good, bad or indifferent.

The entire On Turning Eighty chapbook, which includes two other essays, is a sublime read. Complement it with Miller on writing , altruism , the meaning of life , what creative death means , and his 11 commandments of writing .

— Published June 26, 2014 — https://www.themarginalian.org/2014/06/26/henry-miller-on-turning-eighty/ —

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Aging is inevitable, so why not do it joyfully? Here’s how

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This post is part of TED’s “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from people in the TED community;  browse through  all the posts here .

It was recently my birthday. It wasn’t a “big” birthday — one of those round-numbered ones that feels like a milestone — but nevertheless it got me thinking about aging.

When I was a kid, growing older felt like an achievement. Each year that passed marked one step closer to adulthood, which for me meant independence and freedom. I remember going to the city with my dad to see plays or go to the Met and seeing a group of women having lunch in a café. It seemed glamorous and exciting to be an adult. I couldn’t wait.

Likewise, I never quite understood the popular antipathy toward old age. At Spencer’s, a novelty store at the Galleria Mall in White Plains where my friends and I would find gag gifts, I was always perplexed by the section of “Over the Hill” merchandise. I mean, my grandparents didn’t listen to my music or play Nintendo with me, but they were cool in their own way — not crusty and out of touch like the caricatures suggested. The geezer jokes and “lying about your age” punchlines that adorned the mugs and t-shirts there seemed to come from another world, one that didn’t make sense to me.

In my 20s and 30s, friends would casually toss around the phrase “We’re so old!” I rolled my eyes. We were so young, I felt, and why should we waste that youth focused on what was already behind us? After all, right at that moment we were the youngest we would ever be.

My 20s were miles better than my teens — more expansive, less cloistered —  and my 30s better than my 20s. I became more confident in my 30s, I got into therapy and dealt with years of childhood trauma, I learned to communicate my needs and be more mindful of the needs of others. I wouldn’t trade the growth of these past decades for fewer lines on my face or grey hairs on my head.

Author Heather Havrilesky wrote: “Growing old gracefully really means either disappearing or sticking around but always lying straight to people’s faces about the strength of your feelings and desires.”

Now that I’m in my 40s, though, aging isn’t some future concept. Just being alive means growing older, so yes, we’ve all been aging since we were born. But at a certain point, the notion of what life will be like in a couple of decades starts to feel more real, and then I start to reflect more on what my current choices mean for that future me.

I look back and wonder what my work-hard-play-hard 20s mean for me now. Could I have had a healthier body today if I had been kinder to it when I was younger? And could being gentler now give me more joy and freedom in the future?

The dominant discourse on aging, especially when it comes to women, revolves around “aging gracefully.” This generally involves looking at least three to five years younger than you actually are, while not appearing to do anything to get that way. It also means “acting your age,” by wearing age-appropriate clothes (mini skirts have an expiration date, apparently), having age-appropriate hair and doing age-appropriate activities — but maybe doing one or two surprisingly youthful things (surfing, maybe, or tap dancing) that don’t seem like you’re trying too hard yet let people know you’re still in the game.

As author Heather Havrilesky writes in her biting essay on the topic , “I think about how growing old gracefully really means either disappearing or sticking around but always lying straight to people’s faces about the strength of your feelings and desires.”

The only way to age and be deemed acceptable is to have lucky genes or to conceal your battles against time underneath a practiced smile.

“Aging gracefully” entails walking a tightrope between a youth-obsessed society, which tells us that our value declines as we age, and a culture that says nothing is as uncool as desperation, the fervent desire for something we can’t have. Marketers stoke our desire for youthfulness as the ticket to remaining relevant, then shame us when our efforts to preserve that youth go awry.

So the person who ages without thought to their appearance is written off as “having given up,” and the one whose face remains 35 forever thanks to the surgeon’s knife is considered a joke, and the only way to be deemed acceptable is to have lucky genes or to conceal your battles against time underneath a practiced smile. It all sounds exhausting, doesn’t it?

And so I’ve been thinking about how we move beyond this damaging — and frankly misogynistic — frame. What if instead of seeing aging as something to defeat and conquer, we were to embrace what gets better with age, and work to amplify these joys while mitigating the losses of youth? I’m not suggesting we paper over the very real challenges, both physical and mental, that come with aging. But can we view these challenges without judgment or shame and instead look for joyful ways to navigate them?

I delved into the research on aging, and here are 8 insights I’ve found that can help us think about joyful ways to feel well as we grow older.

1. Seek out awe 

In a study of older adults, researchers found that taking an “awe walk,” a walk specifically focused on attending to vast or inspiring things in the environment, increased joy and prosocial emotions (feelings like generosity and kindness) more than simply taking a stroll in nature. Interestingly, they also found that “smile intensity,” a measure of how much the participants smiled, increased over the eight-week duration of the study. These walks were only 15 minutes long, once a week, and are low impact, so this is an easy way to create more joy in daily life as we age.

Practiced joyspotters well know the power of attending to joyful stimuli in the environment to boost mood. This study suggests that tuning our attention specifically to things that invoke wonder and awe can have measurable benefits, especially for older adults.

2. Get a culture fix 

A 1996 study of more than 12,000 people Sweden found that attending cultural events correlated with increased survival, while people who rarely attended cultural events had a higher risk of mortality. Since then, a raft of studies (a good summary of them here ) has affirmed that people who participate in social activities such as attending church, going to the movies, playing cards or bingo, or going to restaurants or sporting events is linked with decreased mortality among older adults. One reason may be that these activities increase social connection, deepen relationships, and reinforce feelings of belonging, which are positively associated with well-being. Cultural activities also help keep the mind sharp. While the pandemic has made this one challenging, as things start to open up again, getting a culture fix can be an easy way to age joyfully.

Enriching your environment with color, art, plants and other sensorially stimulating elements may be a worthwhile investment not just for protecting your mind as you age, but also your joy.

3. Stimulate your senses

One of the most talked-about parts of my TED Talk is when I describe my experience spending a night at the wildly colorful Reversible Destiny Lofts , an apartment building designed by the artist Arakawa and the poet Madeline Gins, who believed it could reverse aging.

The idea that an apartment could reverse aging sounds farfetched, but it becomes more grounded when we look at the theory behind it. Arakawa and Gins believed that just as our muscles atrophy if we don’t exercise them, our cognitive capacity diminishes if we don’t stimulate our senses. They looked at our beige, dull interiors and imagined that these spaces would make our minds wither. And as it turns out, some early research in animals ( see also ) suggests there might be something to this. When mice are placed in “enriched environments” with lots of sensorial stimuli and opportunities for physical movement, it mitigates neurological changes associated with Alzheimer’s and dementia. While there is some evidence to suggest that this might apply to humans as well, the mechanisms behind this phenomenon are not yet well understood.

That said, we do know that the acuity of our senses declines with age. The lenses of our eyes thicken and tinge more yellow, allowing less light into the eye. Our sense of smell, taste and hearing also become less sharp. So, while you don’t have to recreate Arakawa and Gins’s quirky apartments, enriching your environment with color, art, plants and other sensorially stimulating elements may be a worthwhile investment not just for protecting your mind as you age, but also your joy.

4. Buy yourself flowers 

As if you needed an excuse for this one, but just in case, here you go. A study of older adults found that memory and mood improved when people were given a gift of flowers, which wasn’t the case when they were given another kind of gift.

Why would flowers have this effect? One reason may link to research on the attention restoration effect, which shows that the passive stimulation we find in looking at greenery helps to restore our ability to concentrate. Perhaps improved attention also results in improved memory. Another possibility, which is pure speculation at this point, relates to the evolutionary rationale for our interest in flowers. Because flowers eventually become fruit, it would have made sense for our ancestors to take an interest in them and remember their location. Monitoring the locations of flowers would allow them to save time and energy when it came to finding fruiting plants later, and potentially reach the fruit before other hungry animals. I have to stress that there’s no evidence I’m aware of to support this explanation, but it’s an intriguing possibility.

Taking it a step further, research has also shown that gardening can have mental and physical health benefits for older adults. So whether you buy your flowers or grow them, know that you’re taking a joyful step toward greater well-being in later life.

There’s something joyful about a mini time warp — maybe it’s revisiting a vacation spot you once loved or maybe it’s a getaway with friends where you banish talk of present-day concerns.

5. Try a time warp 

In 1981, Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer ran an experiment with a group of men in their 70s that has come to be known as “the counterclockwise study.” For five days, they lived inside a monastery that had been designed to look just like it was 1959. There were vintage radios and black-and-white TVs instead of cassette players and VHS. The books that lined the shelves were ones that were popular at the time. The magazines, TV shows, clothes and music were all throwbacks to that exact period.

But these men weren’t just living in a time warp. They also had to participate. They were treated like they were in their 50s, rather than their 70s. They had to carry their own bags. They discussed the news and sports of 22 years earlier in the present tense. And to preserve the illusion, there were no mirrors and no photos, except of their younger selves.

At the end of five days, the men stood taller, had greater manual dexterity, and even better vision. Independent judges said they looked younger. A touch football game broke out among the group (some of whom had previously walked with a cane) as they waited for the bus home. Langer was hesitant to publish her findings, concerned that the unusual method and small sample size might be hard for the academic community to accept. But in 2010, a BBC show recreated the experiment with aging celebrities to similar effect. Langer’s subsequent research has led her to conclude that we can prime our minds to feel younger, which in turn can make our bodies follow suit.

While it might be difficult to recreate Langer’s study in our own lives, I think there’s something joyful about a mini time warp. Maybe it’s revisiting a vacation spot you once loved, and steeping yourself in memories from an earlier time. Maybe it’s a getaway with friends where you banish all talk of present-day concerns. Maybe it’s finding a book or a stack of old magazines from back then and reading them while listening to throwback tunes.

It’s also worth noting that a control group from the counterclockwise study who simply reminisced about their youth, without using the present tense, did not experience the same dramatic results — so these “mini time warps” may be more for fun than for tangible benefit. But even if you don’t turn back the clock, checking back in with your younger self can be a way to rediscover parts of yourself that you may have lost touch with and bring them with you as you age.

6. Maximize mobility 

Exercise is often touted as a way to stay healthy and vibrant at any age , but one finding that makes it particularly relevant as we get older is that movement has been shown in studies to increase the size of the hippocampus, a part of the brain that plays a vital role in learning and memory. This is important because the hippocampus shrinks as we age, which can lead to memory deficits and increased risk of dementia. In one study of older adults, exercise increased hippocampus size by 2 percent , which is equivalent to reversing one to two years of age-related decline.

In addition to its cognitive effects, movement itself can be a source of joy. The ability to swim, hike, dance and play can be conduits to joy well into our older years. When I struggle to get motivated to exercise , I often think about my future self and how investing in my mobility now can help preserve range of motion and minimize repetitive stress injuries later. Simply put: you have one body, and it has to last your whole life. The more you do now to care for it, the more freedom you’ll have to do the things you love late in life.

As we age, we have a choice: We can either cling to the world as we shaped it and refuse to engage in the new world that kids are creating, or we can adapt to their world and remain curious, active participants.

7. Refeather your nest

Once you start looking at negative tropes around aging, you start seeing more and more of them. Take the phrase “empty nest,” which carries strong connotations of loss and deprivation. Though I’m at the stage where my nest suddenly just became quite full, I love the idea of reframing the “empty nest” into something more joyful.

One of my readers, Lee-Anne Ragan, offers up as a joyful process in the wake of children going off to start their own independent lives. She points out that the idea of an empty nest suggests that there’s nothing left, while refeathering takes a more ecological lens, imagining a kind of regeneration that happens as the home, and the family, transforms into something new. A refeathered nest is a place of possibility, creativity and delight.

8. Stay up on tech

While technology is often blamed for feelings of isolation, some studies show that for older adults, being technologically facile can offer a boost to well-being. One reason is that internet use may serve a predictor of social connection more broadly, and social connection is one of the most important contributors toward mental health and well-being throughout life, but especially in old age. Other studies suggest that when older adults lack the skills to be able to use technology effectively, it leads to a greater sense of disconnection and disempowerment  and that offering training to older adults on technology can promote cognitive function, interpersonal connection and a sense of control and independence.

