Won't it be wonderful if there were a single formula for happiness? There is no such thing, and anyone who claims to have invented or found such a formula or equation is simply kidding, pretending, or trying to fool the rest of us. But it would be near-to-impossible to disprove the person's claim to gladness, because you'd have to live in the same house with that "happy person" for 30 days before you'd find out the fact that he or she only claimed to be happy all the time but was really just like the rest of us: unhappy in an unhappy world
Perhaps the closest any human being can come to cracking the happiness code is in being a good person, someone who is committed to doing what is morally right, as defined and understood by the dominant culture where that person lives. Religious people are said to be among the rare souls who have uncovered the mystery to happiness. They tend to link happiness or joy to being or doing what is good, godly and righteous.
The only trouble is that it is not that clear cut, or most humans would have followed the religious formula, and the world's billions of people would be mostly happy, glad, joyful. The reality is that being good and doing good may not result in happiness, at least not all the time. The only way godliness would produce permanent happiness in this life would be if only good things were to happen to good people, and only bad things were to happen to bad people. In a world where bad things happen to good people and vice versa, it is absurd to think or believe that lifelong happiness can become anyone's reality this side of the grave. The reality of a crippled world renders flawed every formula of happiness.
Concerning the morally good life, one writer penned these words on what he called "the straight life":
The straight life for a homemaker is washing dishes three hours a day; it is cleaning sinks and scouring toilets and waxing floors; it is chasing toddlers and mediating fights between preschool siblings. (One mother said she had raised three "tricycle motors," and they had worn her out.) The straight life is driving your station wagon to school and back twenty-three times per week; it is grocery shopping and baking cupcakes for the class Halloween party. The straight life eventually means becoming the parent of an ungrateful teenager, which I assure you is no job for sissies. (It's difficult to let your adolescent find himself – especially when you know he isn't even looking!) Certainly, the straight life for the homemaker can be an exhausting experience, at times.
The straight life for a working man is not much simpler. It is pulling your tired frame out of bed, five days a week, fifty weeks out of the year. It is earning a two-week vacation in August, and choosing a trip that will please the kids. The straight life is spending your money wisely when you'd rather indulge in a new whatever; it is taking your son bike riding on Saturday when you want so badly to watch the baseball game; it is cleaning out the garage on your day off after working sixty hours the prior week. The straight life is coping with head colds and engine tune-ups and crab grass and income-tax forms; it is taking your family to church on Sunday when you've heard every idea the minister has to offer; it is giving a portion of your income to God's work when you already wonder how ends will meet. The straight life for the ordinary, garden-variety husband and father is everything I have listed and more . . . much more.
Should we then forget about being good people as our society or religion stipulates, forget about doing good deeds, because goodness will only wear us out rather than bring us the bliss of happiness we desire? Certainly not! Why not? Because being bad and doing bad things will remove us even farther away from the gates of joy. Though happiness via goodness is illusive, it is far better to spend life at the gates of happiness, where we may see or smell the desire of every heart, even if we barely enter into those confines of joy. That is much better than to live our existence atop the pit of gloom, on the threshold of a hellhole, where we may never even know what the greenery of happiness looks like.
We should choose character with charity, because, when all is said and done, it is better to be and do good than to be and do evil. But let us be good and do good for goodness own sake, not for any reward of happiness we expect in return in this lifetime. That misguided soul who intends to trade goodness for happiness will find that such a bargain is never the fair trade we wish it to be in this uneven, fallen world we call home.
