Don't Worry. Be Happy.

[00:00:18] Speaker A: Out of character message for a synagogue or for a religious, really, for any kind of religious place. But I want to ask this question. Who wants to be happy? I didn't see every hand in the room. If you don't want to be happy, you definitely should not stay for this. Who knows what it means to be happy, actually. Okay, that's better. Because if everyone had raised their hand, now I have nothing to say, so we'd be done. I'm giving you a gift today. This is me teaching you, telling you how to be happy. This is my year end gift to you because this is what we're taking into next year. This is psychology today. This is also some bible thrown in. But I want to help. You have a 2024 New year's evolution. How's that moving from where you are to a better and higher version of yourself? Anyone game for that? Okay, good. Well, it starts because we have to identify what happiness actually is. Happiness is not a great word, and I'll tell you why as we go along. But I know many, many people who they feel like, I just want to be happy. I just want to be happy. They don't even know what that means, actually, because you look at someone's life often and you can tell how happy they really want to be. And a lot of people say, I want to be happy. And then they go about demonstrating the worst, conceivable example of a life that demonstrates happiness. They are miserable. They are complainers, they are wretchers. They are just people whose family, their relationships, everything is in absolute shambles. And they put no effort or work into changing anything to make that better. If that's you, you don't really want to be happy, because ultimately it comes down to you. That is a real truth of it, but I'm going to say it nicer than that. Okay. There are a lot of myths surrounding happiness, and that's one of two reasons why most people don't know what happiness is. I actually just told you both of them. Some myths surrounding the definition and also an inability or refusal to do the work that it takes to change the emotional trajectory of your life. So let me start very, very obviously with a couple of things by way of a story. Annabelle is 19. She's a sophomore in college. She doesn't know what she wants to do at all. Well, I'm not going to tell you. I'm not going to complain about that because that wouldn't make me happy. We have conversations. What do you want to do? What do you want to do? What do you, career path. What are you thinking about? What are you thinking about? How about this? How about this field? How about this career path? What do you think the first thing that happens in modern 19 year old's mind when you talk about a career path? Google it. For what? To see how much money it makes you ready for the shocking myth about happiness? Money can't buy you happiness. Did you know that? No, actually, that's way too obvious. I want to change it. Because in the west, there's a different way of looking at this. We think of it in terms of success breeds happiness, right? That's a better way. Money can't buy you happiness. Everyone's like, oh, come on. I know that. But we think, especially in our western capitalists, thank God for western capitalist culture, but we think about success will bring me to happiness, right? That's equally as obvious. Although I did hear a great line one time. Money can't buy happiness, but it can pay for the yacht to pull up alongside it. There is a different myth that manifests itself among our culture very obviously. It's called the arrival fallacy. Anyone heard of the arrival fallacy? The arrival fallacy is something that probably everyone in this room has been guilty of, which says, I will be happy when x happens. I will finally have contentment in my life when I achieve y or man, when z comes my way, I'll be there. Guess what? No, you won't. Because the way your mindset works, that is not the way your mindset works, because what happens is this is what that creates. The arrival fallacy says this, the tendency for individuals to believe that achieving a certain goal or reaching a specific milestone will bring sustained happiness and fulfillment. Numerous studies and observations from my own life, and probably yours, tell us that happiness derived from such achievements is fleeting. That's the word. Fleeting. It's temporary. People soon find themselves on this roller coaster of finding the next thing that's going to bring them happiness, which leads to this treadmill effect, which ultimately creates a lot of unhappiness in your life because you are living with perpetual striving. Perpetual striving? Who's a perpetual striver? There's a way to do it. I'll tell you. There's a good way, but that's not it. Because there's a psychological concept we look at when we explore this. It's called hedonic adaptation. You know that word, right? Hedonism, from the greek word hedon, means pleasure. Hedonism. Philosophical ethical theory that says pleasure or happiness, that is the highest good. It suggests that whatever you do, it should be done to maximize pleasurable experiences in your life. Now, you know what's interesting about hedonism? We think about it in terms of sex and gluttony and things like that. Did you know you can be a spiritual hedonist as well? It travels across all pathways. Who knows? The person who is on Emory knows them. She just didn't want to get called out for not being happy again. Who knows? I'm happy. I'm happy. The spiritual hedonist is the person who is always looking for the next spiritual high. I went to the third heavens in a vision last time. I'm hoping to go to the 7th heavens, where Paul went this time. It's a constant, never finding contentment. And how terrible is it that even in your relationship with God, you suffer from the arrival fallacy? Once I attain this level of enlightenment, I'll be right with God. When I get here, I'll finally be there. That's not true. That's not true. And so what we find is that happiness is not contained in the highs of life. Also obvious. But most people, a lot of people don't think that way. They're always striving for something that's going to take them to somewhere else than where they are. So when I talk about perpetual striving, it's fine. Set high goals, have major accomplishments in mind. Think about the next big thing that you want to do, but understand that that is not going to take you where you think it's going to take you if that's your source of contentment, because under the engine that's driving your happiness, under the engine, it's the day to day interactions. Our feeling verse in the normal versus the exceptional, that is actually what contributes to your feeling of thriving in life. Did you know that that's a key component of happiness? We all have what we can term a baseline of happiness. It determines our general attitude. So here's the key. We're not looking for this and to find up here and get here again. And get here again. If your baseline is right here and this determines your day to day level of contentment, how do we become happier? Raise the baseline. Raise the baseline. The higher you drive the baseline. Let's call it contentment. Aristotle had a fantastic word for it. His word was eudaimonia. That might sound like greek to you. It is. It was all greek to Aristotle. I use that joke anytime I can use it. Eudaimonia, it means flourishing, which is a better word than content. I mean, than happiness. Happiness implies this flourishing, contentment, bliss. These point to a baseline in a healthy place. It's more than a feeling to be content. It's a necessary component, actually of achievement. And it's the skill, the intentional work you do that raises the baseline. It doesn't usually happen on its own. You know why? Because the world is not interested in your baseline. The world is interested in what they can get for themselves, quite honestly, often. So the work required is important. But all that to say, again stating the obvious, success can't buy happiness because flourishing eudaimonia, happiness, a good baseline, is the key to success. I want to quote from a book that I recently read called the happiness Advantage by Sean Acre is his name. Happiness research of over 200 studies, 275,000 subjects. That's a pretty broad subject base found that happiness, by whatever name we call it, leads to. Leads to success in every other, nearly every other domain in your life. Marriage, health, friendship, community involvement, creativity, and particularly our jobs, our businesses and careers. And especially in your calling as a disciple, because you're miserable shuffling around out there like this. I got the love of Jesus in me. That's not making disciples, that's not encouraging people to get into what you're into, I can promise you. So even your calling. So here's a scientific definition of happiness. The experience of positive emotions, pleasure, combined with deep feelings of meaning and purpose. It implies a positive mood in the present and a positive outlook for the future. One more time. The experience of positive emotions, pleasure, combined with deep feelings of meaning and purpose, happiness implies a positive mood in the present and a positive outlook for the future. Now what's amazing about that is it actually contains a lot of the things that we look at in a traditional definition of happiness. What is important is that all of the pieces must come together. All of those things need to be present. It doesn't mean all the time. It's not possible. But that's the recipe. Okay? So listen to the pieces. Pleasure. Pleasure's got a real bad rap in the religious community. You know, you need to flagellate yourself. And Jesus didn't turn water into wine. That was grape juice. Listen, Judaism loves the world and the pleasures therein. Wine. If you have a substance abuse problem, obviously this is different, but I'm speaking generally to have wine on Shabbat, to have a delicious meal. Did you know that marital relations are a component of Shabbat? Like that's a