I’ve often been tempted, when a radically new app or device comes out, to say “That’s for the kids,” and ignore it. With free time so scarce, exploring new tech feels less appealing than digging into one of the books piled up on my nightstand. And anyway, unplugging is supposed to be good for us, right? But technology shapes the world we live in, and those technologies that seem new and fringy in the moment often end up in the mainstream, influencing the ways we communicate, work and access even basic services.

I remember trying to teach my grandmother how to use email. She was someone who never wanted to bother anyone, and I thought that email’s asynchronous communication would be good for her. Instead of calling, she could just send a note and know that she wasn’t interrupting anyone. She tried, but she struggled to learn it. She had stopped caring about technology long before that, and the leap to figure out how to use a computer was too great. Small choices not to engage with a new technology don’t matter much in the moment, but once you get a few steps down the road to disconnection, it can feel intimidating to try to plug back in.

Staying engaged with new technologies doesn’t have to be a burden. It might simply mean saying yes when a niece or nephew invites you play Minecraft or opening a TikTok account just to check it out. You don’t have to master every new app or tool, but being comfortable with new developments can help you ensure you don’t end up feeling helpless or blindsided when the tech you rely on every day changes.

I think a lot about something psychologist Alison Gopnik said when I interviewed her for the Joy Makeover a couple of years ago. She said that each new generation breaks paradigms and overturns old ways of doing things as a matter of course. This isn’t gratuitous — it’s how we move forward as a society. Each generation of kids will remake the world, and from this we’ll gain all kinds of new discoveries. So as we age, we have a choice: we can either cling to the world as we shaped it and refuse to engage in the new world our kids’ and grandkids’ generations are creating, or we can adapt to their world and remain curious, active participants in it.

This to me is at the heart of aging joyfully. Our goal shouldn’t be to cling to youth as we get older, but to keep our joy alive by tending our inner child throughout our days while also nurturing our connection to the changing world. In doing so, we balance wisdom with wonder, confidence with curiosity and depth with delight.

This post was first published on Ingrid Fetell Lee’s site, The Aesthetics of Joy .

Watch her TED Talk now:

About the author

Ingrid Fetell Lee is the founder of the blog The Aesthetics of Joy and was formerly design director at the global innovation firm IDEO.

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G.K. Chesterton and the Joy of Living

Christians live by creeds. A Catholic, for example, follows the Apostle’s Creed as a summation of his faith. And, of course, the most basic set of principles that bind us all is the Ten Commandments, which forms the foundation for all Christian moral teaching. In so many ways, we find ourselves in a world of rules—we must go to church on Sundays; we must avoid sin; we must fear the Lord. But one of the unwritten rules of Christianity often escapes us—that human life is a sacred gift from God that must be enjoyed. Although we remember this every once in a while—for example, when a beautiful sunrise takes our breath away—most of the time, we don’t know what it is to truly enjoy our day-to-day lives. The true joy of living, unfortunately, is often swallowed up by the banality of following endless creeds, lists of rules, and by the pursuit of empty pleasures that never, in the end, give us any real joy.

G.K. Chesterton, however, believed that the “creeds” and “lists of rules” that so many of us associate with spiritual deadness can, when properly understood, lead us to a radically new appreciation of the joy of life. The problem, Chesterton thought, is that too few of us truly appreciate what we have been given—the deep-down wildness and beauty of life. Life, Chesterton believed, is at bottom a magical thing, which is nowhere better described than in fairy-stories. As he put it, “ The supreme adventure is not falling in love. The supreme adventure is being born… by the act of being born, we step into a world which is incalculable, into a world which has its own strange laws, into a world which could do without us, into a world that we have not made. In other words… we step into a fairy-tale.”

This world, Chesterton tells us, is a strange and wondrous place, containing beauties far too deep for words, of which our jaded souls have sadly forgotten. We have taken beautiful things—like friendship, and true love—and have devalued them with the carelessness and monotony of modern life. But the “creeds” and “rules” of Christianity, says Chesterton, are really at heart a way of reminding us of the lost beauty of life: just as no one will guzzle well-aged wine by the bottle, but instead will savor it one glass at a time; so the Christian will not commit adultery, but will remain faithful to the one whom he loves. And so, in the paradoxical manner for which Chesterton is famous, he reminds us that the seemingly onerous rules of Christianity were not meant to devalue life and its pleasures, but instead to fill us anew with the true joy of living.

“The Apostle of Common Sense”

G.K. Chesterton was a turn-of-the-century Catholic apologist, moderately famous in his own day and ours for his celebrated Father Brown mysteries, as well as for several minor Christian classics, including Orthodoxy and The Everlasting Man . In his native England, he had built a reputation for himself as an incorrigibly gregarious and contrarian gadfly, engaging in numerous popular debates and scuffles with such literary eminences as George Bernard Shaw, Aldous Huxley, and H.G. Wells. He was well-known in Britain as the Catholic Church’s most articulate defender, and even today, it’s difficult to find a priest who doesn’t know his Chesterton backwards and frontwards. C.S. Lewis, the revered author of the Chronicles of Narnia , largely credits Chesterton with his conversion to Christianity. As Lewis later wrote, “He had more sense than all the other moderns put together… [when] I read Chesterton’s Everlasting Man , for the first time I saw the whole Christian outline of history set out in a form that seemed to me to make sense.” In what is perhaps his most famous work, Orthodoxy , he described the path that brought him from agnosticism to Christianity:

I have often had a fancy for writing a romance about an English yachtsman who slightly miscalculated his course and discovered England under the impression that it was a new island in the South Seas. What could be more delightful than to have in the same few minutes all the fascinating terrors of going abroad combined with all the humane security of coming home again? This at least seems to me the main problem for philosophers… How can we contrive to be at once astonished at the world and yet at home in it?

Chesterton concluded that Christian theology was the answer to the question. The Church, he claimed, gave the world a set of principles and an institution to feel at home in, while the principles themselves keep us constantly amazed by the world in which we live. Moreover, without Christianity, our world would eventually become so boringly normal that no one would be able to appreciate it. He asserted, at the time, that he would never get the chance to write the sort of romance novel he had described. But in 1912, he did, with the short novel Manalive . The book is really an extension of Orthodoxy , in that it explains how our earthly lives can be filled with astonishment and excitement. Finding true Christianity, he argues, is really quite a lot like discovering that New South Wales is really Old South Wales—it is like coming home again, and knowing the place for the first time. Christians, he says, can paradoxically come to a real appreciation of the wonderful beauty and mystery of life in this world, “by breaking the conventions, and keeping the Commandments.”

The Great Wind of God

Manalive ’s humorous plot revolves around Innocent Smith, a middle-aged man who literally is thrown by a great gust of wind into a boarding house with eight disillusioned tenants. There, his antics—climbing trees, jumping over walls, picnicking on the roof, and so on— transform the lives of its inhabitants, making them each feel like every day was their birthday. What previously had been mundane became purposeful, even unique. Six of the characters decide to get married, in the span of a day. The wonder of it all is not that Smith is telling them to do all this, but that in the process of trying to rationalize his actions, they discover and interpret his message. In such a scene, Innocent’s main supporter, Michael Moon, tells the others: “I don’t think [sending Smith to an asylum] is necessary. Because [we’re all] in one now. Why, didn’t you know? I thought we all really knew.” In classic Chestertonian style, Moon realizes that “all habits are bad habits. Madness doesn’t come by breaking out, but by giving in; by settling down in some dirty, little, self-repeating circle of ideas; by being tamed.” This method of learning—self-discovery— is intended to signal that these truths are all hidden within each of us. We need only, he says, to adjust our outlooks to find them.

But all the fun stops when Smith unexpectedly fires a gun at a scientist, claiming that he did so only “to give life,” not to take it. Why would Smith, who had become the most beloved man in the house, do such a thing? The book turns into a sort of mock trial that sets out to prove why Smith is, in a sense, “innocent” of attempted murder, polygamy, desertion, and burglary. Michael Moon defends Smith, while an American doctor serves as the prosecution. They read collected affidavits in support of their sides, and we, along with the book’s characters, embark on a quest to solve the riddle of Innocent Smith’s life, without any guidance from Smith himself. In the finest Chestertonian (and, indeed, Christian) tradition, the book becomes a quest to find out what we already know.

Step One: Definitive Death, the Will to Live, or Enjoyment of Existence?

If Chesterton’s paradoxes are confusing the first time you read them, then you are probably reading them correctly—they need quite a bit of explanation in order to gain an understanding of what Chesterton is getting at. This happens in the course of the mock trial, in which we learn how to radically live and appreciate life.

In the early 1900s, as is the case today, many among the intellectual elite regarded death as the end of man’s existence. They fatalistically believed that the purpose of one’s life is to, in the end, die. In effect, there would be no enduring meaning to human life. Good deeds, pleasure, friendship, and other such banalities were “trivial and soon tasteless bribes to bring us into a torture chamber”— death. They consequently believed God was also dead; nonexistent, since any type of immortality was impossible. They dreaded looking up at the stars at night, seeing only the vast immensity of the cosmic machine— “the universe black with white spots.”

It is no wonder, then, that Chesterton begins Smith’s life story with his college days in Cambridge, specifically taking us back to a discussion with a famed professor of his, Dr. Emerson Eames. As a young student, Smith doubted that there was a purpose to life, and so became paralyzed with fear. He desperately reached for some explanation for the “vulgar people who want to enjoy life as they enjoy gin,” yet can never find happiness. Hoping to find an answer to his burning questions, Smith brought his troubles to his professor, Dr. Eames. The professor, unfortunately, was not much help: he patiently explained to Smith that if there really was a merciful God, he would strike us dead immediately, because human life is both purposeless and painful, somewhat akin to a puppy slowly drowning in water. “All thinkers are pessimist thinkers,” Dr. Eames told him.

Unfortunately for Dr. Eames, Smith understood him perfectly—all too well, as a matter of fact. After reflecting for a bit on the professor’s words, Smith removed a gun from his coat pocket and pointed it directly at his teacher’s head. Wildly brandishing his gun and blathering on about the futility of life, Smith forced Eames out onto the balcony, on which the professor clung to a gargoyle, holding on for dear life. Making sense in a mad sort of way, Smith told his professor that he was doing him a favor by putting him out of his misery: “It’s not a thing I’d do for everyone!” he shouted. “The only cure for life,” he told Eames, “is death”: his macabre yet brutally logical interpretation of his professor’s philosophy. But then, before he finished his mad justification for murder, something astonishing happened: the sun began to rise. The soft, yellow light fell onto the streets, rooftops, and spires of Cambridge, transforming the previously grim landscape into a sort of fairyland. “The copper ornaments, green enamel, sea-blue slates of a church roof, and the scarlet tiles of a villa had something oddly individual and significant about them… and arrested the rolling eyes of Emerson Eames as he looked round on the morning and accepted it as his last.”

For the first time in Eames’s life, he began to care about more than just the outward appearance of the halls and houses of Cambridge: now, he cared about the people who lived in them as well. He saw them all, as it were, in a new light. Quite unexpectedly, he sang aloud: “I thank the goodness and the grace/ That on my birth have smiled/ And perched me on this curious place/ A happy English child.” Something happened to Smith, too, who decided not to kill his professor after all—instead, he ordered Eames to “thank God for the villas and vulgar people and puddles and pots and pans and sticks and rags.” Eames wholeheartedly did so, after which Smith (an excellent marksman) fired two shots that whizzed by Eames’s head, put down his gun, and let his professor go.

In that moment of sunrise, both Smith and Eames discovered something new about life: the sheer joy of existence itself. Before that moment, Eames had not loved his life; rather, he had stubbornly clung to it because he feared death. But Eames realized that true living meant more than merely avoiding death: instead, it meant choosing life. As he awaited his imminent death there on the balcony, his eyes shone to see, really see , for the first time, everyday beauties that he had never before noticed: “gray clouds that turned pink, and the little gilt clock in the crack between the houses.” Smith confessed that if he had never seen that gleam in his professor’s eyes, he would have certainly gone ahead with his plan, killing both himself and his teacher, as he saw nothing in life that he would have missed. And so, Smith and Eames went to the brink of death together, and discovered that there was something about life that made it worth the living.

After his brush with death, Eames raced around the streets of Cambridge, noticing all of the wonderful little things that he had never noticed before—he spent hours, for example, scrutinizing a few villas that, inexplicably, had spotted blinds on the windows. Neither Smith nor Eames any longer gave a thought to defining death: rather, they merely concluded that death (whatever it is) keeps humanity young, as knowing that we will have to one day face it forces us to love and truly appreciate life. In this way, they reasoned, God created death to keep our hearts youthful at this, the beginning of our eternal human journey. And so, in this rather odd fashion, both Eames and Smith came eventually to Christianity, through the barrel of a gun and a sunrise. Joy, they discovered, was at the core of existence, and so they concluded that the Christian message of hope, love, and eternal life just had to be true.

This, of course, is meant to be a fantastical example. Chesterton does not mean for us to take to shooting at people in order to make them happy. Instead, Innocent Smith serves as an example of how to break free of the monotony and meaninglessness of modern life, radically reinventing the humdrum reality of this world and seeing, back behind it all, the God who created it in the first place. We too, Chesterton says, can live life as if we were clinging to a gargoyle four stories up with a pistol pointed at our heads. In short, we can come to love the beauty of life so much that we would hate to leave it. In this way, death, paradoxically, can keep us young, and instead of clinging fearfully to life, we can choose it, merely for the joy of living. Chesterton never says it better:

I don’t deny that there should be priests to remind men that they will one day die. I only say that at certain strange epochs it is necessary to have another kind of priests, called poets, actually to remind men that they are not dead yet. The intellectuals among whom I moved were not even alive enough to fear death… Until a pistol-barrel was poked under their very noses they never knew they had been born. For ages looking up in eternal perspective it might be true that life is learning to die. But for these [people] it was just as true that death was their only chance of learning to live.”

Step Two: Going Around the World to Get Home

As that dawn in Cambridge began, so did a new life for Innocent Smith. He decided that he would become a gift-giver, surprising the world into joy, and “hold[ing] a pistol to the head of the Modern Man.” This is what he did to the doctor at the boarding house, which spurred the trial. But another charge brought against him was desertion; that he abandoned his wife and kids to pursue his own interests abroad. On a sudden whim, it seemed, Innocent Smith had run out the door of his house shouting that he would find a better wife with “redder hair” and a better house with a “finer” garden. For any normal human being, this would have been quite good evidence of desertion; for Smith, however, it was all part of a larger plan.

Innocent Smith began taking “the round road” home that day. He decided that in order to truly value his wife, children, house, and garden, he would have to find out what it felt like to really have a home. In other words, he needed to break through the mere labels and figures that are “home and family,” and learn what it feels like to want to come back to something . In typical humorous Chesterton fashion, Smith does this by interacting with people he meets along the way, from France, Russia, China, and California, and discussing with them the meaning of home and heaven.

The purpose of his journey, he tells the Frenchman, is to undergo a revolution, but in the sense of revolving: “like every repentance,” a return. He asserts, “I’m going to turn the world upside down, too. I’m going to walk upside down in the cursed upside down land…But my revolution, unlike the earth’s, will end up in the holy, happy place, the celestial, incredible place—the place where we were before.” Just like Dr. Eames’s life was transformed by seeing Cambridge in a new light, Smith wanted to see his home and his family, too, for what they really were.

Finding himself a bit later on in Russia—another country that knew something of revolutions—he is questioned about his intentions. If he has already broken with convention, the Russian asks him, and freed himself from his attachment to his home, then why shouldn’t he take greater advantage of his newfound freedom? As the Russian tells him, “you have a right to leave it all behind, like the clippings of your hair, or the parings of your nails. Having once escaped, you have the world before you.” Smith, however, would have nothing of it. In fact, the Russian’s question makes him finally realize how terribly wrong it is for a man to run away from his wife: it is very dangerous, he concludes, because then “nobody can find him, and we all want to be found.” The Russian disagrees quite strongly with his, arguing that all the “most original modern thinkers”—Ibsen, Gorki, Nietzsche, and Shaw—“would all say rather that what we want most is to be lost…to break with the past and belong to the future.” This, clearly, is a fundamental philosophical claim that challenges the tenets of Christianity. In light of this, Smith’s journey takes on new layers of meaning, because he is testing the real value of Eden in our lives—a sacred, meaningful homeland. Is it really so, Chesterton asks, that it is in human nature to want to leave our homes, and become, as the Russian says, lost? Clearly, Chesterton believes it is not, and argues that the best way to prove it isn’t so is to leave home and find out.

Before leaving home, Innocent Smith was unable to feel a real connection with his family. Although he did honestly love his wife and children, “they seemed not only distant but unattainable… [and] I seemed like a cold ghost.” That is why he wanted to become a revolutionary: “to become a pilgrim to cure myself of being an exile.” And this revolution, unlike those of the French and the Russians, prevailed in the end. As he grew closer to England, he desired his family and his homeland more and more. As a result, he realized that “God has given us the love of special places, of a hearth and of a native land, for a good reason.” God gave us houses and gardens and families to love so that we would not be tempted to worship “eternity…the largest of the idols—the mightiest of the rivals of God.” Standing on a precipice in the Sierras, Innocent Smith finally realizes that the abyss of nothingness below him is the precise opposite of familiarity. We have homes, he concluded, so that we can “love one spot and serve it…so that this one spot might be a witness against all the infinities and the sophistries; that Paradise is somewhere and not anywhere; is something and not anything.” Having a home to come back to, Smith discovered, is a basic human desire, making up an essential part of who we are.

Of course, loving one’s family and home is not necessarily a Christian virtue. But oftentimes, Chesterton surmised, we all fail—believers and non-believers alike—to recognize the true value of what we have been given. Like Innocent Smith, we can love our families and our homes, yet not truly appreciate them. And the best way to cure this, Chesterton said, is to “leave” them—perhaps not by really traipsing around the globe, but at least by making a concerted effort to see them in a new light. All too often, we fail to appreciate what we have until we are in danger of losing it—the challenge, Chesterton says, is learning how to appreciate what we have before we lose it, whether to death or mere boredom: our homes, our families, our wives, our husbands, our friends, our children, and, indeed, our lives.

These weren’t Innocent Smith’s only bizarre actions. He broke into his own house, and was charged with burglary. He remarried his own wife on several occasions, and was accused of polygamy. Odd as these actions may be, you will by now have guessed why he did them—in order to truly appreciate what he already had, instead of futilely longing for what he did not need. And he did them, in a sense, to feel the joy of the Commandments of God: not to covet your neighbor’s goods, but your own goods; and not to covet your neighbor’s wife, but to instead love your own wife. By breaking into his own house and drinking his own cheap wine, he felt the thrill of having what he already had. And by pretending not to be married, he reminded himself that he was. And what a joy it is to be married, to have your own home, and your own goods, and to be alive ! Smith followed the Commandments in the most “innocent” way possible for anyone on earth.

Yet, even now, he may seem like something of a madman to you. He did, after all, destroy nearly all our preconceived notions of normalcy, imparting the surprise and excitement of vigorous life to what we are used to thinking of as boring old “creeds” and “rules.” But this, in fact, is the way that God should be followed—with exhilaration and a sense of joyful mystery. Modern life, all too often, has forgotten about exhilaration and mystery. Even those things (indeed, especially those things) that were once pursued as precious and sacred have been devalued, and now appear commonplace and pedestrian to our jaded and wearied eyes. We are left, finally, no longer appreciating what we have , but instead eternally longing for what we do not have, seeking to satisfy an unquenchable thirst in our souls. Paradoxically, Chesterton suggests, this is because we have lost our appreciation for what we have been given, thinking as we do that such “simple things” are too backwards and unsophisticated for we modern men and women. In this context, Chesterton would argue, “keeping the rules” can actually be wilder and altogether more adventurous than breaking them. It is precisely this that Chesterton, wearied of modern “sophistication,” tried in his own life, and it is because of this that he discovered the true joy of living, and, unexpectedly, the reality of God and the love of Christ. Chesterton discovered a Joy that permeated and filled the entire world; indeed, that was so deep and strong as to have come from another world altogether. As Innocent Smith declared, “You live by customs, but we by creeds. You are steadfast as the trees, because you do not believe. I am as fickle as the tempest because I do believe.” And this last paradox, Chesterton would have us believe—this fickle tempest-life brought about by the sheer joy of living—is, indeed, Christianity.

Jordan Teti ’08, Fiction and Poetry Editor, is a Government concentrator in Wigglesworth.

The Secret to Happiness Is Helping Others

• Jenny Santi

6 tips to living a life with purpose and meaning

There is a Chinese saying that goes: “If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody.” For centuries, the greatest thinkers have suggested the same thing: Happiness is found in helping others.

For it is in giving that we receive — Saint Francis of Assisi The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity — Leo Tolstoy We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give — Winston Churchill Making money is a happiness; making other people happy is a superhappiness — Nobel Peace Prize receipient Muhammad Yunus Giving back is as good for you as it is for those you are helping, because giving gives you purpose. When you have a purpose-driven life, you’re a happier person — Goldie Hawn

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

And so we learn early: It is better to give than to receive. The venerable aphorism is drummed into our heads from our first slice of a shared birthday cake. But is there a deeper truth behind the truism?

The resounding answer is yes. Scientific research provides compelling data to support the anecdotal evidence that giving is a powerful pathway to personal growth and lasting happiness. Through fMRI technology, we now know that giving activates the same parts of the brain that are stimulated by food and sex. Experiments show evidence that altruism is hardwired in the brain—and it’s pleasurable. Helping others may just be the secret to living a life that is not only happier but also healthier, wealthier, more productive, and meaningful.

But it’s important to remember that giving doesn’t always f eel great. The opposite could very well be true: Giving can make us feel depleted and taken advantage of. Here are some tips to that will help you give not until it hurts, but until it feels great:

1. Find your passion

Our passion should be the foundation for our giving. It is not how much we give, but how much love we put into giving. It’s only natural that we will care about this and not so much about that, and that’s OK. It should not be simply a matter of choosing the right thing, but also a matter of choosing what is right for us.

2. Give your time

The gift of time is often more valuable to the receiver and more satisfying for the giver than the gift of money. We don’t all have the same amount of money, but we all do have time on our hands, and can give some of this time to help others—whether that means we devote our lifetimes to service, or just give a few hours each day or a few days a year.

3. Give to organizations with transparent aims and results

According to Harvard scientist Michael Norton, “Giving to a cause that specifies what they’re going to do with your money leads to more happiness than giving to an umbrella cause where you’re not so sure where your money is going.”

4. Find ways to integrate your interests and skills with the needs of others

“Selfless giving, in the absence of self-preservation instincts, easily becomes overwhelming,” says Adam Grant, author of Give & Take . It is important to be “otherish,” which he defines as being willing to give more than you receive, but still keeping your own interests in sight.

5. Be proactive, not reactive

We have all felt the dread that comes from being cajoled into giving, such as when friends ask us to donate to their fundraisers. In these cases, we are more likely to give to avoid humiliation rather than out of generosity and concern. This type of giving doesn’t lead to a warm glow feeling; more likely it will lead to resentment. Instead we should set aside time, think about our options, and find the best charity for our values.

6. Don’t be guilt-tripped into giving

I don’t want to discourage people from giving to good causes just because that doesn’t always cheer us up. If we gave only to get something back each time we gave, what a dreadful, opportunistic world this would be! Yet if we are feeling guilt-tripped into giving, chances are we will not be very committed over time to the cause.

The key is to find the approach that fits us. When we do, then the more we give, the more we stand to gain purpose, meaning and happiness—all of the things that we look for in life but are so hard to find.

Jenny Santi is a philanthropy advisor and author of The Giving Way to Happiness: Stories & Science Behind the Life-Changing Power of Giving

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The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness Paperback – May 27, 2008

• Print length 288 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Harmony
• Publication date May 27, 2008
• Dimensions 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
• ISBN-10 0307347311
• ISBN-13 978-0307347312
• See all details

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About the author, excerpt. © reprinted by permission. all rights reserved., product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harmony; Reprint edition (May 27, 2008)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0307347311
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0307347312
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 7.2 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
• #31 in Buddhist Rituals & Practice (Books)
• #269 in Meditation (Books)
• #683 in Happiness Self-Help

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Yongey mingyur rinpoche.

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche is a much-loved and accomplished Tibetan Buddhist meditation teacher. With a rare ability to present the ancient wisdom of Tibet in a fresh, engaging manner, Rinpoche's profound teachings and playful sense of humor have endeared him to students around the world. His first book, "The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness," debuted on the New York Times bestseller list and has been translated into over twenty languages. In early June 2011, Mingyur Rinpoche walked out of his monastery in Bodhgaya, India and began a ‘wandering retreat’ through the Himalayas and the plains of India that lasted four and a half years. When not attending to the monasteries under his care in India and Nepal, Rinpoche spends time each year traveling and teaching worldwide. For more information about Mingyur Rinpoche's activities, see tergar.org.

Eric Swanson

I worked for about 15 years as an actor before I got tired of it (or it of me) and committed to writing. I haven't looked back, but I have looked sideways (a few years in marketing, a while in the press office at CBS News). When I adopted Tibetan Buddhism in 1995, everything changed. Slowly.

Drop by for a visit at ericswansonbooks.com.

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The Infrastructure of Joy

Will building delight into cities make them more cloying or more fun?

I’m not generally known as a happy person. I don’t think that’s because I’m unhappy, exactly, or because I’m a cynic or a naysayer, even though I have my moments . No, I think it’s because I’m allergic to the idea of happiness as anything but a shorthand for some vague and abstract notion of contentment. Being happy is great, but it’s also amorphous and lava-lampy. If you ask me whether I’m hungry, I’ve got a reliable heuristic for answering. If you ask me whether I’m happy, I’m most likely to think, What would it even mean to be happy?

The designer Ingrid Fetell Lee gave me a new tool to help me clarify those thoughts. “Happiness,” she explained yesterday at the Aspen Ideas Festival, which is co-hosted by the Aspen Institute and The Atlantic , “is a broad evaluation of how we feel about our lives over time.” That makes macroscopic evaluations of happiness difficult if not oppressive. How do you feel about your work, your family life, your health, and all the rest? Thinking about it is too much to bear, which only makes you feel less content.

To arrive at happiness, Lee suggests pursuing it from the bottom up, by finding (or creating) moments of joy. Unlike happiness, joy is momentary and small-scale: It comes from an intense, momentary feeling of positive emotion. In Lee’s view, that makes joy measurable, at least qualitatively. Something that makes you smile, or laugh, for example, like watching a dog play or feeling the texture of sand pass through your fingers. Joy is tiny but visceral, Lee said, the “little moments that make us feel more alive.” Over time, those small moments are what lead to happiness.

Joy often comes from encounters with people—pouring pancake batter with a young child, or feeling a lover’s fingertips skim your back as you enter a door. But as a designer focused mostly on the built environment, Lee started talking to people about the things that bring joy. To her surprise, some of the same examples came up again and again, no matter the gender, ethnicity, or age of her subjects: tree houses and hot-air balloons, rainbows and sprinkles, swimming pools and soap bubbles. She set out to understand the aesthetic motifs that those specimens of pleasure shared, and to develop them into design patterns that could be deployed in the world. Round things tend to bring joy more than angular ones, for example. Pops of color tend to elicit delight, as do symmetry and objects in multiple.

Read: The beauty-happiness connection

“If these are the things that bring us joy,” Lee asked, “then why are they missing from our world?” Offices are gray or beige. Schools look similarly dour, not to mention nursing homes and housing projects. Lee believes that adding design elements that seem to produce moments of joy—like color and pattern—can make people more productive and hopeful. At the Shinjuen nursing home in Japan, for example, the architect Emmanuelle Moureaux installed a colorful, bubbled mobile evocative of “green grass and soap bubbles floating in the park on sunny days,” just the kind of worldly things Lee says are almost universally joyful.

It’s hard not to feel good about the idea, especially since there’s some evidence that it works. For example, Lee pointed out that “people believe that their lost wallet will be returned to them more while standing in a rainbow crosswalk than a normal one,” underscoring the kinds of interventions she pursues in her design practice.

But I’m not sure I want to live in a world where color blocks and bubbles get slathered upon every surface. I like an occasional rainbow as much as anyone (really!), yet a city where one adorns every crosswalk sounds more cloying than joyful to me. When I raised that objection, Lee pointed out that the built environment has a long way to go before that’s a problem. “I don’t think we’re in any danger of having too many joyful spaces,” she told me. She also said that people tend to fear they will get tired of bold colors, but actually they’re much more likely to grow weary of drab ones .

As someone who wrote a book about applying play to ordinary life , I strongly empathize with Lee’s appeal to mundane objects and spaces, rather than remarkable events and encounters, as a site for intervention. Even so, I still worry that adornment can only go so far. The joy that one gets from helping a young child write her name, or the joy of timing an automobile’s gear shift to maximize acceleration out of a curve, has nothing to do with how those things look. It comes from operating or experiencing something in a new way, or in a familiar way again. That’s the sensation that I call fun.

Read: The three types of happiness

When I asked Lee about it, she agreed that function can be just as important to joy as appearance. She told me that she’s focused on the built environment, where surface interventions are more common, because “that’s where the biggest gap is, and it does have a profound influence.” I still worry about the obsession with visual appearances—and Lee admits that examples like rainbow-painted crosswalks play better with her audiences, who grok the idea of joy immediately when they see a picture.

At least seeking out or designing for joy offers an alternative from seeking out “happiness” as an abstract, holistic pursuit. We live life over time, but perhaps we are happy only in retrospect, as we reflect upon the effect of all the encounters we’ve had. That makes the little moments more important than the big ones, because they are happening all around us, all the time.

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10 Keys to Happier Living

Everyone's path to happiness is different. based on the latest research, we have identified 10 keys to happier living that consistently tend to make life happier and more fulfilling. together they spell great dream., you can explore them all below..

Do kind things for others

If you want to feel good, doing good is a great place to start..

Helping and being kind not only contributes to the happiness of others, it can also help us to feel happier ourselves! [1] Studies have shown that when we do kind things it can literally gives our brain a boost, activating its ‘reward centres’ [2] and that feels good. It can take our minds off our own worries too. 

Giving and kindness also help us feel connected to others which is important for our wellbeing and contributes to building stronger communities and a happier society for everyone. [3]

There are lots of different ways we can give and  help others .

Every act of kindness counts

From small acts like a friendly smile, a few kind words, helping with bags, or offering up our seat, through to regular volunteering - there are lots of different ways we can give or be kind. We can of course donate money to good causes if we are able to and we can give in lots of non-financial ways too, such as giving a moment of attention, some of our time, knowledge, ideas, energy or support, or even sometimes by giving people the benefit of the doubt, instead of instantly judging them. Acts of kindness add up for our own and others wellbeing and all contribute to creating happier communities. [4]

Reflection: What’s a small act of kindness you could do today?

Helping others can boost happiness in many ways

Scientific studies show that helping others can contribute to our happiness in different ways. These include: experiencing more positive emotions and satisfaction with life [5]; increasing our sense of meaning [6], and boosting our self-confidence. It can reduce stress and help us feel calmer too. [7] Some studies have found that people who volunteered regularly were found to be more hopeful and experience fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety and may even live longer. [8]  Not all acts of helping boost how happy we feel – to maximise the benefits, it’s important that we’ve chosen if or how we help; we can see or sense that it will have a positive impact; and it helps us feel more connected to others. [9]

So if you want to feel good, find ways you can do good! 

Reflection: When was a time that you chose to give or help others that boosted how happy you felt? What contributed to that?

Everyone needs kindness

Giving and being kind can help us feel more connected to others and contribute to nurturing our relationships - and that’s good for wellbeing all round! [10] Our acts of kindness might be for family, friends, colleagues, or neighbours or even strangers. They could be old or young, nearby or far away. It could be a one-off spontaneous gesture or something we do regularly. It could be a compassionate response in a time of crisis or need or simply because it’s a nice thing to do. There are always ways to be kind.

Reflection: Who have you been kind to recently? Who has been kind to you?

Create kindness ripples

Studies have shown that when we do something kind both the recipient and other people who witness that kind act are more likely to be kind themselves. [11] So our kindnesses are amplified, contributing to a happier world! Expressing gratitude for help others give us also ripples out too. [12]

Reflection: Who can you thank for what they give to you?

Ask for help when you need it

Think about it - if helping others boosts happiness, asking for help when we need it could give the person we ask the opportunity for a feel good boost. It can also mean they are then more likely to ask for help when they need it. Certainly communities where people feel they can rely on others to help are happier and more resilient. [13] Asking for help builds connection - so it isn’t only for when we are struggling. We can also ask for help to share experiences, when we’d value support, or when we want to learn something new. 

Reflection: What’s something you’d like help with? Who can you ask?

Balancing your own needs and those of others

Helping is associated with increased happiness and health, but feeling obligated or overly burdened by it can be detrimental, [14] as can be the case for long-term carers. If you are a carer, taking care of your own wellbeing matters – for yourself and the people you are helping. Even small actions that give you a quick break or a boost can help you sustain your physical and psychological health and so your ability to continue caring for others.

Reflection:  What is an action you can take to maintain your own wellbeing, to help you sustain caring for others?

Sustainable giving

As a general rule, we can be more effective, regular givers if we find ways to help that we enjoy, which are in line with our own strengths and feel worthwhile or meaningful. If we are happier givers, the recipients will likely benefit more, and we are more likely to continue to give. Choosing how we help and give to others, giving in ways that boost our sense of social connection and in which we feel effective and impactful all matter in order to sustain giving and helping others. [15] Happier people tend to help others more, so taking care of your own wellbeing helps you sustain giving too. [16]

Reflection: What ways of helping others do you enjoy or find energising?

1 Curry, O. S., Rowland, L. A., Van Lissa, C. J., Zlotowitz, S., McAlaney, J., & Whitehouse, H. (2018). Happy to help? A systematic review and meta-analysis of the effects of performing acts of kindness on the well-being of the actor. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 76, 320-329. Aknin, L. B., Dunn, E. W., &; Norton, M. I. (2012). Happiness runs in a circular motion: Evidence for a positive feedback loop between prosocial spending and happiness. Journal of Happiness Studies, 13(2), 347-355.

2 Harbaugh, W. T., Mayr, U., &; Burghart, D. R. (2007). Neural responses to taxation and voluntary giving reveal motives for charitable donations. Science, 316(5831), 1622-1625.

3 Aknin, L. B., Whillans, A. V., Norton, M. I., & Dunn, E. W. (2019). Happiness and prosocial behavior: An evaluation of the evidence. World Happiness Report 2019, 67-86. Okabe-Miyamoto, K., &; Lyubomirsky, S. (2021). Social connection and well-being during COVID-19. World Happiness Report, 131-152.

4 Aknin, L. B., Whillans, A. V., Norton, M. I., & Dunn, E. W. (2019). Happiness and prosocial behavior: An evaluation of the evidence. World Happiness Report 2019, 67-86. Okabe-Miyamoto, K., &; Lyubomirsky, S. (2021). Social connection and well-being during COVID-19. World Happiness Report, 131-152.

5 Aknin, L. B., & Whillans, A. V. (2021). Helping and happiness: A review and guide for public policy. Social Issues and Policy Review, 15(1), 3-34.

