Being Happy

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My dear Lost_Sheep,

Even if you are mentally ill with clinical depression – which I am not saying, but some some people here might argue – you still need to repent and change your bad/disrespectful attitude towards God and pray to Him; otherwise when you die you will find out what the *real Hell *is like with all its flames and screams. (St. Alphonsus et. al. say that if we do not pray *we shall be *damned.) Clinical depression does not give you or anybody the right to be disrespectful towards God and negligent of prayer; rather it makes it even *more necessary *for a person to have a trusting/confident attitude towards God with recourse to Him in prayer, though it I may in certain cases, like yours, be more difficult to do. Please do NOT buy into anybody’s argument who tries to tell you that you are depressed so you are justified in having your bad attitude and refusal to pray. I hope nobody on this thread is justifying your refusal to pray and your bad attitude, but if anyone actually would take this stand, then their love would be very misguided and will only keep you in the chains that shackle you. You must force yourself to make the effort to trust and pray, and to repent and love your loving Lord – even if you do not feel what you are saying when you pray, even if you don’t believe me when I tell you that God does EVERYTHING out of the purest love for you – still give your assent and *force *yourself. Even if you do not feel the words you are praying when you try to pray, your heart will be in the right place if you pray with humility and sorrow for your sins and with love of God; you will be willing or desiring a communion with God – and this is just what you need. You need desire for a communion with God, Lost_Sheep, because right now you have a wedge between you and Him separating you from Him (It appears you do not want Him anymore; it appears you want happiness without Him) – and He did not put this wedge there – your sins did; you will automatically possess such a desire, if only you repent from your heart of your disrespect towards God and of all your other grave sins. Pray earnestly for the gift of prayer and trust that God will hear you if you humble yourself … He resists the proud and will not help them so long as they remain proud … please be humble before God and banish the pride that makes man so displeasing to God =- or you will be resisted *until you die *and end up in a worse Hell then ever – the permanent and real Hell. Even with depression a person can be helped if they call out to God in prayer, but a proud person will not be heard, no, he will only be resisted as the Scriptures says. You say you are in Hell. Perhaps you are experiencing a foretaste of it because of your refusal to humble yourself before the Lord. You want a change in your life, so please make it happen – please, please ditch the pride which makes you disrespectful towards God and obstinate in refusing to trust Him, confess to Him your sorrow for your sins with true contrition, and be humble. BTW, a lack of trust in God on your part means that you doubt His goodness, which you say you do not doubt (remember, you said you do not doubt this attribute of HIs) … My friend, I wish you’d be consistent. God bless you.
 
ready said:
Dear Lost_Sheep,

Do you think that perhaps you may be being punished for your lack of faith in God? Please recall that the Scriptures says that without faith we can not be pleasing to God. God is just and good, which means that He is most fair: if he is sending you trials/sufferings – or even punishment – it is to help purify you and to help sanctify you (to get you where you are supposed to be) and so you can merit Heaven… He owes none of us His apology, for everything He does is done out of the purest love. Please change your heart towards Him and make a heartfelt act of contrition. You are putting yourself in a Hell for sure, but if you die this way, your Hell will be a million, billion, trillion, zillion times more painful. Please do yourself the favor and love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. God bless you. my friend. We love you, Lost_Sheep!
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I was not aware that God punishes people here on Earth. I thought he was more the forgiving type.
 
Lost_Sheep said:
I was not aware that God punishes people here on Earth. I thought he was more the forgiving type.
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When God punished King David it was done with the purest love and for his own good. for David’s purification and sanctification. God is the most forgiving type and forgave King David, a man after His own heart … but He did need to punish him for what he had done – for it was for his own good God bless you.
 
Dear Lost_Sheep,

Parents who truly love their children punish them when necessary. Remember what the Scriptures says about being a bastard child. Our Lord chastises those He loves.
 
ready said:
You said in a previous post that union with God does not bring happiness – or you said something like that. Whatever you said is not true, for union with God is the happiest thing we could experience here on earth, even amid the worst of sufferings. God bless you.
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I said that we pray in order to unite with God. However, you have to admit that even the greatest of Saints experienced desolation.
 
grinev said:
I said that we pray in order to unite with God. However, you have to admit that even the greatest of Saints experienced desolation.
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You also said something to the effect of what I have stated.
 
wcknight said:
Already there!?? Brother, there is nothing on earth even remotely similar to hell.
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And you know this how? Have you ever been there to know what it is like? And don’t tell me about St. So-And-So having a vision; I want to know if you have seen Hell to know what it is like.
 
