Most people are happy at least sometimes. For most people, it is easy to imagine a not-too-unusual scenario that would be sufficient to prevent their happiness.
Accordingly, it isn’t unusual to consider our happiness as something we can influence, but yet see it as something that ultimately lies outside of our control.
There is a better way.
You can be completely happy, content, and fulfilled all the time. You can come to the point where nothing that could ever happen to you could reduce your peace, happiness, and joy.
Joy is not an externally imposed feeling. It comes from within. It is not something that is possessed or experienced, but the value you perceive in what is possessed or experienced. It is informational. It comes from knowledge.
Joy is not something that happens to you, but rather something you go find.
Joy is not a situation—it is an outcome. Joy is something that you can build once you have the tools to do so.
Humans are self-directed, autonomous creatures. We are capable of acting and securing what we desire. Acquiescing to whatever chance circumstances we find ourselves in is living far below our privilege.
You can learn how to act instead of merely being acted upon. You can choose how to be. You can acquire the tools to manufacture internal happiness that can’t be affected by what is going on around you.
You can create joy by discovering the actions, beliefs, and desires that produce it, and by implementing them in your life. As you incrementally increase in your understanding of the recipe for joy, and your degree of adherence to it, you will increase in joy.
The purpose of the gospel of Jesus Christ is to show you how to obtain more joy
Many claim to hold the keys to greater happiness. Gurus and religionists are chief in this group. However, the lives led by these people and their followers cast serious doubts on their claims. This deficiency must be due either to their failure to practice what is taught, or the inefficacy of the teachings themselves. In many cases, there is nothing wrong with the content of the teaching, but there is a lack of understanding of how to use it properly.
Such it is with the gospel of Jesus Christ. The purpose of the gospel of Jesus Christ is to lift your understanding and character to the point where you can encounter the greatest possible joy given even the harshest realities of this world.
There are many religious people, and they certainly do not hold a monopoly on happiness. There are many aspects of the gospel of Jesus Christ that are unused or unknown to most who profess to be Christian. All of these aspects are explained in scripture, and many of them are highlighted in this book.
The failure of so many Christians to obtain what Christianity promises is not a failure of the teachings themselves, but of the people who profess to be Christian. Owning a set of paintbrushes does not make someone a master painter. There really is no value in religion except inasmuch as it benefits above and beyond that held by those without religion who are able to live the same lives.
For most people, attempting to be a good person as long as it doesn’t cost too much is all there is to life. Like ships without rudders on the sea, when things are good, they are good; when things are bad, they are bad. This is not the path to untouchable joy.
We are created to have joy:
And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness. O remember, remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it. (Mosiah 2:41)
Though we are created to have joy, it is not automatic. By nature, humans are miserable creatures:
For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father. (Mosiah 3:19)
The difference between one in the circumstances of complete fulfillment and one in less than this is only a matter of their possession of and application of the tools necessary to obtain it. The difference between the default state and one of joy lies in obtaining and living the tools provided by the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The more of the gospel you obtain—the more accurate your understanding of it, and the more fully you live it—the greater your happiness will be.
How will you know if this assertion is true? Jesus said:
If any man desires to do His will (God’s pleasure), he will know (have the needed illumination to recognize, and can tell for himself) whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking from Myself and of My own accord and on My own authority. (John 7:17, AMP)
The Lord Jesus Christ taught everything one needs to overcome all darkness in this world. Through what he taught, it is possible for anyone to be completely happy, content, and fulfilled all the time. It is possible for anyone to get to the point where nothing that could ever happen in this life could affect their joy.
Finding greater joy
Perhaps you find yourself regularly overcome by life. Perhaps you struggle with depression or anxiety. Perhaps you have recently experienced surprising circumstances that have caused you to question any past happiness you thought you experienced. Perhaps this is the first time you’ve considered whether more happiness is available to you. Perhaps you consider yourself to be a happy person and aren’t sure whether there is anything more to have in this life.
Obtaining joy and happiness is the objective of this life. If you don’t have happiness and joy, it is either because you have not yet discovered the tools to obtain it, or you have not followed the directions you’ve already received.
This life consists of a complex web of what amounts to background noise. The signal that leads to happiness and joy is always present, but it must be actively sought out. It is not what most people preoccupy themselves with or even notice.
Children, for the most part, are joyful beings. Unhappiness in its many forms tends to correlate with the transition into adulthood. Like one’s body, a maturing individual’s awareness of reality changes substantially between childhood and adulthood. Like physical changes, awareness of reality seems to amplify on its own.