6 What Works Centre for Wellbeing Briefing Paper (2020) Volunteer wellbeing: what works and who benefits? https://whatworkswellbeing.org/resources/volunteer-wellbeing-what-works-and-who-benefits/

7 Luks, A. A. (1988). Helper's high. Psychology Today, 22(10), 39.; Piliavin, J. (2003). Doing well by doing good: Benefits for the benefactor. In C. M. Keyes, J. Haidt, C. M. Keyes, J. Haidt (Eds.) , Flourishing: Positive psychology and the life well-lived (pp. 227-247). Washington, DC US: American Psychological Association.

8 Aknin, L. B., Whillans, A. V., Norton, M. I., & Dunn, E. W. (2019). Happiness and prosocial behavior: An evaluation of the evidence. World Happiness Report 2019, 67-86. Curry, O. S., Rowland, L. A., Van Lissa, C. J., Zlotowitz, S., McAlaney, J., &; Whitehouse, H. (2018). Happy to help? A systematic review and meta-analysis of the effects of performing acts of kindness on the well-being of the actor. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 76, 320-329. King, V. (2016) 10 Keys to Happier Living – A Practical Guide for Happiness. Hachette. Lyubomirsky, S, Sheldon, K M, &; Schkade, D. (2005). Pursuing happiness: The architecture of sustainable change. Review of General Psychology, 9(2), 111 - 131

9 Aknin, L. B., & Whillans, A. V. (2021). Helping and happiness: A review and guide for public policy. Social Issues and Policy Review, 15(1), 3-34.; King, V. (2016) 10 Keys to Happier Living – A Practical Guide for Happiness. Hachette.

10 Aknin, L. B., & Whillans, A. V. (2021). Helping and happiness: A review and guide for public policy. Social Issues and Policy Review, 15(1), 3-34.; Helliwell, J. F., Aknin, L. B., Shiplett, H., Huang, H., & Wang, S. (2017). Social capital and prosocial behaviour as sources of well-being. National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 23761

11 Jung, H., Seo, E., Han, E., Henderson, M. D., and Patall, E. A. (2020). Prosocial modeling: A meta-analytic review and synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 146(8), 635

12 Algoe, S. B., Dwyer, P. C., Younge, A., &; Oveis, C. (2020). A new perspective on the social functions of emotions: Gratitude and the witnessing effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 119(1), 40.

13 Aknin, L. B., & Whillans, A. V. (2021). Helping and happiness: A review and guide for public policy. Social Issues and Policy Review, 15(1), 3-34.; Helliwell, J. F., Aknin, L. B., Shiplett, H., Huang, H., &; Wang, S. (2017). Social capital and prosocial behaviour as sources of well-being. National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 23761

14 Aknin, L. B., & Whillans, A. V. (2021). Helping and happiness: A review and guide for public policy. Social Issues and Policy Review, 15(1), 3-34

15 Aknin, L. B., & Whillans, A. V. (2021). Helping and happiness: A review and guide for public policy. Social Issues and Policy Review, 15(1), 3-34.; King, V. (2016) 10 Keys to Happier Living – A Practical Guide for Happiness. Hachette.

16 Aknin, L. B., Dunn, E. W., & Norton, M. I. (2012). Happiness runs in a circular motion: Evidence for a positive feedback loop between prosocial spending and happiness. Journal of Happiness Studies, 13(2), 347-355.

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No act of kindness no matter how small is ever wasted 

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Gratitude is like breathing in – letting ourselves be touched by the goodness in others and in our world. Generosity is like breathing out – sensing our mutual belonging and offering our care. 

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My Joy Is My Freedom

On the revolutionary act of choosing happiness as a Black, disabled woman.

Embracing my own joy now means that I didn’t always. Hope is my favorite word, but I didn’t always have it. Unfortunately, we live in a society that assumes joy is impossible for disabled people, associating disability only with sadness and shame. So my joy—the joy of professional and personal wins, of pop culture and books, of expressing platonic love out loud—is revolutionary in a body like mine. I say this without hyperbole, though fully aware that the thought may confuse, frighten, or anger people. As a Black woman with cerebral palsy, I know what it is like to encounter all three.

Last year, in 2019, I released my debut book, an essay collection called The Pretty One: On Life, Pop Culture, Disability, and Other Reasons to Fall in Love with Me . While the reception was overwhelmingly positive, I did receive e-mails and read reviews where readers were confused, frightened, or angry—and sometimes all three. But my book is about a journey to joy. My goal is for readers to leave my book hopeful for a future of inclusion, representation, equal rights, and joy. I wondered why this positive message would elicit such negative reactions, and I could come up with only one reason: These readers, both disabled and not, reacted defensively because they’re not centered in my story—because I’m calling for inclusion that decenters whiteness. This realization has only made me work harder, smarter, and with more eagerness to tell more of my own stories and to champion the stories of people of color—especially those of Black women, who aren’t truly and properly visible or respected in or outside of our communities.

The face of the disability community is very white. People don’t often think of people of color or of LGBTQ+ people when they think of us. Instead, they think of cis white male wheelchair users who hate themselves, because that is so often the way pop culture depicts us. I’m not a cis heterosexual white male wheelchair user, so in pop culture, I don’t exist. That’s not okay because it’s not reality. I exist, I am a real person behind these words, and I deserve to be seen.

"I live as unapologetically as I can each day—for myself, of course, but also for those…who will walk through the doors I hope to break down."

When I created #DisabledAndCute in 2017, I did so to capture a moment, a moment of trust in myself to keep choosing joy every single day. The hashtag was for me, first, and for my Black disabled joy. I wanted to celebrate how I finally felt that, in this Black and disabled body, I, too, deserved joy. The hashtag went viral and then global by the end of week two. When disabled people took to it to share their stories and journeys, I was floored and honored. There were naysayers who hated that I used the word cute and accused me of making inspiration porn, but the good responses outweighed the bad. So I live as unapologetically as I can each day—for myself, of course, but also for those who will come up after me, who will walk through the doors I hope to break down.

Living unapologetically looks like retweeting praise for my work or my book on Twitter. Calling out ableism, racism, and homophobia in marginalized communities through my writing. It means that I’ve literally stopped apologizing for the space I take up on stages or in airports—especially in airports, since I use their wheelchairs to get from gate to gate to avoid body pain—or anywhere else I exist. I’ve stopped saying sorry to the people around me as the airport attendant pushes me to my gate. I feel liberated.

I may not find joy every day. Some days will just be hard, and I will simply exist, and that’s okay, too. No one should have to be happy all the time—no one can be, with the ways in which life throws curveballs at us. On those days, it’s important not to mourn the lack of joy but to remember how it feels, to remember that to feel at all is one of the greatest gifts we have in life. When that doesn’t work, we can remind ourselves that the absence of joy isn’t permanent; it’s just the way life works sometimes. The reality of disability and joy means accepting that not every day is good but every day has openings for small pockets of joy. On the days I can’t get out of bed because my body pain is too great (a reality of my cerebral palsy), I write in the notes app on my phone or spend the day reading books or watching romantic comedies on the Hallmark Channel. These days and others that I carve out for self-care are necessary for my well-being.

Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century

For most of my life, hope, like joy, seemed to elude me—it felt impossible in a body like mine. I was once a very self-deprecating and angry person who scoffed at the idea of happiness and believed that I would die before I ever saw a day where I felt excited at the prospect of being alive. I realized I was wrong on a snowy day in 2016 just after Christmas, when I vowed to try to hold on to and nurture the feeling of joy, even if skeptically. I championed the act of effort and patience with myself by forcing myself to reroute negative thoughts with positive ones. Instead of saying what I hated about myself, I spoke aloud what I liked about myself.

In doing this, hope and joy became precious, sacred, a singular and collective journey. I shared my journey with the people who loved me before I ever thought I could. I shared my journey with the world because I wanted them all to know that who I am becoming is only possible because of who I was, and that is what makes it so beautiful. My joy is my freedom—it allows me to live my life as I see fit. I won’t leave this earth without the world knowing that I chose to live a life that made me happy, made me think, made me whole. I won’t leave this earth without the world knowing that I chose to live.

From Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century edited by Alice Wong, to be published on June 30, 2020 by Vintage Books, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Compilation copyright (c) 2019 by Alice Wong.

Keah Brown is a journalist and writer whose work can be found in Glamour , Marie Claire UK , Harper’s Bazaar , and Teen Vogue , among others. Her debut essay collection, The Pretty One , published in 2019, talks about her experiences as a young African American woman with cerebral palsy. You can learn more about her at keahbrown.com .

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THE JOY OF GIVING: The more you give of yourself, the more you find of yourself

We all know how great it feels to receive gifts. However, the joy of getting is short-lived. Our lives are richer when we share, and that great inner joy comes from helping others to better their lives.

Truly giving from the heart fills your life with joy and nourishes your soul. Giving provides an intrinsic reward that’s far more valuable than the gift. As Mahatma Gandhi said, “To find yourself, lose yourself in the service of others.”

Giving takes you out of yourself and allows you to expand beyond earthly limitations. True joy lies in the act of giving without an expectation of receiving something in return.

Academic research and thousands of years of human history confirm that achieving meaning, fulfillment, and happiness in life comes from making others happy, and not from being self-centred. Mother Teresa is a famous example. She found fulfillment in giving of herself to others. She helped change the expression on dying people’s faces from distress and fear to calmness and serenity. She made their undeniable pain a little easier to bear.

When people are asked why they give, the readiest answers include: God wants me to; I feel better about myself; others need, and I have; I want to share; it’s only right. The question I would ask is how did you feel? I imagine you felt very pleased with yourself and happy inside.

It has been my experience that when you’re focused on giving to others you’re less likely to become consumed by your own concerns and challenges. Giving provides an opportunity to look beyond our own world and see the bigger picture.

A great perspective can be achieved by stepping out of our own world and venturing into the world of other people. Your worries and challenges may not seem as significant when compared to other people’s situations.

The act of giving kindles self-esteem and brings happiness. Scientists have discovered that happiness is related to how much gratitude you show. After several years of soul searching, I discovered that my unhappiness was due to my want for things to fill the void of loneliness.

My search for inner happiness led me towards gratitude. During this process of self-realization, I also discovered “ The Purpose of Living.” Yes, I believe that giving thanks makes you happier. But don’t take my word for it—try it out for yourself.

The power of giving and the joy of helping others

Giving is one of the best investments you can make towards achieving genuine happiness. True giving comes from the heart, with no expectation of reciprocation. You’ll find that the more you give, the more you’ll receive.

The power of giving is manifested in the kindness and generosity that you bestow on someone else. When you give to another unselfishly, the vibrational energy emitting from your subconscious is at its strongest. The power of giving, according to neuroscience, is that it feels good.

A Chinese proverb says: “If you always give, you will always have.” A famous American author and management expert, Ken Blanchard, declared “The more I give away, the more comes back.”

If you find yourself feeling unhappy, try making someone else happy and see what happens. If you’re feeling empty and unfulfilled, try doing some meaningful and worthwhile work and see how you feel. The catch is that you must do this work with passion and enthusiasm.

There are many organizations, institutions and people who are engaged in exemplary works of giving. Narayanan Krishnan is a management graduate from Madurai, India who gave up his career as chef with a five-star hotel when he saw a man so hungry that he was feeding on his own excreta. From there on Krishnan started his noble initiative to feed thousands of destitute and homeless people in his state—free of cost.

Another example of giving is Sanjit “Bunker” Roy, founder of the Barefoot College . Since graduating from college in 1965, Mr. Roy has committed his life to serve the poor and to help rural communities become self-sufficient. The Barefoot College education program encourages learning-by-doing, such as training grandmothers from Africa and the Himalayan region to be solar engineers so they could bring electricity to their remote villages.

It’s the joy and love that we extend to others that brings true happiness or union with God. When we give, we reap the joy of seeing a bright smile, laughter, tears of joy and gratitude for life . We know that if people give just a little more—of their time, skills, knowledge, wisdom, compassion, wealth and love—the world would be a more peaceful and healthier place.

The rewards of giving are priceless. If you want to have happiness, you need to give happiness. If you want love, you need to give love. It is only in giving that you receive. No matter what your circumstances in life, you have the ability to give.

