Hello Happiness

Because we are human, we search for happiness throughout our lives; in fact, we are born with a natural inclination to want to be happy. Throughout our life, we choose a specific career, pursue various hobbies, create a family, and participate in activities that we think will contribute to our overall happiness. Often, our decisions are measured by how happy the perceived outcome will make us. While wanting to be happy is not necessarily bad, Blaise Pascal acknowledges the misery of man without God in his Pensées. In his quest to achieve happiness, man often pursues fortune, fame, and power, but Pascal explains that man cannot be happy nor even content without God (Pascal 9).

Because man is lost and unhappy without God, he looks for his true place “everywhere restlessly and unsuccessfully in impenetrable darkness” (Pascal 8). Man is a fallen creation and attempts to stifle the feeling of brokenness through avenues such as accumulating wealth, for example. Since he has extensive,financial resources, his needs such as food, clothes, and shelter are provided for, offering him comfort and decreasing his worries. Hebelieves that money will also provide greater opportunities for pleasure, thus bringing him even closer to happiness. While money has the ability to influence circumstances by throwing extravagant parties or purchasing luxurious cars, money often makes the unhappy more unhappy. Those who love wealth are never satisfied with what they have, but seek to increase their fortune. Trying to buy happiness through material items only leads to further discontentment and continual worry that he could lose his fortune at any minute.

Likewise, relying on fame in order to be happy is also meaningless because it is neither fulfilling or lasting. Fame is an illusion because a famous person’s true character may not line up with the public’s expectations. Although the public reveres him, their admiration and obsession with him only yield temporary pleasure. Man is governed by conscience and “knows in his own heart who and what he is” (Boethius 74). Therefore, he is more fulfilled in knowing that he is a wise man rather than someone whose happiness depends on what others think of him. People who search for happiness through the public’s approval “do not know what [their] life…nor [themselves] really are” and fail to realize that others’ opinion are ever fluctuating and do not last (Pascal 10). Like his body, a famous person’s celebrity status fades over time.

In addition to fortune and fame, power is also sought as a way to pursue happiness. Boethius points out that kings have bodyguards to defend them, and he asks “what good is power if it cannot protect itself” (Boethius 71). One who is in power constantly worries about his friends betraying him and his subjects rebelling against him. For example, in the Old Testament, Saul was king, but he constantly feared that his power would be stolen from him by David. Instead of being happy in his authoritative position, he was miserable and spent the majority of his time searching for and planning to kill David. Even the position of a mighty kings does not offer happiness, but it instead leads to instability and fear as well as a desire for more power. By conquering other nations, for instance, they attempt to achieve their aspirations for greater power. In some cases, kings become tyrants, taking away their people’s free will and enacting a reign of terror. People who seek the wrong thing, such as power, in an effort to be happy “see everywhere nothing but darkness” and appoint themselves as god  in their confusion (Pascal 11). 

Pascal argues that man can never be happy with worldly items or status because “man is made for God” and is only happy when he has a relationship with his Creator (Pascal 8). Mankind is fallen and wretched, which can provoke despair and feelings of hopelessness because of one’s imperfect state (Pascal 88). Yet, God loved His children enough to send “Christ to die for [them] while [they] were still sinners” and was ultimately “the healer of [the world’s] wretchedness” (Rom. 5.8, Pascal 63). The realization that one does not have to earn his salvation or maintain a perfect life gives him freedom from himself as well as knowledge that he is loved. Along with living imperfect lives, we live in an imperfect world filled with trials that are often disheartening. Regardless of what happens on Earth, believers have hope that their present circumstances serve a larger purpose, which is to glorify God by the way they live their lives. Additionally, they know that the Lord is still sovereign and in control. Shifting the focus from themselves and their present, temporary circumstances to God and eternity allows Christians to live a joyous life. One day, Christians will leave this world and have eternal life in Heaven, where all suffering is eradicated. “Happiness cannot depend on fortuitous external circumstances” since power, fortune, or fame can disappear instantly (Boethius 41). However, God is constant and everlasting, and a Christian’s happiness ultimately comes down to their hope and trust in God.

As Boethius states, “what all men want…is to be happy” (Boethius 61). Superficial attempts to achieve happiness do not matter because one cannot carry his fortune or power out of this world, and he is not aware of fame after he has left his body. Although he might have had finite gain during his life, he ultimately has infinite loss. On the other hand, we gain both finite and infinite happiness if we have a relationship with God. While Christians are living on Earth, they look forward to being with God in Heaven one day, and when they die, they receive eternal life, which explains why “no one is so happy as a true Christian…” (Pascal 88).