pleasurable thing Judaism loves. Who just said amen? The guy with six kids. I'm not going to proceed down a path with you not doing it. Pleasure is an important part of this life. In moderation, according to the guidelines of Torah, and a healthy relationship with God. It's that simple. Moderation. Cole. A positive mood in the present. Okay. Pleasure. A positive mood in the present. This speaks to your baseline. My mood? I'm in a bad mood. You got a low baseline. A positive mood in the present. All this psychology stuff showed up in the Bible a long time ago when we read Philippians and Paul says, I've learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. Hebrews 13, keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have. One Timothy six. But godliness with contentment is great gain, okay? Be content. Have a pleasurable and pleasant mood in the present. The Bible said those things and a bunch of others. And then Musar jewish ethics comes along and teaches us a whole bunch of other things. Other things. The word is menuchat Hanefesh. Menuchat. Somebody get me some water, please. Menuchat. Hanesh. The serenity of the soul. That's your baseline. It's also known as equanimity, happiness. A positive mood in the present. You want to raise your baseline. Emory, do you want to raise your baseline? Let me give you a blueprint. Thank you, sir. You make me happy, Dave. That's a bit of wisdom right there. You make me happy. It doesn't take much. Learn to do that. That's contentment. Here's some Musar ethics. And I want to run through these real quickly. Write them down. I know you have your notepads out. Blueprint. These are the things that it means to be contented and have equanimity. Content. Balance and inner peace. Balance and inner peace. Cultivating calm and steady. Paul said, I've learned. Learned to be content. That is not your natural inclination. I've learned balance and inner peace. Yeshua said, this world has troubles, right? But our task is to learn contentment. It doesn't say anything about bouncing off the walls and constantly being. Hi. Hey. I don't like people like that very often. The acceptance of reality. You've heard this. People say, well, you know what the definition of insanity is? It's doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. That's not the definition of insanity. And I'm not talking about clinical diagnoses here, talking anecdotal. You know what the definition of insanity is? Looking at something that's happening and saying, it's not denying the reality that goes on around you. That's insane. It's a waste of time. And doing that is not increasing your baseline patience, tolerance. Cole, that's easy for you to have in your house, isn't it? Patience and tolerance. Because of all those Shabbat and mitzvot you performed. Trust. Trust in divine providence. This is obvious for us in a synagogue, right? Bitachon understanding, you know, Yeshua said there will be trouble, right? He said there's going to be trouble. And then what did he say? Take heart. Take heart. I have overcome it. That's called bitachon. That's trust. That's believing that even when things are absolutely nuts, there's still a divine providence that's guiding some things. All things, but things in your life. Self reflection. We have to remember that you are the person who needs to be your best and worst critic. You need to be honest with yourself and be willing to look at faults and failures and then correct them. Do the work. Raise your baseline compassion for others. This one's obvious. All these things, all of these things are contentment creators. Daily baseline raisers. Positive mood in the present and a positive outlook for the future. I just told you about the arrival fallacy, right? So I'm telling you, a positive outlook for the future. Find something to look forward to. Whether it's a book that just came out that you can't wait to read, or some series or some thing you're going to build or meal, you're going to prepare or trip, you're going to take or cure for cancer, that you're going to invent, have something in your life that you're looking forward to, that's a positive outlook for the future. And that it goes way deeper than that. I mean, there is this thing called the kingdom that's coming at some point in time. I'm a little bit more on the practical level than that right here, but that's real. Okay, so our definition, listen, it includes these things. Actually, one more thing I learned. Did you know that the anticipation of a future reward can light up some of the same things in your brain as the actual getting of said reward? That's the power of looking to the future with expectation and positivity. Our definition, pleasure, positive mood in the present. This is happiness. But you know what? A lot of that speaks to us. A lot of us think in terms of happiness of our own little internal happy world. I just want to be happy. But I want to tell you something shocking, shocking scientific study. If you have kids, if you have kids, you do