I encourage you to look for opportunities where you can give and help others. The gift of joy will come to you when you give of yourself to others. That’s what life is all about. Let’s practice and commit our lives to giving joy. Try it!  It works!

Recommended reading

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Rich with inspiring stories and practical suggestions, I Like Giving  helps you create a lifestyle of generosity. Written by Brad Formsma.  Learn more about the book»

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[su_note note_color=”#f2f2f2″ text_color=”#000000″ radius=”0″]Darshan Goswami has over 40 years of experience in the energy field. He is currently working as a Project Manager for Renewable Energy and Smart Grid projects at the United States Department of Energy (DOE) in Pittsburgh, PA, USA. Darshan is a registered Professional Electrical Engineer with a passion and commitment to promote, develop and deploy renewable energy resources and the hydrogen economy.[/su_note]

image: Carnie Lewis via Compfight cc ; image 2: Pixabay ; image 3: Pixabay

Pretty! This was a really wonderful article. Thanks for supplying these details.

Great submissions… It all boils down to love. Giving is work onto where it’s received. It’s easy to give off from what you love doing and it’s your foundation for a lifestyle of giving. God started it all by giving His only begotten which cost him everything yet free. This means He did not put a sale tag on Him, that whosoever believes must then buy with the prevailing currency. But gave all that He had to gain all of Himself in us. Love is a command so He has no option but to give His all for all without preference, to tribes, tongues, colour, race, people etc and this He had joy in… Thus when we want to be joyful in life we must first see Love as a command to do to live, as our lives depended on it, then all of its variables fall under it in our obedience to do

Thanks for so much explanation!!! Would like u to add some examples so that they can be used in daily life

A great article. Very inspiring.

Can you give main points to me i have to give a speech on it and its impossible to learn all this.

Dear Darshan Goswami, Thank you for the article, in general very inspiring. I just have one recommendation regarding Mother Teresa example. There is a book and also a BBC documentary that doesn?t agree with your comments about her. Please, review Aroup Chatterjee?s book 2003, indian doctor that investigated her and her homes. Also . the 1994 program presented by writer and journalist Christopher Hitchens, “Hell’s Angel: Madre Teresa”. Best regards. JA

Hitchins had to defame Mother Teresa. She was an obstacle to his understanding, and he could not rest satisfied until he tried to destroy her reputation.

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The Joy of Solitude

Loneliness as a subjective state of mind..

Posted November 5, 2017 | Reviewed by Kaja Perina

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[Article revised on 24 April 2020.]

According to a recent study, many people prefer to give themselves a mild electric shock than to sit in a room alone with their own thoughts.

Loneliness can be defined as a complex and unpleasant emotional response to isolation or lack of companionship. The pain of loneliness is such that, throughout history, solitary confinement has been used as a form of torture and punishment .

More than just painful, loneliness is also damaging. Lonely people eat and drink more, and exercise and sleep less. They are at higher risk of developing psychological problems such as depression , psychosis , and addiction , as well as physical problems such as infection, cancer, and cardiovascular disease.

Loneliness has been described as ‘social pain’. Just as physical pain has evolved to signal injury and prevent further injury, so loneliness may have evolved to signal social isolation and stimulate us to seek out social bonds. Human beings are profoundly social animals and depend on their social group for sustenance and protection, and also for identity , narrative, and meaning. Historically and still today, to be alone is to be in mortal danger of losing oneself.

The infant is especially vulnerable and dependent, and loneliness brings back (or at least evokes) early fears of helplessness and abandonment.

In later life, loneliness can be precipitated by breakup, divorce , death, or the sudden loss or undermining of any important long-term relationship. To make matters worse, losing someone close often entails losing that person’s entire social circle.

Loneliness can also result from disruptive life events such as moving schools, changing jobs, immigrating, getting married, or giving birth; from social problems such as racism and bullying ; from psychological states such as shyness , agoraphobia, or depression; and from physical problems that restrict mobility or require special care.

Loneliness is a particular problem of modernity. One US study found that between 1985 and 2004, the proportion of people reporting having no one to confide in almost tripled. In 1985, respondents most frequently reported having three close confidants; by 2004, the modal response had fallen to nought close confidants.

Although it affects all segments of society, loneliness is most prevalent and protracted in the elderly population. According to a poll carried out in 2017 for the Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness, three-quarters of older people in the UK are lonely. Shockingly, two-fifths of respondents agreed with the statement, ‘sometimes an entire day goes by and I haven’t spoken to anybody.’

Some of the factors behind these stark statistics include: smaller household sizes, greater migration, rising self-employment, higher media consumption, and longer life expectancy.

Large conglomerations built on productivity and consumption at the expense of connection and contemplation can feel profoundly alienating. Aside from being intrinsically isolating, long commutes can undermine community cohesion and compromise time and opportunities for socializing.

The Internet has become the great comforter and seems to offer it all: news, knowledge, music, entertainment, shopping, relationships, and even sex . But over time, it foments envy and division, confuses our needs and priorities, desensitizes us to violence and suffering, and, by creating a false sense of connectedness, entrenches superficial relationships at the cost of living ones.

Man has evolved over millennia into one of the most social and interconnected of all animals. Suddenly, he finds himself apart and alone, not on a mountaintop, in a desert, or on a raft at sea, but in a city of millions, in reach but out of touch. For the first time in human history, he has no practical need, and therefore no pretext, to interact and form attachments with his fellow men and women.

Against nature, there are a few people who actively choose to remove themselves from the rest of society, or, at least, not to actively seek out social interaction. Such ‘loners’ (the very term is pejorative, implying, as it does, abnormality and deviousness) may revel in their rich inner life or simply dislike or distrust the company of others, which, they feel, comes with more costs than benefits.

Timon of Athens, who lived at around the same time as Plato, began life in wealth, lavishing money upon his flattering friends, and, in accordance with his conception of friendship , never expecting anything in return. When he ran out of coin, all his friends deserted him, reducing him to the hard toil of labouring the fields. One day, as Timon tilled the earth, he uncovered a pot of gold, and, suddenly, all his old friends came piling back. But rather than welcome them with open arms, he cursed them and drove them away with sticks and clods of earth. Timon declared his hatred of humankind and withdrew into the forest, where, much to his chagrin, people began to seek him out as some kind of holy man.

Did Timon feel lonely in the forest? Probably not, because he did not believe he lacked for anything. As he no longer valued his friends or their companionship, he could not have desired or missed them—even though he may have pined for a better class of person, and, in that limited sense, felt lonely.

As I argue in my new book, Heaven and Hell: The Psychology of the Emotions , loneliness is not so much an objective state of affairs as a subjective state of mind, a function of desired and achieved levels of social interaction and also of type or types of interaction.

Lovers often feel lonely in the single absence of their beloved, even when completely surrounded by friends and family. Jilted lovers feel much lonelier than lovers who are merely apart from their beloved, indicating that loneliness is not merely a matter of the amount or degree of interaction, but also of the potential or possibility for interaction.

Conversely, it is common to feel lonely within a marriage because the relationship is no longer validating or nurturing us, but diminishing us and holding us back. As Chekov admonished, ‘If you are afraid of loneliness, do not marry’.

And yet for many people marriage is, among others, an attempt to flee from their lifelong loneliness and escape from their inescapable demons.

At the bottom, loneliness is not the experience of lacking but the experience of living. It is part and parcel of the human condition. Unless a person is resolved, it can only be a matter of time before the feeling of loneliness resurfaces, often with a vengeance.

On this account, loneliness is the manifestation of the conflict between our desire for meaning and the absence of meaning from the universe, an absence that is all the more glaring in modern societies which have sacrificed traditional and religious structures of meaning on the thin altar of truth.

So much explains why people with a strong sense of purpose and meaning, or simply with a strong narrative, such as Nelson Mandela or St Anthony of the Desert, are protected from loneliness regardless of the circumstances in which they find themselves.

St Anthony sought out loneliness precisely because he understood that it could bring him closer to the real questions and value of life. He spent fifteen years in a tomb and twenty years in an abandoned fort in the desert of Egypt before his devotees persuaded him to withdraw from his seclusion to instruct and organize them, whence his epithet, ‘Father of All Monks’ (‘monk’ and ‘monastery’ derive from the Greek, monos, ‘solitary’, ‘alone’). Anthony emerged from the fort not ill and emaciated, as everyone had been expecting, but healthy and radiant, and expired in his hundred and sixth year, which in the fourth century must in itself have counted as a minor miracle.

St Anthony did not lead a life of loneliness, but one of solitude. Loneliness, the pain of being alone, is damaging; solitude, the joy of being alone, is empowering.

Our unconscious requires solitude to process and unravel problems, so much so that our body imposes it upon us each night in the form of sleep. By removing us from the constraints, distractions, and influences imposed upon us by others, solitude frees us to reconnect with ourselves, assimilate ideas, and generate identity and meaning.

For Nietzsche, men without the aptitude or opportunity for solitude are mere slaves because they have no alternative but to parrot culture and society. In contrast, anyone who has unmasked society naturally seeks out solitude, which becomes the source and guarantor of a more authentic set of values and ambitions:

I go into solitude so as not to drink out of everybody’s cistern. When I am among the many I live as the many do, and I do not think I really think. After a time it always seems as if they want to banish my self from myself and rob me of my soul.

Solitude removes us from the mindless humdrum of everyday life into a higher consciousness which reconnects us with our deepest humanity, and also with the natural world, which quickens into our muse and companion. By setting aside dependent emotions and constricting compromises, we free ourselves up for problem solving, creativity , and spirituality . If we can embrace it, this opportunity to adjust and refine our perspectives creates the strength and security for still greater solitude and, in time, the substance and meaning that guards against loneliness.

The life of St Anthony can leave the impression that solitude is at odds with attachment , but this need not be the case so long as the one is not pitted against the other. For the poet RM Rilke, the highest task of a bond between two people is not merely to tolerate but to ‘stand guard over’ the solitude of the other.

In Solitude: A Return to the Self (1988), the psychiatrist Anthony Storr convincingly argues that:

The happiest lives are probably those in which neither interpersonal relationships nor impersonal interests are idealized as the only way to salvation. The desire and pursuit of the whole must comprehend both aspects of human nature.

Be this as it may, not everyone is capable of solitude, and for many people aloneness will never amount to anything more than bitter loneliness. Younger people often find aloneness difficult, while older people are more likely, or less unlikely, to seek it out.

So much suggests that solitude, the joy of being alone, stems from, as well as promotes, a state of maturity and inner richness.

Wilson T (2014): Just think: The challenges of the disengaged mind. Science 345(6192), 75–77.

Siddique H (2017): Three-quarters of older people in the UK are lonely, survey finds. Theguardian.com, 21 March 2017.

DePaulo B (2016): What no one ever told you about people who are single. Plenary address to the APA, 5 August 2016.

Chekov A (1921): Note-Book of Anton Chekhov. Trans. SS Koteliansky & Leonard Woolf.

Nietzsche F (1886): Beyond Good and Evil 2, 49. Trans. Helen Zimmern.

Nietzsche F (1881): The Dawn of Day, 491. Trans. John McFarland Kennedy.

Rilke RM (1902): Letter to Paula Modersohn-Becker, dated 12 February 1902. Trans. Jane Bannard Greene & MD Herter Norton.

Storr A (1988): Solitude, p. 202. Flamingo.

Neel Burton, M.D. , is a psychiatrist, philosopher, and writer who lives and teaches in Oxford, England.

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Joy of Being in the Lap of Nature Essay

Joy of Being in the Lap of Nature Essay – The joy of living in the lap of nature is a feeling that is difficult to describe, but when you experience it, you will understand what we mean.

