p. 318 | Happiness by Julius Henri Brown

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Sep 21, 1876

Happiness.

By Julius Henri Brown

It has been the delusion of every age that happiness resides in something outside of ourselves—in the possession of what it is hard to get. Even in this day of boastful enlightenment and progress, we hold substantially the same view. We may have another theory or opinion for our neighbor, for it is a peculiarity of contentment-seeking that the rules we give others we hardly ever follow. We are pretty sure that the thing we have not, and see no present means of securing, must contain the element of happiness. If we are poor, it is riches; if we are unknown, it is reputation; if we are invalid, it is health; if we are isolated, it is society. The fact that we know persons who have any or all of these, and are still dissatisfied, avails not with us. They are not capable of enjoyment, we say; they can't appreciate what they possess; they have defects which are not ours, which stand in the way of their contentment. Give us, we cry, one-half or one-quarter of their blessings, and the sun should never go down upon our regret.

That happiness comes from within, it is very easy to see. Most of us admit it, but very few of us act upon it. When we are unhappy, do we suspect that we are so on account of any inner lack? Do we begin to examine our own minds or breasts? Do we try to abate this desire or that ambition? Do we fancy we have grown morbid? Not a whit.

Shall we ever learn practically that the idea of a thing is altogether different from the thing itself; that realization, after fond anticipation, is nearly always attended with dissatisfaction? Who has not been bitterly disappointed by actual possession of what he had intensely desired, even from childhood? Who has not found that imagination always overpaints, and that experience balks us of half the pleasure that has been promised? When we sigh for wealth, position, love, power, fame, we see in them qualities that are not theirs. And we fail to see the anxieties and responsibilities which must accompany them. At a distance, only their one side is visible; the other side shows, and is felt with their obtainment.

We all crave happiness; we all have an idea of it; we all flatter ourselves that we know its composition. If we never get, as very few of us ever do, what answers to our idea, or to the fancied composition, we feel sure that our views were correct. If we should get everything we had craved, it would seem, and it would be, very different from what it was while unattained. Happiness is still happiness; but that which we had thought happiness proves to be something else. So it always is.

Happiness, so long as it is placed in externals, lies invariably in the unachieved, and retreats from the achieved. It runs before our greatest advance; it flies above our level; it invites us to hurry on and rest, and we keep hurrying on, but rest is impossible; for happiness continues ahead, inviting, encouraging and disappointing forever.

How little happiness resides in conditions or possessions, we need not go far to see. They who approach nearest to happiness are often the least favored of Nature or Fortune. To own much begets a desire for more; to be content with what one has is better than riches. The man who is poor, in feeble health, surrounded with perplexities, frequently bears a serener spirit than the man of wealth, vigor and smooth environments. The one is patient, amiable, philosophic; he counts life at its proper worth, and, knowing it cannot be long, tutors his mind to resignation. The other is ambitious, restless, grasping. Forgetful of what he has, he is intent upon what he might have, and so fills his days with wistfulness and repining.

The secret of happiness—such as is attainable—is to cultivate it from within, not to struggle for it from without. When we discover that want of money troubles us, it is better to reduce our desires than to overtask our strength in trying to increase our income. When we hunger for reputation, it is well to reflect upon the price we must pay for it, and how easily it is lost after it has been acquired. When we wish for power, we should look at those who have gained it, and see how they enjoy it. In all our ambitions, we shall be benefited by thinking of the reverse of what they represent, and of the fact that the reverse comes with their attainment.—JULIUS HENRI BROWN in Appleton's Journal.