not actually want to be as happy as you can. Did you know that kids diminish your happiness? Laugh about it, Cole. Keep having them listen. Scientifically speaking, it is well established that couples with children have an average lower happiness and life satisfaction than childless couples. Not kidding. Think about it logically. What is involved in a kid? Numerous theories of happiness suggest that we do look at the options and then we make the best choice from those options. That's going to contribute to our personal level of happiness. Kids don't fit that bill. Think about them. You have to raise them. They cost a lot of money and it never stops, it seems like. And then they turn teenagers. The old Mark Twain quote, when a boy turns 13, cut a hole in a barrel and put him in the barrel and put the lid on. When he turns 18, cover the hole. You have to worry about them when they're driving around at night, when they're teenagers and all. They're late for curfew and they talk bad to you and they diminish your happiness. I mean, think about it. It's not hard to understand why the science says this. So the thing is, if we were really driven by our internal happiness exclusively, the human race would have died out a long time ago. Caring for aging parents, what would that look like if this was our metric? You put them in a rowboat and send them out Atlantic Ocean. Thanks, mom, dad, appreciate it. Spouse, if internal happiness were the sole driver of making you happy, who in their right mind would get married? I mean, you have to work at that. It takes a lot of time. Kelly just mouthed the words, I'm sorry. And all of us with kids and spouses say, well, that's stupid. Especially husbands say, that's stupid. He doesn't know what he's talking about. Think about it. That can't be the thing that it's our internal happiness. And we go back to the scientific definition for the meaning. Right? It is simply this. Your life can be pleasurable and you need a positive outlook in the present and a positive outlook for the future. But it's the last two words that really take it to the place. It must be meaning and purpose. Meaning and purpose happen outside yourself. They happen in the kids that you have and raise. They happen in the relationship that you have with your spouse or your parents and you take care of them. Happens in the work that you do for the kingdom of God and for other people. You can't be happy in your own little sphere. You can't. Here's a definition of happiness that I really love. It's from the book by Sean Acre. Happiness is the joy we feel striving after our potential. That potential often is outside of you. It is. That's a God given thing, literally, literally breathed into you. People say, well, you know, God created the world because he wanted to be worshipped 24/7 worship, that's what God desires from you. That's why he created the world. That's not why God created the world. God created the world and he explains it in the book. Adam, Eve, I want you to partner with me. I want you to take what I've made and given to you and in relationship with one another. I want you to build it, I want you to tend the garden, I want you to have families. It was about relationship. People say, we're created in the image of God, and you know what that means. Unlike the animals, we can reason. We can reason. And so God was rational and we have that. I got news for you. Who's been on Chat GPT recently. Computers are getting very good at reasoning, but you know what they're not good at? Chat GPT probably never will be. Hopefully relationships, that's what it means to be like God created in his image, one of many components. But it's relationship that is a God given attribute that you possess. And without it, happiness is very hard, very hard to find, very hard. I would almost say impossible. So you can say, well, that's obvious. I mean, everybody knows that, but how many people are doing it? How many people actually live like that? If someone came to you and said, I just want to be happy, I'm so unhappy, and you said, okay, well, here's what I want you to do. I want you to change your course every single day to be all about other people, find things to do for other people, even just say an encouraging word, be good, establish relationships, do things for people without much expectation in return, you know what it would look like for many, many people. The rich young ruler, remember it? Yeshua said, sell everything you have. And he went, I'm sad. And that's what people will do. When you explain the definition of happiness to being way outside yourself, purpose and meaning in life. But that's not us. The Yeshua model tells us something different. Here's some scripture. Galatians five, you were called to freedom. Brothers only. Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love, serve one another again, Philippians do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves or the master. Himself, even as the son of man came not to be served, but to serve. I mean, that's it, right? That's a big thing. The Harvard grant study, I've talked to you about it before. It's the longest running study on happiness in american history. It started in 1938, I think, the 30s. George studied 278 men from Harvard all the way through their lives. It's still going on today. George Valiant was the administrator of that study for 40 years. Here's what he said. 70 years of evidence that our relationships with other people matter and matter more than anything else in the world. Did you hear what I said? Another study aptly titled very happy people. There was one characteristic, one characteristic that emerged as the common denominator. You know what it was? You need to live on a beach in a warm climate. That's not what it was. It wasn't about how much money you had. It wasn't about how popular you were or how physically fit. The one factor was the strength of their social connections. And I don't mean facebook. This is amazing to consider that when you make a healthy social connection, oxytocin, which is a pleasure inducing hormone, is released in our system. It lowers anxiety, it increases your focus. Cardio neuroendocrine immune system function is increased. And the more of these social relationships that you have, literally the healthier you get in many ways. So let me give you a happiness recipe. Martin Seligman is the father of positive psychology. It's a relatively new development. I mean, over the last 40 something years, he created an acronym that's called Perma. Perma. Okay, I want you to remember it. Perma. Positive emotion, engagement, relationship, meaning accomplishment. Positive emotion, engagement, relationship, meaning accomplishment. Perma. I gave you a musar recipe. I want to give you a practical psychological recipe from Dr. Martin Seligman, good jewish boy. Positive emotion cultivating experience. Positive emotions. Listen to some of them, though, and I want you, as I read these, to think about your day, day in, day out. How many of these emotions are you experiencing that fall into the positive emotion category? Joy. Gratitude. Serenity. Interest. Hope. Pride. Amusement, anticipation. Awe. How many of us last week, one day of the week, experienced a feeling of awe in our lives? It doesn't come naturally. You have to work at it. But positive emotion. Any from that list? Gratitude is the easiest one. I've taught so many times on gratitude. Hakarata tov. Recognizing the good positive emotion, engagement. This is another term in the positive psychology. Movement is flow. This is when you're doing something of meaning in your life. Sometimes for others, sometimes for you. But you're engaged in a task and you're flowing there. It's just natural, and you do it well. It's usually something that you're good at doing. You need a sense of engagement in your life, relationships and meaning. I just spent 15 minutes talking to you about how important that is in a positive life and accomplishment. Who likes to accomplish things and be recognized for them? Every single person does. Everyone does. It's a part of it. Use these things to accomplish good things in your life and be recognized. So this is what it sounds like, okay. Some people say relationships and meaning go hand in hand. And people say, well, I'm not a people person. I'm an introvert. I don't like people. That's just not okay. I told you, you don't have to be an extrovert. You don't have to be Mother Teresa. You just have to find some ways to implement perma into your life and find some of those things. If you pursue that type of happiness, you are the exception to the rule. Really? Seriously. So this is what that looks like in the perma model. For a disciple of Yeshua, positive emotions are experienced as we engage, as we flow in activities of meaning, some of which include building relationships to a cause outside of ourselves. That's what those contribute to. We feel a sense of accomplishment. Well, I don't hear anything about God in any of this. What do you think the Bible is about? What do you think the Torah is primarily focused on? What do you think Yeshua came teaching about a life of meaning dedicated to serving other people and enjoying the world in moderation. I mean, this is God stuff. Remember Yeshua's most famous message, his most famous sermon? It happened on a mount or a plane, depending on how you want to define it. But he wrote it. He opened it by saying, what was the first word of the beatitudes? What is it? Blessed is. Blessed is. Blessed is. Thank goodness for Franz Delich, who came along and did a Hebrew translation of the New Testament, and he changed that word from blessed in the Greek to Ashrey in the Hebrew, ashray, a word that means so much more than happy or blessed. It means content, it means blissful, it means fulfilled. It does mean blessed. It does mean happy. But it has this deep, deep sense of having a meaningful purpose in the world. Blessed are those who do these things. How important is it that Yeshua's most important