  Recently I spent a week in the rural setting near Cochin which is in the state of Kerala. I had gone there at the invitation of one of my acquaintances. It was a tiny village near the seashore. Living here was a unique experience for me. It was like living in the lap of nature. The rural setting of this place had a charm of its own. The tall palm trees growing all around, the pleasant breeze coming from the sea, the fishermen singing joyfully while going to the sea, the village children building castles in the sand, the rising of the sun in the morning , and it’s going down in the seas in the west — all these scenes and sights had a charm of their own. The speed and dexterity with which the coconut-pickers would go up a palm tree was a sight to watch. Nature everywhere seemed to be at her best. Life here seemed to go at a leisurely pace. There was no trace of any hurry or worry on any face. There was joy everywhere and I drank of it to my heart’s content. These beautiful sights of nature gave me joy not only during the days of my stay among them but also gave a store of joy for future use. Now I can draw from this store whenever I sit alone and think of those pleasing sights.

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Beauties of nature.

 Nature is a treasure house of beauties of varied varieties. It is often said that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. That may be as it is, but, in reality, the irresistible sights and sounds of nature cannot be said to be just a matter concerning the beholder. There can be hardly a person who will not like to see colourful, sweet-smelling flowers, mountain Peaks covered with snow, sailing clouds, sea waves lashing the shores and so on. It seems God has created this universe with great affection and an equal amount of deftness. The inimitable intricate designs just on a leaf of a tree such as the pipal can speak volumes of beauty of nature and sincerity and caliber of God. If we go to any garden, we can see multifarious facets of beauties of nature. We can see their flowers of different colours and variety. We can see colourful birds humming and chirping in the trees. We can see colourful, sprightly fishes and water animals there if there is an aquarium or a pond. If we visit the place early in the morning, we can see iridescent dew-drops on blades of grass. In case, we happen to go there at dawn, we can witness the charming beauty of the sun-rise. Anybody, even the poorest, can enjoy the most alluring sights of the sun-rise, the moon and the stars. Nature has given us eyes to feast on the sights of hills, mountains, glaciers, lakes, cataracts, seas, oceans, clouds, stars, trees, flowers, birds, animals, rivers and so on. If we do not look at the beauties of nature or cannot enjoy them, the fault lies with us It can simply bespeak our crass materialism, philistinism and money-mindedness.

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People Also Ask:

1.Why should we love nature essay? Ans: We should love nature because it provides us with a lot of benefits. For example, nature provides us with food, shelter, and energy. It also helps us to protect the environment.

2. What is the importance of nature essay? Ans: The importance of nature essay is the need to understand and appreciate the natural world and to identify the relationships between humans and the natural world.

3. What is the importance of nature in human life? Ans: The importance of nature in human life is necessary for two reasons. First, without nature humans would not have the necessary elements for survival including water, air and food. Second, without a connection to nature humans would lose touch with their emotions and spirits.

4. How do you write a short note for nature? Ans: Nature is the embodiment of everything that is essential and everlasting. It sustains us and provides us with everything we need to live. From its simplest forms to the most complex systems, nature always manages to surprise us in ways we never imagined.

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The Joy of Living for Today

I am sober by the SA sobriety definition eight years now, by the grace of a Higher Power. I like the number eight because it reminds me of the infinity sign. And even though I’m still learning to live within the day, the program offers me endless hope, day by day.

One of the texts of our literature warns us that the path will not be easy, and it is true. However, the easiest thing in my recovery was to start writing the Steps as per the book, Step into Action . From the very start, I believed in the solution and plunged into the recovery process under the sensitive and specific guidance of my sponsor, and based on our SA literature.

As there are no face-to-face SA meetings in my region, I tried to plan my days in such a way as to visit as many online groups as possible, and made certain I shared whenever the opportunity came. SA provided me with many opportunities to share and so it was deeply fulfilling for me to become part of the global fellowship and participate in all SA events, such as: online conventions in different countries, online round tables—the purpose of which was to carry our message to doctors and psychologists.

One especially enjoyable activity in becoming part of the fellowship was participation in the ESSAY Recovery Game , where positive recovery tools are practiced on a daily basis and recovery habits formed. I have always been inspired by the testimonies of those who have embraced the program, to hear how their lives have changed so much.

When I first worked on the shortcomings of my character, I hoped afterwards that life would conform to my will and become non-stop wonderful. But no sooner had I completed all 12 Steps with my sponsor’s congratulations, than a series of trials befell me. Again I had to look at my anger in particular; how very angry I am! However I did not lose hope and continued to hand my life and my will over to the care of God. I also needed to take action about my anger so that it wouldn’t kill me.

The Step 4 prayer about getting rid of anger became my sigh and exhale. Gradually, I became free of my hatred towards those who caused my heartache. And then I felt fear for my life because increasingly I felt value and respect for my life. I was so glad to feel this because before then, I hated my life and just changed one addiction for another, always devaluing the gift of life, never seeing any meaning in it if there could be no euphoric pleasure involved.

Before the program, I always asked God to spare me from pain and from suffering; to whisk me away to heaven so I would only feel good things. Today, I acknowledge pain and emotions and hand them over to God in case they overwhelm me. I must deal with my emotions. I know, from personal experience, how sick I can become—even physically—when I suppress my emotions with addictive thinking and behavior.

The most important thing I ask of God today is for peace of mind and to hold in my heart as much of His love as I can. Today I also pray for the courage to live life on life’s terms; to stay the course through whatever pain comes my way so that I can develop my character with the wisdom that God provides to all who ask Him for it.

Olga S., Alchevsk, Ukraine

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38 Simple Joys of Life (And How to Recognize Them in Your Own Life)

Created On: October 22   |   Updated: March 20   |   Leave a comment

The simple joys of life are often overlooked in today’s fast-paced world, but they’re so important for your happiness! Here are 38 examples of the simple pleasures of life and tips for recognizing small joys in your own life.

I’m pretty much ALWAYS happy. Like 99.99% of the time. I exude positivity, probably to the point that it’s sickening to some. But life is all about your attitude and what you make of your hardships and difficult days.

I often get asked, “ How are you so happy all the time? “, because I always have a smile on my face and it’s rare to find me in a bad mood. I learned a long time ago to “ not sweat the small stuff “.

Being stress free is about enjoying the simple joys of life and counting those small moments as blessings. But in a fast paced world where everyone seems to be trying to outpace each other, it’s easy to forget about those small things.

Life’s little joys often get pushed to the side in pursuit of a newer car, a better job, or a bigger house.

If you can learn to recognize the joys of life, the seemingly small and insignificant things that you may not normally notice, then you’ll be more content. Here are some examples of simple joys in life and tips for how to slow down and recognize these important moments in your own life…

What do you mean by the “joys of life”?

So what exactly do I mean by the “ joys of life “?

Life’s simple joys are often things that can’t be bought, but also things that you would pay BIG money for… ironic, I know!

And they’re often intangibles like feelings, or things relating to the five senses. For instance, the feeling that you get when you walk through the front door of your Mom’s house and smell her famous meatloaf baking in the oven. Or the smell of your husband’s cologne on his dirty shirt as you throw it in the wash.

If I had to write up a joys of life definition , I would probably write:

The joys of life are simply small instances that can remind you of a certain happy memory or make you feel a sense of calm, peace, or happiness. They can remind you of how fortunate you are to be alive, and recognizing those joys can cause you to pause in wonder or gratefulness. The Savvy Sparrow

Overall, life’s simple joys can cause you to feel a little less stress, if only for a moment.

And as the self-proclaimed “stress management extraordinaire”, I can confidently say that recognizing the small joys of life and counting them as blessings has helped me to become so.

38 Examples of Simple Joys of Life

Here are some examples of life’s little joys :

• Feeling the sun on your face as you take a walk around the neighborhood and enjoy some fresh air
• How you feel instantly energized when your favorite song comes on the radio
• The sound of your pre-teen daughter singing her favorite song at the top of her lungs (and absolutely butchering it!)
• The feel of freshly washed sheets when you climb into bed
• Having freshly shaved legs AND freshly washed sheets on the same night… Is there really anything better?
• Taking the first sip of a perfectly made cup of coffee
• The perfect fit of your favorite pair of jeans
• The smell of your daughter’s hair when she first gets out of the shower
• Putting on a shirt right out of the dryer in the winter
• When your favorite bakery has your favorite flavor of cupcake
• A surprise card from your husband, and it’s not even your birthday
• The smell of fresh cut grass
• Cutting into the perfect piece of watermelon
• Hugging your spouse for a solid 60 seconds… sounds corny, but it’s the best!
• Waking up to a good hair day
• A sweet text from your spouse , just because
• Finding a ten dollar bill in your jacket pocket
• That first bite of your favorite meal
• Snuggling in bed with your husband on a Sunday morning
• Getting to take an uninterrupted bubble bath
• Listening to a rain storm
• Taking your kids out for ice cream
• Eating dessert in bed
• Accomplishing a big goal
• Having your child crawl into bed with you to cuddle
• The worship band playing your favorite song at church
• Getting to take an afternoon nap with your husband
• Feeling proud as you watch your child accept an award at school or kick the game-winning goal
• Blasting your favorite song while you drive with the windows down on a sunny day
• Watching a movie and eating pizza in bed on a Saturday night – One of my personal favorite joys of life!
• Getting an hour alone at Target!
• Seeing a beautiful sunset on your drive home from work
• Sleeping in on a Saturday morning
• Getting a few hours of alone time at home in the middle of the day… This is a big joy for us Moms!
• Doing something nice for someone else
• Finally getting a giant cleaning task done… like organizing all of your paper clutter or cleaning out your pantry
• Simply making it through another work week!
• Getting to catch up with friends that you haven’t seen in a while

How to Recognize the Simple Joys in Your Own Life

Recognizing life’s simple joys can be difficult, especially when you have bills to pay, toilets to clean, and toddler tantrums to tame. But here are some tips to make it easier to slow down and “enjoy the little things”:

Start a Gratitude Journal

A gratitude journal is simply a place for you to record different things in your life that you’re grateful for, and the act of writing in the journal forces you to focus on what you do have, instead of what you don’t have.

Not only does writing in a gratitude journal help you recognize the small joys in life, but it also has a multitude of health benefits, like improving quality of sleep and eating habits, and lowering stress levels.

You can read more about how to start a gratitude journal and get some daily journal prompts!

Write Down One Simple Joy of Life Everyday

If you don’t want to commit to an entire journal, then just challenge yourself to write one short sentence each day… heck, it doesn’t even have to be a full sentence! When you notice yourself enjoying something small during the day, jot it down on a slip of paper or in the Notes app on your phone.

Just that simple, spur of the moment act can help you to slow down and truly appreciate the little things in life that you normally don’t give a second thought.

Beware of Social Media

I use social media for two main reasons: 1) to stay current on important work-related information and 2) to look up local garage sales and random household items for sale in the local buy/sell groups.

I rarely post personal photos or memes. And I don’t really respond to friend requests or comment on others’ posts. ( Sorry if you’ve sent me a friend request… I’m sure it’s still sitting in my notifications! ).

Yes, they can connect us with friends and family that we haven’t seen in a while, but social media newsfeeds also have a way of making us feel inadequate… and that’s a joy-killer! Plus, if you’re always fixated on your cell phone, you’ll miss the small everyday joys around you.

Make Time for the Joys of Life

If you’re constantly busy carting your kids from place to place, fretting about the housework, or taking on yet another obligation that you simply don’t have time for, then you won’t have time to stop and smell the roses, so to speak.

Don’t be afraid to say “no” to volunteering for another PTA event or hosting a big family gathering. In fact, I think that’s why I’m so happy all the dang time… because I’m not afraid to decline invitations and requests in pursuit of more free time.

Take a Photo Each Day of Something That Makes You Joyful

Accomplishing anything in life requires intention.

And the same goes for being happier and experiencing more joy and less stress. You have to be intentional about looking for those simple moments or feelings.

A great way to do that is to use your phone (since you probably have it with you 24/7 anyway!). Simply try to snap a picture each day of something that gives you a sense of joy or peace. Something that you normally wouldn’t give a second thought. It could be a picture of your morning coffee or the fresh blooms on the peonies in your front garden.

You could even make all of your photos in to a monthly or yearly photo book to remind you of all of the things in life that you’re grateful for. And then on bad days, you have a visual representation of joy to flip through.