Unfortunately, the tools that were sufficient to cope with an immature awareness of reality are not only insufficient to contend with an amplified awareness of reality, they also do not automatically grow like the awareness itself seems to. Furthermore, the greater the intelligence of the individual, the more drastic will be the increase in their awareness, and the less sufficient their childhood tools will be for contending with life.
Today’s world employs a flood of chemical and physical approaches to contend with the challenges of increased awareness. Thanks to a flood of information, people today are much more aware of the serious challenges of reality compared to those who came before. Most respond to these challenges not by seeking their solutions, but by muting the signals they produce through saturating their brains and schedules with things that help them ignore them.
None of these external approaches actually address the underlying problem. Instead of fixing the problem, they merely make it possible to care less about it. The honest sufferer has to admit that no amount of pills, liquids, or hedonistic living will actually take away the suffering they experience.
Mental anguish is a symptom, not a disease. Uncountably numerable and significantly complex biochemical processes drive every aspect of your control of your body. The connection between your mind and your body chemistry is responsible for every action you consciously take, from focusing your eyes on an object far away to lifting a weight off the ground. It would be absolutely correct to say that 100% of these tasks are chemically driven. Yet, these tasks are also 100% mentally driven. The mental portion of these tasks drives the physical portion. Therefore, it would be absolutely incorrect to say that these physical tasks happen independently of your mental choices and perspectives. If this is the case with lifting a weight and looking at an object, why should it be different for how you feel about situations in life?
Chemical imbalances are the symptoms of the real problem, not the cause of it. Society isn’t suffering from a chemical imbalance, but an information imbalance.
Modern individuals are being exposed to far greater understanding of the breadth and depth of reality than any former generation, but they are not in possession of remarkably stronger tools than prior generations.
That these tools are rarely observed or employed does not mean they do not exist. You can’t type fast on a keyboard you don’t know exists, and even knowing it exists is insufficient if you don’t know how to use it properly. If you presently lack joy, it doesn’t mean having abundant joy is impossible. It may just mean you have not yet found the best practices that yield it.
We exist in a system that has structure, rules, and limits. To have greater joy, we have to navigate reality, including a great many things that lie outside of our understanding or capability to change, or both. It is as if our birth places us at the entrance of a hedge maze, where the closer we get to the center, the more happiness we obtain. The gospel is a set of instructions to navigate both the known and unknown elements of reality in ways that produce the greatest joy.
No matter your circumstances, there is radically more joy available in this life than what you currently possess. In spite of how bold or unlikely these claims may seem, they are true.
This book is dedicated to all the children of God who have encountered the overwhelming sadness and suffering that comes in this world; for those who have pleaded to God for relief of burdens that seemed too heavy to bear; for those who have yearned to be supported and embraced by one who is truly trustworthy. This book is the answer to the question many of you have asked: where is the Lord? When will he come from his hiding place and save me?
The seeds of perfect, lasting joy are already within you. It comes from within you, not without:
And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. (John 17:13)
The Lord said: “...behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:21)
The kingdom of God is like a seed that grows into a mustard tree (see Mark 4:31). It requires searching, acquiring, applying, and growing.
All of the instructions for one’s greatest joy are available all the time to all people. Why do few come to possess and live them? They don’t know where to find them (see D&C 123:12). They don’t know how to obtain them. They haven’t learned that these things are costly to obtain (though more than worth it). They have to be sought out at great cost, applied against great opposition, and received in certain subtle ways: persuasion, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, love, kindness, pure knowledge, and sincerity (see D&C 121:41-43). These things can only be taught in ways that most people are unlikely to notice, value, or accept. People seem to only listen when subjected to violence or manipulation, and God does not use those tools.
This book teaches you the actions, beliefs, and desires that produce joy so that you can obtain more in your life. In this book, you will encounter tools that will free you from the power of depression, anxiety, sadness, and suffering. You will find wisdom from God that will give you the tools to acquire greater happiness than you imagined possible in this life and after this life. You will feel the love of God to a greater extent than you ever knew.
If you apply these tools in your life, you will discover for yourself the veracity of these claims. As you gain the tools required to overcome the dark things in this world, you will also gain awareness of and appreciation for far greater joy than you currently possess. By employing these tools, you will encounter the things I have promised you, and in so doing, know that what I am telling you is true.