Happiness: FTJ 18

Before Discussion Notes:

• The “business” of life is about being the best person you can be. You want to accumulate love and happiness.
• “What is happiness?” “I can’t quite put words to it, but I know it when I feel it.” “It’s the feeling I get when I’m with the people that I love or am doing something I enjoy.”
• Happiness ISN’T a feeling. That’s good news. The feeling is evidence of happiness. Happiness itself is tangible.
• Happiness = Enjoyment + Satisfaction + Meaning
• You can be happier, but never perfectly happy, while here on earth.
• Enjoyment– not to be confused with just pleasure (which is an animal phenomenon). Pleasure + People + Memory = Enjoyment
  • You want to enjoy your life… if there’s something that gives you pleasure, don’t use it alone.
  • To be social, to do things with love, to use your brain, and to manage your pleasures.
• Satisfaction- the joy you get from an accomplishment after struggle.
  • “Come to dinner hungry, and then you’ll enjoy it and learn a lesson.” That lesson then applies to the rest of your life. Delay your gratification.
  • Satisfaction does not last forever. You can’t keep it.
  • The Catholic loophole is… your satisfaction is not just about having more. It’s all the things that you have divided by what you want. Haves/Wants. What you need is not just to have more but to manage what you want in this life. Have more strategy and also want less strategy.
  • Manage yourself. Manage your wants. And your satisfaction will rise.
• Meaning– what’s my life all about?
  • The crisis of our time. “I don’t know the meaning of my life.” Why? Because we’re using our brains in the wrong way.
  • Ask Two Questions:
    • 1. Why am I alive?/Who created me?/For what purpose?
    • 2. For what would I give my life for right now?/For what would I die happily for right now? It’s a path of discovery.
      • For the Catholic Church, for my family, for my country.
  • You will know them by their fruits. You can be a rugged individualist in this culture by knowing these answers.
• Happiness Investment Plan
  • Family first. All happy people are serious about their family life.
  • Friendship. Real friends are “useless.” Not worthless. Cultivate your useless friends whom you actually only love.
  • Work. A lot of ways to work.
    • Earn your success by creating value through your merit and personal responsibility.
    • Serve other people in your work because people need you.
  • Faith. The source of your happiness on your worst day. It never fails. Pay attention to the work of the soul. The happier you will be.
• BE HOLY = BE HAPPY.
  • Do it right. Understand each one. They lead to the same place.
• This is all LOVE.
  • Love of our Lord. Love of your family and friends. Love to everybody in the whole world through the sanctification of your daily work.
  • You are missionaries. Catholic missionaries are service missionaries. The real apostolate of your life is that people just want to follow you. They’re going to follow your happiness because they’re going to want that. It’s magnetic. You have an obligation to your happiness. Where will they follow you? To faith, family, friends, and work, and they might even just follow you to heaven.
  • This is your privilege. This is your adventure. This is your project.

If you’re interested in some more from Arthur Brooks, please see below.