Lost_Sheep said:
And you know this how? Have you ever been there to know what it is like? And don’t tell me about St. So-And-So having a vision; I want to know if you have seen Hell to know what it is like.
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Do you have to go to Hell (I mean the Hell with fire and brimstone, with the devil and demons being relentless in their attacks, with blasphemies and screams, and without any trace of love and hope) to believe it exists and to believe that it is worse than any foretaste of Hell on earth, Lost_Sheep? If you do, then you just might find yourself there when you die with all the proof you need. Why don’t you believe the Church who says that Hell is a place and a state of extreme torture and punishment with unquenchable flames and completely devoid of love and hope reserved for the damned. Have you ever been in a fire, Lost_Sheep? No? Then you can’t imagine how worse an unquenchable fire would be to your soul (and to your body after the General Judgment) … and the fires of Hell are unquenchable, as the Church teaches us. You are greatly deceived if you think that your Hell is as bad as the real place of Hell found in the afterlife I do not doubt that you are experiencing a foretaste of the real Hell, Lost_Sheep; but I know that your Hell will be *much worse *when you die because the Church teaches that the place of punishment reserved for the damned is nothing compared to all the tortures combined in this life. Actually , this is what the Church teaches about the flames of Purgatory, which are said to be the same flames as the flames of Hell. You are in a living Hell and I do not doubt this; and because of your disrespectful attitude towards God I fear that you may very well be separated from Him in the next life as well. If you deny Him in this life, Lost_Sheep, He will deny you in the next. This truth is what our Lord has spoken from His very lips. And I do know that everything He says is true. Please believe Him and change
your thinking and heart. God bless you.
 
Lost_Sheep said:
And you know this how? Have you ever been there to know what it is like? And don’t tell me about St. So-And-So having a vision; I want to know if you have seen Hell to know what it is like.
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I believe what Jesus and YES the saints tell us about it. I don’t have to touch a flame to know it will burn me. I can take someone else’s word for it. And even if I were given a choice to visit, I would not. I know all I need to know about it.

I have never been to anartica or Alaska in winter either, but when someone tells me or writes that the temperatures gets to minus 40, I know it is pretty darn cold out there.

Do you really believe hell will be the same or better than what you are experiencing now ??? Your troubles now will be like a hangnail compared to a bullet wound. If you are foolish enough to ignore everyone’s warnings then you condemn yourself to it, God should not have to nail a notice to your forehead to prevent you from your own self destruction.
 
grinev said:
I said that we pray in order to unite with God. However, you have to admit that even the greatest of Saints experienced desolation.
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It must not have been said by you, but I thought that I had read in somebody’s post that union with God does not necessarily bring happiness – something so untrue, for union with God IS our happiness, even amid the worst of sufferings on earth. God bless you.
 
Some of the saints may have experienced doubt, fear or even despair but they continued to live as God wanted them. They persevered in spite of their doubts or fears.

Having faith does not mean we have no doubts or never feel depressed or over whelmed. If we have doubts that means we care and it matters to us, that faith is important to us. Folks who truly have no faith are totally indifferent. They just do not care one way or another whether its true or not.

People who have faith act on their beliefs regardless of their doubts.
 
‘Sometimes [Jesus] conceals Himself from you, and you think that you will never find Him, never feel Him again. This is the time to redouble your faith, to walk “in pure faith.” “Blessed are they who have not seen and have believed.”’ – taken from Divine Intimacy, by Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, O.C. D…
 
Happiness as in being perky and bubbly and smiling all the time is a very modern concept. Feeling sugary all the time isn’t true happiness at all but our culture tells everyone we are supposed to feel and act this way. It is actually a very superficial emotion that doesn’t reach the depths of the human heart. I think this is part of why so many people are depressed these days, because our post Christian society pressures us to have a checklist of good things in our life and plaster a smile on.
In medieval times the mood was melancholic because people were aware of the fallen state of man and weren’t trying to make a utopia here below, which inevitably leads to misery. But that melancholia I think had more joy and human emotion and depth of feeling within that experience. It is too intense to live that way nowadays, (ie I can’t live like I’m in the middle ages all the time, though to some extent my mind can) but I still try to think of joy even in suffering, vs happiness. I can smile in suffering because it brings me closer to the Lord and it cheers my neighbor, not because I feel bubbly all the time.
I think classical philosophers said happiness was being virtuous. That empty euphoric feeling our culture craves is fine but it isn’t that deep. It isn’t satisfying. Some study I read said people who have meaning in their lives are more satisfied and happy even of they don’t feel “happy” in the modern sense. Finding meaning in the cross is a lot better than false feelings; it’s joy that we seek. Like for me, I get a lot more meaning out of seriously bonding with another human being than I do out of just doing something fun and entertaining, even if I am not laughing and joking the whole time. I enjoy smiling and bonding with those I love not because I feel like it but because I love them and even connecting through the pain is enjoyable. I have even learned to enjoy pain that comes my way at times, as in I would rather be close to someone even if it hurts a little than be empty or numb. I think modern culture is all about eliminating pain in this life which leads to nihilism and emptiness. That us why the Lord has glorified suffering on the cross.

