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.