March 21, 2017 | 0 Comments

How Many Times Did You Laugh Today?

The search for happiness is basic to human life. The greatest tragedy that befalls people is when they give up on that search. Maybe you know someone who has given up on being happy, or perhaps you feel that way yourself. The irony is that we are created for happiness, so life can’t really work unless we are actively creating happiness on a daily basis.

Little kids are so great because they know how to be happy. They find humor in the smallest and strangest of things! Because of this, they are much closer to their original self. Laughter is something we lose with age. We get bogged down in responsibilities and forget the basic thing about life: our purpose is to create joy.

Laugh Like A Child of God

Pamela Gerloff took this topic on in Psychology Today (6.21.2011). She wrote:

“The average four-year-old laughs 300 times a day. The average 40-year-old? Only four” She goes on to say, “I found the 300 number a bit high. But then I thought about my five-year-old nephew, Bob. The other day I was sitting on a doorstep with his brother Joe perched on my lap, warming up after a run through the sprinkler. I asked Joe, “Do you know where Bob is? Is he in the sandbox?” (He was out of sight around the corner.)

There was a silent pause, then an explosion of laughter behind and around me, as Bob popped into view, grinning and beaming, his whole body filled with delight. “You thought I was in the sandbox!” he exclaimed, giggling, “but I was right behind you!”

Why that was so hilarious only a five-year-old really knows, but it made me laugh too, just experiencing the delight of his joie de vivre. So we three—Bob and I, with Joe chiming in—laughed and laughed and laughed.”

If I think about my best memories they usually involve laughing together with others in a side-splitting kind of a way. God created us with a sense of humor; if we lose it, we lose an essential part of ourselves.

Happiness Is Our Birthright

All faith traditions honor this notion that life is about happiness. Consider these quotes from world scriptures:

“I created you human beings because I desired to see you lead a joyous life.” – Ofudesaki 14.25 (Tenrikyo)

“Happiness is spiritual, born of Truth and Love. It is unselfish; therefore it cannot exist alone, but requires all mankind to share it.” – Science and Health, 57 (Christian Science)

Rev. Moon has spoken extensively on the topic of finding happiness:

“Joy begins in the heart of God, and it is fulfilled in human beings. The heart of the invisible God is manifested in the hearts of visible human beings.”

What is God’s purpose of creation? Is it analogous to what we human beings aspire? God created out of the desire to rejoice and be happy. What brings God joy? Money? His creatures? Certainly, it is not the material things that people like to own. God created heaven and earth so that He could experience joy through love. Then, what do all creatures desire more than anything else? Because God’s purpose of creation is to experience joy through love, all creatures likewise seek a relationship of love with God, to experience joy. Accordingly, all creatures interact with one another in order to be linked with God’s love.”

“The meeting point of the human heart and God’s heart is the starting point of happiness.”

“When you become a child of God and dwell in His love, your joy has no limit. You breathe in and out with the entire universe. We are meant to be intoxicated by the love of God. Can the artificial intoxication provided by drugs or alcohol even remotely compare? In the realm of God’s love, every need is satisfied. All your body’s forty trillion cells are dancing together. Your eyes and ears, your hands, and all the parts of your body revel in the rapture of joy. Nothing else can ever match it. God’s love is real, and it is our highest aspiration to pursue this love. We must have it.”

The fact that we can rejoice this day is something to be grateful for. But we must understand: If we cannot link today’s joy with the joy of tomorrow, today’s joy becomes for us as an enemy, a condition for sorrow, difficulty and lamentation. Joy, we know, is not only good, and sorrow is not only bad; the question is our investment of inner effort.” – Sun Myung Moon

Discovering the Secret of Living Happily

When we’re surrounded by so much suffering in the world, we might ask if happiness is possible amidst grief? That’s not an unreasonable question. It’s tempting to think that the pursuit of personal happiness is selfish.

My concepts were confronted on this question the other day as I listened to a radio interview with a man in Aleppo named Mohammed Anis. The photographer, Joseph Eid, has periodically photographed this man over the last six years. During this time, the Anis’ house has been bombed, and his collection of vintage American cars reduced to rubble. Even more painful, many family members and friends have lost their lives or fled the city he is proud to call home.

One of his prized possessions; however, hasn’t been destroyed: a music turntable. Anis invited the reporter to take some time to listen to one of his LPs with him. He explained that he likes to smoke his pipe as he listens to music. As the music began to play, the photographer described the man living in the ruins of his once elegant house:

“Anis puffed on his pipe. He seemed to be somewhere else as well. He seemed to forget that we were there. He looked out the window and he had a look on his face of a person watching a beautiful sunset. He sat there, puffing on his broken pipe and staring out the window as the music floated over the ruins of his house and the city outside…After six years of war, the Syrians want life. They just want to let the music play.”

This scene reminded me of these words:

“Let us live happily, without hate amongst those who hate. Let us dwell un-hating amidst hateful men. Let us live happily, in good health amongst those who are sick. Let us dwell in good health amidst ailing men. Let us live happily, without yearning for sensual pleasures amongst those who yearn for them. Let us dwell without yearning amidst those who yearn. Let us live happily, we who have no impediments. We shall subsist on joy even as the radiant gods.” Dhammapada 197-200 (Buddhism)

Keeping Joy and Hope Alive

Eid found it somewhat ironic that he left the bombed-out house feeling strangely elated. Mohammed’s story causes us to reflect on how we can discover even little pieces of joy while also encountering chaos and suffering in our lives.

The search for joy doesn’t mean we ignore suffering or treat too lightly our real circumstance. It just means that we honor our true identity as God’s sons and daughters who were created for joy. We have to recognize that without carving out time and space for joy in our lives, regardless of our circumstances, we cannot be fulfilled. I really respect Mohammed Anis because he has done something infinitely valuable by keeping a little space inside him alive; a place for joy and hope.

His life shows us we can’t avoid suffering but we can determine the attitude we embrace life with.

Finding Newness Everyday

Our search for happiness is helped along by having an open heart to the new and unexpected. A little optimism can take us places. Rev. Moon encouraged people to look for the new:

“People living ordinary, self-centered lives lack stimulation. But if your life is filled with God’s grace, you will feel newness in your spirit every day and experience your surroundings as ever new and fresh. Every morning there is something new; every evening there is something new. When God’s grace is rolling in like waves, you can feel the mystery in three dimensions. Anyone who experiences life like this is a happy person.”

“If two-thirds of your life of seventy or eighty years was sorrowful, to compensate for the sorrow of those years, why don’t you make the remainder of your life a joyful time centering on God? Live your life as you would in the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is where one gives, and gives again. God is giving. Parents give to their children. The parental heart is such that even after giving, it wants to give and give again when there is something better to give.” – SMM

God gives us the opportunity to start anew, no matter what age we are. Growing older is not permission to get pessimistic! Your spirit person, your internal self, is ageless. So much of how we age is our attitude about ourselves. Do you see yourself as someone who is young at heart, or are you becoming a grumpy curmudgeon?

You were created to experience joy. Our job is to figure out how to connect to an innocence that stimulates us to find joy in new ways every day. One secret to finding joy is to make sure you do what you love. Rev. Moon always encouraged people to find their passion: