What Makes You Happy?

We spend so much of our time searching. Where is my locker key? Why can't people leave the controller in the controller spot. Mom, where's my phone? Oh, where's my mic? We're also searching for things that aren't possessions. Things we've maybe never had before. For the friendship group where we belong. For the people we really connect with. But our searching can also lead us to ponder big questions like, what's the purpose behind all this? Why are we even here? And sometimes we can get this sense of feeling incomplete because we can't quite find what we're looking for. And almost feel lost without it. This unfound, unknown something can leave us wondering, what's the point? So right at the beginning of this journey, let's be honest with ourselves. Whether we're searching or not, we all want something out of life, don't we? Like freedom! Freedom to do what we want, be who we want. Maybe it's to make as much money as possible or to be the best at our sport or talent. Maybe it's to have the best job for status or power. Maybe it's the pursuit of happiness. This pursuit, this search for something in life, is nothing new. It's something people have wrestled with for thousands of years. Take the Greek philosopher Aristotle. He lived over 1,600 years ago and is considered one of the great thinkers of the ancient world. He devoted his life to searching for happiness, saying happiness is the meaning and purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence. And then there's Jesus, arguably the most famous thinker of all time. He was so sought after for his thinking that people traveled many days just to hear him. Some thought they'd find happiness in money. Some thought it would be in keeping the rules. And some thought it would be in having power. Jesus' thoughts on how to find happiness were were very interesting though. He said that focusing on things or status would not lead to ultimate satisfaction. He said, "What do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?" And if we were to go back in time a little bit further than Jesus, we meet someone known as the teacher He appears in one of the older books of the Bible called Ecclesiastes. He did a major test on this search for happiness by looking everywhere but admitting to some very sad conclusions. He said, "Anything I wanted I would take. I denied myself no pleasure. I even found great pleasure in hard work, a reward for all my labors." But as I looked at everything I'd worked so hard to accomplish, it was all so meaningless. Like chasing the wind, there was nothing really worthwhile anywhere. Is happiness just fake news, or is there something more? So after this quick whistle-stop tour of happiness, I wonder what you think. Let's find out. What one thing in life would make you truly happy? I just want to experience the world. I really like to travel. Being able to be content with my life. Success, I think. You know, succeeding in whatever you're doing. I think that's the aim to make anyone happy. You know, have a happy life and a life that I will be proud to tell my kids if I have one. Happiness for me is like, I don't know, having a family, like, just to have fun and knowing that they got my back, you know? Just some semblance of balance in my life. Me too, I want a big family and I want to live in New York. What one thing would you say you can't live without? Spare time. I really love music. Music, I think. Music. Money. Money. Money, 100%. My phone. Your phone. I would say books, you know, I really love reading. Traveling. I'd probably say my room in my house at home. And not for some introverted reason, I just love to have my own space and be able to decorate it. And even with music, have music going on in there. And I love to have people over and share my space and kind of enjoy myself in it, so. Nice. I love asking people what makes them happy. I love seeing their faces light up as they think about it. Whether that's a beach day with friends, an amazing cheeseburger with loads of toppings, or something epic like overcoming your fear for that big win. Jump! We all want to be happy. So why aren't we happy all the time? Why is happiness, which feels so right, so hard to achieve for any length of time? The teacher who we met before in the book of Ecclesiastes decided that we can't find happiness by ourself in this life. And that's because we look for happiness in possessions that break, get lost or stolen, in experiences that come to an end, and in people who let us down or even eventually die. He decided that it was up to us to find our own purpose and happiness in life, that we would be constantly searching but never satisfied. So is he right? Is it totally unrealistic to be happy all the time? Is our quest for happiness hopeless?