Write Joyful Quotes in Your Planner

Instead of just using your planner for keeping track of 32,000 appointments and a mile long to do list, why not add in some inspirational quotes to remind you to slow down! I LOVE writing a few inspirational quotes in my planner each week as a fun pick-me-up.

Here are some quotes about being joyful that you can jot down!

Clear Your Brain to Make Way for Simple Joys

Okay, yes… I admit that sounds a little “hippy dippy” and you may be thinking “But Amy, I’m too busy juggling ALL the household management tasks to clear my brain”.

But if you’re constantly stressed and trying to run through your mental to do list, when do you have time for joy?

One awesome way to alleviate mental stress and to be able to stop thinking about everything so dang much is to do a brain dump. It may sound gross, but a brain dump is a great way to get all of your thoughts and to-do’s out of your head so that you can have a clearer mind.

You can read all about how to do a brain dump and grab some f ree printable brain dump worksheets here!

What are some of the simple joys of life that you’ve experienced lately? Is there a specific smell or sound that makes you pause for a moment in wonder? I’d LOVE to hear about it!

Leave me a comment down below and I may include it on my list!

Created by Amy

Amy is a busy working Mom of two girls, and she has been happily married to her high school sweetheart for almost 20 years. Amy has created hundreds of printables and other resources to help women manage their household and thrive in their family relationships. Whether you need a template to help track your monthly bills, an easy teacher gift idea, or conversation starters to connect with your husband, Amy has designed a resource to help you!

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The Joy of Living a Christ-Centered Life

By Elder Richard J. Maynes

Of the Presidency of the Seventy

Our lives must be centered with exactness in Christ if we are to find true joy and peace in this life.

The world in which we live is putting great pressure on good people everywhere to lower or even abandon their standards of righteous living. However, despite the evils and temptations that surround us each day, we can and will find true joy today in living a Christ-centered life.

Centering our lives in Jesus Christ and His gospel will bring stability and happiness to our lives, as the following examples illustrate.

Elder Taiichi Aoba of the Seventy, who resides in a small mountain village in Shikoku, Japan, was asked to teach a class at a youth conference. “Stand Ye in Holy Places” was selected as the theme of the conference. After considering the theme and what to teach, Elder Aoba decided to use his vocation as a teaching tool. His work is making pottery.

Elder Aoba relates that his classroom of youth really sprang to life when they saw how he was able to almost magically transform the shape of the clay in his hands to plates, bowls, and cups. After his demonstration, he asked them if any of them would like to give it a try. They all raised their hands.

Elder Aoba had several of the youth come forward to try out their new interest. They assumed, after watching him, that this would be quite simple. However, none of them were successful in their attempts to make even a simple bowl. They proclaimed: “I can’t do this!” “Why is this so hard?” “This is so difficult.” These comments took place as the clay flew all around the room.

He asked the youth why they were having such difficulty making pottery. They responded with various answers: “I don’t have any experience,” “I have never been trained,” or “I have no talent.” Based on the result, what they said was all true; however, the most important reason for their failure was due to the clay not being centered on the wheel. The youth thought that they had placed the clay in the center, but from a professional’s perspective, it wasn’t in the exact center. He then told them, “Let’s try this one more time.”

This time, Elder Aoba placed the clay in the exact center of the wheel and then started to turn the wheel, making a hole in the middle of the clay. Several of the youth tried again. This time everyone started clapping when they said: “Wow, it’s not shaking,” “I can do this,” or “I did it!” Of course, the shapes weren’t perfect, but the outcome was totally different from the first attempt. The reason for their success was because the clay was perfectly centered on the wheel.

The world in which we live is similar to the potter’s spinning wheel, and the speed of that wheel is increasing. Like the clay on the potter’s wheel, we must be centered as well. Our core, the center of our lives, must be Jesus Christ and His gospel. Living a Christ-centered life means we learn about Jesus Christ and His gospel and then we follow His example and keep His commandments with exactness.

The ancient prophet Isaiah stated, “But now, O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.” 1

If our lives are centered in Jesus Christ, He can successfully mold us into who we need to be in order to return to His and Heavenly Father’s presence in the celestial kingdom. The joy we experience in this life will be in direct proportion to how well our lives are centered on the teachings, example, and atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Brothers and sisters, I was born into a multigenerational Latter-day Saint family, so the blessings and joy of having the gospel of Jesus Christ as the basis of our family culture was woven into our everyday life. It wasn’t until my full-time mission as a young man that I realized the incredibly positive impact the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ has on those who have never previously experienced its blessings in their lives. This verse in Matthew reflects the process that people who are converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ experience: “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” 2

Let me share with you an example from the Book of Mormon that illustrates what one convert was willing to pay in order to receive the joy associated with finding the treasure spoken of by Jesus in the parable of the treasure hidden in the field.

Remember in the book of Alma chapter 20 , Ammon and Lamoni were traveling to the city of Middoni for the purpose of finding and delivering Ammon’s brother Aaron out of prison. During their journey they encountered Lamoni’s father, who was the Lamanite king over all the land.

The king was very upset that his son Lamoni was traveling with Ammon, a Nephite missionary, whom he considered an enemy. He felt that his son should have attended a great feast he had sponsored for his sons and his people. The Lamanite king was so upset that he commanded his son Lamoni to slay Ammon with his sword. When Lamoni refused, the king drew his own sword to slay his son for disobedience; however, Ammon interceded to save Lamoni’s life. He ultimately overpowered the king and could have killed him.

This is what the king said to Ammon after finding himself in this life-and-death situation: “If thou wilt spare me I will grant unto thee whatsoever thou wilt ask, even to half of the kingdom.” 3

So the king was willing to pay the price of one-half his kingdom in order to spare his own life. The king must have been astonished when Ammon requested only that he release his brother Aaron and his associates from prison and that the king’s son Lamoni retain his kingdom.

Later on, due to this encounter, Ammon’s brother Aaron was released from the Middoni prison. After his release he was inspired to travel to where the Lamanite king ruled over the land. Aaron was introduced to the king and had the privilege of teaching him the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ, including the great plan of redemption. The teachings of Aaron inspired the king deeply.

The king’s response to Aaron’s teachings is found in verse 15 of Alma chapter 22: “And it came to pass that after Aaron had expounded these things unto him, the king said: What shall I do that I may have this eternal life of which thou hast spoken? Yea, what shall I do that I may be born of God, having this wicked spirit rooted out of my breast, and receive his Spirit, that I may be filled with joy, that I may not be cast off at the last day? Behold, said he, I will give up all that I possess, yea, I will forsake my kingdom, that I may receive this great joy.”

Amazingly enough, in contrast to giving up one-half his kingdom to spare his life, the Lamanite king was now willing to give up his entire kingdom that he might receive the joy that comes from understanding, accepting, and living the gospel of Jesus Christ.

My wife, Nancy, is also a convert to the Church. She has mentioned to me many times over the years the joy she has felt in her life since finding, accepting, and living the gospel of Jesus Christ. What follows is a reflection from Sister Maynes on her experience:

“As a young adult in my early 20s, I was at a point in my life when I knew I needed to change something in order to be a happier person. I felt like I was adrift with no real purpose and direction, and I didn’t know where to go to find it. I had always known that Heavenly Father existed and occasionally throughout my life had said prayers, feeling that He listened.

“As I began my search, I attended several different churches but would always fall back into the same feelings and discouragement. I feel very blessed because my prayer for direction and purpose in life was ultimately answered, and the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ was brought into my life. For the first time I felt like I had a purpose, and the plan of happiness brought real joy into my life.”

Another experience from the Book of Mormon clearly illustrates how living a Christ-centered life can fill us with great happiness even when we are surrounded with incredible hardships.

After the prophet Lehi and his family left Jerusalem in 600 b.c., they wandered approximately eight years in the wilderness until they finally arrived in a land they called Bountiful, which was near the seashore. Nephi describes their life of tribulation in the wilderness this way: “We had suffered many afflictions and much difficulty, … even so much that we cannot write them all.” 4

While living in Bountiful, Nephi was charged by the Lord with the responsibility to build the ship which would take them across the sea to the promised land. After they arrived in the promised land, great conflicts continued to arise between the people who centered their lives in Christ and the nonbelievers, who followed the examples of Laman and Lemuel. Ultimately, the risk of violence between the two groups was so great that Nephi and those who followed the teachings of the Lord separated themselves and fled into the wilderness for safety. At this point in time, some 30 years after Lehi and his family left Jerusalem, Nephi makes a well-documented and somewhat surprising statement, especially after recording in the scriptures the many afflictions and tribulations they had faced for so long. These are his words: “And it came to pass that we [did live] after the manner of happiness.” 5 Despite their hardships, they were able to live after the manner of happiness because they were centered in Christ and His gospel.

Brothers and sisters, like the clay on the potter’s wheel, our lives must be centered with exactness in Christ if we are to find true joy and peace in this life. The examples of the Lamanite king; my wife, Nancy; and the Nephite people all support this true principle.

I bear you my witness today that we too can find that peace, that happiness, that true joy if we choose to live Christ-centered lives, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

‘The View’ Hosts Say Trump Is ‘Triggered’ by Taylor Swift

Don’t Miss Any Co-host Chaos

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It was Sara Haines ‘ birthday on Wednesday’s (September 18) episode of  The View , but after a bit of celebration (including walking out to Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” as a nod to her coffee habit), they got right to work discussing the day’s “Hot Topics.”

First, they all reflected on Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ recent comments that Vice President Kamala Harris doesn’t have anyone to keep her “humble” since she doesn’t have biological children, which basically leaned right into JD Vance’s “Childless Cat Lady” controversy.

Whoopi Goldberg led the charge in response to the clip, saying, “You know what really pisses me off about this is, if you really cared about the children, where are the tax credits? Where’s the paid family leave?”

'The View': Whoopi Goldberg Slams JD Vance for Blaming Democrats Over Trump Assassination Attempts

Sunny Hostin then seized on the opportunity to call out some other prominent Republicans who happen to also be childless, saying, “I’m sorry, what about Tim Scott and Lindsey Graham? Are they childless cat people as well?” She also pointed out that the recent anti-abortion measures in certain states after the overturning of  Roe V. Wade have led to the deaths of pregnant women.

Sara Haines earned loud cheers from the live audience when she chimed in to add, “We’ve always been defined [by] being a mom, and it’s a beautiful honor to be one, but it’s not everyone’s choice.”

Joy Behar , for one, was happy to hear Sanders’ comments, saying, “Let them keep making mistakes.”

Then, Alyssa Farah Griffin , who worked directly alongside Sanders in the Trump White House, said that “she was privately one of the kindest, sweetest people… but it speaks to the toxic environment that to fit into that world, you have to go out and you have to knock people down.”

After the commercial break, they then turned to another Trump-related controversy. This time, it was his all-caps declaration on social media that he hates Taylor Swift, after her decision to endorse Kamala Harris for president in a post that drove hundreds of thousands of fans to a linked voter registration site.

Goldberg said he “messed with the wrong childless cat lady” with that comment and that “he’s politically activating her army.” Moreover, she added that there are now reports that Brittany Mahomes, who has become Swift’s friend through their time spent supporting their beaus on the Kansas City Chiefs, has reconsidered her apparent support of Trump after those words.

“Because he’s mad at your best friend, now you’re mad?” Goldberg asked. “It didn’t bother you that he was being a racist and a misogynist.” She declined to then bring “that” up, and it wasn’t clear exactly what Goldberg was referring to until Hostin weighed on the subject and said that she would.

“I know you said we weren’t going to talk about it, but I was,” Hostin said. “It just seems to me that in an interracial marriage, she should have known that to support a racist is problematic. Her children are biracial, and her family is one that in the ’70s could not have lived in any of Donald Trump’s buildings. So it just seemed that maybe she’s just not savvy.”

The View , weekdays, 11 a.m. ET, ABC

Alyssa Farah Griffin

Donald trump, kamala harris, sara haines, sarah huckabee sanders, taylor swift, whoopi goldberg.

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