Is Happiness Selfish?

I'm back reading the book You're Going to Be Okay by Holley Gerth and I'm at the chapter where it talks about how the idea of happiness as selfish is nothing more than a myth. 

I have to admit that when I read the heading, I was suspicious.  I've always been of the mind, even if subconsciously that happiness IS rather selfish... I mean, not happiness in itself, but rather, the relentless pursuit of happiness at any cost.  Often, I feel embarrassed to express too much happiness.  It feels...wrong...to be happy when the world and so many people around me are suffering.

For instance, yesterday is a good example to illustrate my way of thinking.  The university closed due to bad weather...and I WAS THRILLED!!!!  Wednesdays happen to be my absolute-worst-day of the week this semester, so having the rather unlikely event of an announcement stating that the university is closed and this rare event falling on a Wednesday was just too much for me to bear, so I exploded in an exuberant expression of delight.  I literally jumped up and down, clapping my hands, smiling ear to ear, yelling WOOHOO around the house in my pajamas.  Then, I stopped, and said:  I have to make this day count and be as productive as I can!! So I grabbed a piece of paper and made a list of all the things I needed to accomplished in the precious time that had been give to me.  By the end of the day, I was just as spent as I would've been, had I had a full day of class...

My happiness was very short-lived.  I didn't allow myself to let it last.  It felt wrong.  It needed a purpose to make it appropriate. 

Sigh...

The author of the book tells us that by believing that we are not supposed to be happy, and instead believing that we need to just be busy and serve and work ourselves to death, we are actually sabotaging our ability to serve well and to love others the way God wants us to love them.

That was intriguing...

She talks about how Jesus did endure the cross and gave it all for us, but it was not so He could be depressed forever.  He did it for the joy set before Him! (Hebrews 12: 2) 

"Jesus could see the joy on the other side, and it enabled Him to push through and do what needed to be done.  The idea that we are to endlessly suffer as a way to be selfless simply doesn't line up with biblical truth." (119)

This made me think of Jesus' Words when He tells us about the most important-all-encompassing commandments:

"This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: "Love your neighbor as yourself."All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commandments.” 

Matthew 22: 38-40

Love your neighbor as yourself...

How am I to love my neighbor as myself if I have so very little love for myself?  What kind of love is going to be my example as to how to love others if the love that is supposed to guide me in this quest is so weak that I can't even allow myself to delight in happiness?  How am I supposed to serve others so they can get closer to happiness if I don't even allow myself to be happy?

Of course the superficiality of the term happiness taints the word with bad connotations.  But a sense of happiness is a part of the human experience which God enabled us with for His glory and our delight!  It is a gift.  How rude it would be of us to treat it with disdain, and disregard such a precious endowment.

Next time we feel happy, let us praise Him for the moment and treasure it in a way that allows us to restore us so we can continue to go into the world and spread it everywhere we serve.