My grandma would tell me some parts of life we enjoy and other parts we have to endure. It’s so easy to forget this in our instant culture. Even my secular aunt talks about how much of life is suffering. Thank God our church teaches about joy and meaning in suffering.

I am not saying you should ignore modern psychiatry or anything, but the temperament model really is good only in the sense of acceptance. Aquinas talked about he temperaments, and I dont know I’d they have to be totally true but just accepting different personalities exist is helpful. I can be malancholic but put of that comes deep reflections poetry etc. Sanguine type attitude might be more cheerful but it can be superficial if only based on your inner emotion. If cheer comes out of love for others, joy in being near them, and desire to make them happy and joy in suffering,that’s great. But there is so much more meaning and emotion in human relationships, births, deaths, relationship with God, than in feelings. Accepting that I can be melancholic and it is allowed, within reason, to be that way, makes my life much easier than trying to cut it out. It shoud be treated if dangerous, but I would still rather feel deep love for God and others even if it hurts me, as opposed to feeling nice all the time.
 
With y’all consent going a bit out of this psycho-philosophical debate.

Don’t you guys think for many of us there is still room to be ‘more happy’ than we are? Even if just for some seconds a day? I am not talking about THE Happiness, but some minutes of laughter. Like when we were children.

I could list some anecdotes/examples, maybe silly and only meaningful only for my small world but that had really boosted my motivation in those days.

Many years ago (I was about 20 by then), on a full public bus when a very old lady came to sit by my side. I don’t remember how she started, but all along the way she was saying small jokes, commenting on something funny the collector would do, etc. Well, everyone in the bus ignored her. But I don’t know why but I started laughing and she was one of most upbeat ladies I have met to date. But I confess I was still in doubt inside if she was or not insane. When we were nearing her bus stop she looked to me and said: “You know at my age I realised life is too short, we shouldn’t spend all the time being serious.” I don’t know why, this experience never left my mind. I remember being all smiley for the rest of that day. I won’t lie, I never did this myself as I am introvert, but I wish I would have found that lady in other days.

Other unrelated thing is about my living in Finland. In 2 years here, the only people that come out of the blue to talk to me is old people, even that the conversation gets awkward as my Finnish is terrible. It really amuse me when someone just come out of the blue and talks about anything, from how the sun is shiny today, or asking how I am liking Finland, if I am having problem finding something. If you know about Finland, you should know that this is so unusual as here everyone has his personal space (very large by the way :D), but this small things really make my day.

For last, some days I just find myself in Youtube looking for videos of clowns, mime artists, just this kind of ‘simple’ comedy. I know for most people this is maybe considered forced and childish. But what is wrong about that, we could maybe for some minutes FORCE us to laugh, or be children for just a bit, grabbing just some pieces of happiness.

Again, no generalization here, but how some of us can insert something here and there that can transform maybe just a day. If you want, please post if you have other anecdotes or examples of such small things that makes you smile or laugh.
 
Sometimes, being happy is just learning to appreciate the little (or big) things in our life. Being able to enjoy a warm cup of tea on a cold day, or feel the warm sunshine on a summer day. I love summer and hate the cold, so standing in front of heater or sleeping in a warm bed makes me feel great,

I think some folks are unhappy because they are never satisfied with what they already have, they look around and want to have what someone more fortunate has. Whether it is good health, or a nice home or a nice car.

I try to get the cheapest car that will get me from point a to point b reliably, I have no desire to get a 2 million dollar vehicle. Wanting more, or wanting better stuff is a vicious never ending process, you will never get everything and you will never achieve the very best, those goals are never attainable, so such folks can never be satisfied.

I get a charge out of being helpful and useful for others. I’m glad I can afford to be charitable, and I’m happy, that I have time to do things for the parish or for others. I have hobbies, and other interests, I enjoy reading a good book or watching a decent show. I’m not giddy or laughing all the time, but I am quite satisfied with what I’ve accomplished in life so far. I’ve seen a lot of more successful folks, but I have no desire to have what they have or do what they do.

We waste way too much time, looking at the grass on the other side of the fence, and we fail to see what we already have. I enjoy being with my friends and family, and they make my life so much richer, BUT even they are not the most important points of my life. That spot is reserved for God. I thank Him for all I have including my faith and everything else in my life. The only other thing I would ask, is to be with Him when my time comes, and for my family and loved ones to join us when their time is up. Nothing else matters.
 
