Some words that have influenced my thinking in the last few weeks from Elder Jeffrey R. Holland’s talk, “Living After the Manner of Happiness”:
The Prophet Joseph Smith once said that “Happiness is the object and design of our existence; and will be the end thereof, if we pursue the path that leads to it.”
Remember the Prophet Joseph’s choice of language: He spoke of the path that leads to happiness as the key to realizing that goal.
We know one thing for sure; happiness is not easy to find running straight for it. It is usually too elusive, too ephemeral, too subtle. If you haven’t learned it already, you will learn in the years ahead that happiness comes to us when we least expect it, when we are busy doing something else. Happiness is almost always a by-product of some other endeavor.
But my reassurance to you today is that in God’s plan we can do very much to find the happiness we do desire. We can take certain steps, we can form certain habits, we can do certain things that God and history tell us lead to happiness…
In short your best chance for being happy is to do the things that happy people do. Live the way happy people live. Walk the path that happy people walk. and your chances to find joy in unexpected moments, to find peace in unexpected places, to find the help of angels when you didn’t even know they knew you existed, improves exponentially.
How can we know the way? Jesus gave the answer that rings from eternity to all eternity, “I am the way, the truth, and the life…”
Learn as quickly as you can that so much of your happiness is in your hands, not in events or circumstances or fortune or misfortune. [President Abraham Lincoln said,] “folks are usually about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” Happiness comes first by what comes into your head a long time before it comes into your hand.
“The Lord requireth the heart and a willing mind,” the revelations say. Too often we have thought it was all up to the heart; it is not. God expects a willing mind in the quest for happiness and peace as well. Put your head into this. All of this takes effort. It is a battle but a battle for happiness that is worth waging.
Kindness and pleasantness and faith-based optimism are characteristics of happy people. From the words of Mother Teresa “Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God’s kindness: kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile.”
Avoid animosity, contention, and anger in your life.
Work at it. Learn to work. Serve diligently. Don’t be idle and mischievous.
I encourage you and applaud you in “pursuing the path that leads to [happiness.] Christ is “the way, the truth, and the life” –that no one comes to true happiness except by Him. I bless you to know that someday, sometimes, somewhere you will have every righteous desire of your heart as you live the gospel of Jesus Christ, thus living “after the manner” that leads to those blessings.