teaching focused on happiness? Seriously, that matters? So let me conclude this for you. Here's Yeshua's rebuttal to the arrival fallacy. For one thing, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Seeking first the kingdom means doing it right here. It doesn't mean waiting to go to heaven when everything's going to be better. It means right here. That's going to happen. No eye has seen, no ear has heard. We're not going to heaven. Heaven's coming here. But the point is, you have a job to do here, so don't fall victim to the arrival fallacy in your practical life about why this world sucks. I'm waiting to get out of here and go up to ride on the clouds. No work here. Do it. Be the best version of you and impact other people like that. That's seeking first the kingdom here. Positive psychology. Okay. I didn't know I was attending a psychological course. Really? I thought we were learning the Bible. We are. We are. We're learning to be disciples of Jesus. That's what we're doing right here. But just to make sure that, you know, you're in a messianic synagogue and it's connected to the Torah, I do want to point out in closing the hero of our current Torah portions. Joseph, I want you to look at his life in terms of happiness. He was thrown in a pit by his brothers. Now, he didn't start off real good. The dream interpretation was a little haughty, let's be honest about that. But they threw him in a pit. He got out. He got saved out of the pit. He was put in slavery. What did he do? He devoted himself to serving others. Potiphar. Potiphar's wife wanted him to serve her. He didn't do that. He got thrown back in another pit. What did he do? He served the cup bearer or the baker and the cup bearer. Right. And what did they do? They forgot about him and left him in a hole. What did he do? He got out and he served pharaoh. And he rose to the second most prominent position in all of Egypt. He had it all until his brothers came and he wept before them and he let go of what had happened. He forgave, he got rid of that and he wept before them and he embraced his brothers because he understood the value of relationships. And so all of those things, it was never going to be money and success for him. He knew what it meant to be content in all things and to pursue relationships of meaning. So I'll tell you this, that's a big part of what we do at Shalom Macon. Yes, this is a synagogue. We study the Bible. We celebrate the festivals, life events. We pursue the things of God for our own inner happiness. All those things are good, but we are committed here to relationships. That's what we're really good at. That's what we're really good at. So whether you are in these seats every week, whether you're traveling through, whether you're making the move, whether you're sitting on your couch drinking coffee with your family right now and worshiping with whatever, if you're in your own version of Shalom Macon, it's in Oklahoma. It's called Shalom Broken arrow. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, I want to encourage all of us to connect with the full definition of happiness that I've laid out. Perma. Positive emotions experienced as we engage in activities of meaning, some of which need to include building relationships that contribute to a cause outside of ourselves. When we do that, we feel a sense of accomplishment, with a special emphasis here on relationships. So you want happiness? That's how you define it? Happiness. I'll add to Sean acres definition when he says, happiness is what we feel when striving after our potential. I'll add this, happiness is what we feel when we're striving after our God given potential. Our God given potential. God has given you a specific personality and set of strengths that you're using today, right now. You know what? For the kingdom, for God's people. Dave mentioned builders, not bystanders. This is the last message you'll get from me in 2023. So I'm telling you all about how to have a good 2024, the New Year's evolution. And please, I just say it straight up, help us build what we're building here. This is my appeal to you because this is what we want to be, a community of relationships and happy people who love God and love each other. And I think we're doing a pretty good job of that. The memorable conclusion is this. I need you to implant these things in your mind, your memory, perma, courtesy of Dr. Seligman Ashray, courtesy of Yeshua, and the example, courtesy of Joseph. And of course, the anchor moment. The anchor moment where we cement this in your brain, is right here. Here's a little song I wrote. You might want to make it note for note. Don't worry. Shabbat Shalom. [00:42:31] Speaker B: Thank you for connecting with Shalom Macon. If your connection here has been meaningful and if Shalom Macon has enriched your life, please consider a generous year end gift to help us accomplish greater things in the year ahead, visit shalomma.org. Give to contribute and thank you for being a builder, not, not a bystander.