Dear Lost Sheet,
  1. Allow me to be to the first to agree with you that prayer, in situations like yours, will NOT work. Prayer is like a gun, and faith is like a bullet. Put them together and you have a powerful weapon. Keep them a part, all you have is a useless paper weight and an object you can easily lose down the drain.
  2. Despair is like quicksand. If you keep struggling you’ll just sink faster. So stop struggling with it, and be still (literally). You’ll slow down the sinking. I call being still “Me time.” Everyone needs “Me Time.”
  3. You are actually in a powerful place in life. It doesn’t seem like it but it is. You are at a place where you can reinvent yourself. You said you’re like a gas tank on empty. Actually you’re more like an empty canvas waiting for expression to be rained all over it. From a mystical perspective you’re where most mystics go to for perspective. They empty themselves in order to allow God in. Albeit via fasting as opposed to despair, but both places (fasting and despair) allow one’s ego, attachments, expectations and limitations to be emptied. It’s a place of powerful rebirth.
So here’s some seeds you might consider planting
  1. Just to reiterate, don’t bother praying (Yet). Rationale: Because your “gun/prayer” isn’t loaded (with faith).
  2. Do something bold, and out of character for the “current version” of you. Learn an instrument, learn to dance, become a photographer, etc. Preferably something expressive in nature. Rationale: See who truly dwells inside, and or reinvent him/her.
  3. Take a vow, that if you cannot end your own suffering, you’ll be darned if you allow someone else to suffer as you have. Rationale: helping others brings out the Christ in us. Since you can’t find Christ, be Christ.
    Consider planting these two seeds for 30days, without stopping. Commit to it. Win. Lose. Or draw. Then see what fruit it bares at the end.
    BTW, if by chance your “gun/prayer” should reload (with faith) in the process. I highly recommend firing it off. In fact, empty the darn clip!! 😃
    Be well:thumbsup:
(Disclaimer, in wake of the Colorado tragedy I am not advocating the use of, nor condoning violence.)
 
Bodhi303 said:
Dear Lost Sheet,
  1. Allow me to be to the first to agree with you that prayer, in situations like yours, will NOT work. Prayer is like a gun, and faith is like a bullet. Put them together and you have a powerful weapon. Keep them a part, all you have is a useless paper weight and an object you can easily lose down the drain.
  2. Despair is like quicksand. If you keep struggling you’ll just sink faster. So stop struggling with it, and be still (literally). You’ll slow down the sinking. I call being still “Me time.” Everyone needs “Me Time.”
  3. You are actually in a powerful place in life. It doesn’t seem like it but it is. You are at a place where you can reinvent yourself. You said you’re like a gas tank on empty. Actually you’re more like an empty canvas waiting for expression to be rained all over it. From a mystical perspective you’re where most mystics go to for perspective. They empty themselves in order to allow God in. Albeit via fasting as opposed to despair, but both places (fasting and despair) allow one’s ego, attachments, expectations and limitations to be emptied. It’s a place of powerful rebirth.
So here’s some seeds you might consider planting
  1. Just to reiterate, don’t bother praying (Yet). Rationale: Because your “gun/prayer” isn’t loaded (with faith).
  2. Do something bold, and out of character for the “current version” of you. Learn an instrument, learn to dance, become a photographer, etc. Preferably something expressive in nature. Rationale: See who truly dwells inside, and or reinvent him/her.
  3. Take a vow, that if you cannot end your own suffering, you’ll be darned if you allow someone else to suffer as you have. Rationale: helping others brings out the Christ in us. Since you can’t find Christ, be Christ.
    Consider planting these two seeds for 30days, without stopping. Commit to it. Win. Lose. Or draw. Then see what fruit it bares at the end.
    BTW, if by chance your “gun/prayer” should reload (with faith) in the process. I highly recommend firing it off. In fact, empty the darn clip!! 😃
    Be well:thumbsup:
(Disclaimer, in wake of the Colorado tragedy I am not advocating the use of, nor condoning violence.)
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Thank you. This is the most rational suggestion I have seen yet. 🙂
 
LS, have you ever tried to list the things that make you unhappy, or list some of the things or events that would make you feel better. Do you have a hobby or follow sports ? Being able to focus on something other than your troubles can really help.

Is there some ideal situation that you are hoping for ? or some unfulfilled goals that you would like to achieve ?

Feeling good may be simply a matter of a chemical or hormonal imbalance in your system. I think something called dopamine affects our moods.

DO you focus on what other people have and tend to forget all the blessings that you have ? One thing that you can do to make you feel better and your wife feel better is to write her a short note or letter everyday to tell her how much you love her. A priest once told me to do that and it got amazing results. I don’t do it enough, but when I do it pays dividends.
 
My heart and prayers go out to you, because I know exactly
how you feel…I pray and pray the rosary and I feel God
can’t hear me or just forgot about me. Peace and Love to you 🙂
 
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