Another Happy Choice: Hard Work

A lot of research has gone into what happy people’s secrets are. One research team came up with what they entitled “A Sure, But Bizarre, Path to Happiness.” 

Hard Work Makes Us Happy

According to the article,

If you want to be truly happy with that deep down feeling of utter and complete satisfaction … Three words … just … work … hard. That is the surprising word from a research team at Gothenburg University in Sweden which has determined that working to achieve a goal – even more than attaining the goal – is what gives people true satisfaction and happiness.

A Sure, But Bizarre, Path to Happiness

While winning the lottery might give someone a temporary high, it will not last, at least not like the thrill of hard work! These Swedish researchers came to this startling conclusion after studying published data, hundreds of hours of interviews, and research by professionals in the fields of human behavior about what makes human beings happy.

Although being part of a good relationship through family, church, friends or work is definitely a key factor for happiness, they found that engaging in work that takes advantage of an individual’s strengths and allows one to work toward a goal is what makes us feel most fulfilled.

A Sure, But Bizarre, Path to Happiness

Think about that.

Work! 

Working hard makes us happy.

Remember the first thing God gave the human being after the Lord gave the earth-person the gift of language?  Work, hard work, the work of tending the Garden, and the work of studying and identifying all the creatures God had made.

As God did for the first human beings, so God does for us now. Paul wrote to the believers in Ephesus,

For we are what [God] has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we may walk in them.

Ephesians 2:10 (NRSVUE, modifications added)

The researchers concluded

From our research the people who were most active got the most joy. It may sound tempting to relax on a beach, but if you do it for too long it stops being satisfying.

A Sure, But Bizarre, Path to Happiness

Were you surprised? That is why when Jesus gave the parable about the talents, he said the master would invite the good stewards to share in their master’s happiness. Colaboring with God, investing the gifts and talents and skills and abilities God has put into you and me, putting these gifts into God’s work, sacrificing kickback time on the beach and other good things for the very best thing of working hard for God, just makes ya happy.

It is the kind of happiness that lasts.    

Commit to Relationships           

Think about one of the hardest-working people in the Christian Testament besides the Lord Jesus Christ. If you are like me, the apostle Paul’s name would have leaped to mind.

Think about the sacrifices Paul made:

• His career as a rabbi, sitting in the golden colonnade of Solomon’s Court with all his students circled around him, leaning in to catch his pearls of wisdom.
• His position in the Sanhedrin, one of their rising stars, receiving an unusual level of trust, authority, and margin from the most important religious leaders in all Israel.
• His reputation, as he described himself, “circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless” (Philippians 2:5–6 NRSVUE)
• A chance for a normal family life, rather than constantly traveling.
• Having wealth and property, rather than being unable to have more than what he could carry on his many mission trips.

Think also about the hardships Paul endured, and the suffering that over time became his constant companion. He had undergone 

countless floggings and was often near death.

• Five times I have received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one.
• Three times I was beaten with rods.
• Once I received a stoning.
• Three times I was shipwrecked.
• For a night and a day I was adrift at sea.
• On frequent journeys, in danger from rivers.
• Danger from bandits.
• Danger from my own people.
• Danger from Gentiles.
• Danger in the city.
• Danger in the wilderness.
• Danger at sea.
• Danger from false brothers and sisters.
• In toil and hardship.
• Through many a sleepless night, hungry and thirsty.
• Often without food.
• Cold and naked.

And, besides all those other things, he had told them, I am under daily pressure because of my anxiety for all the churches.

2 Corinthians 11:23–28 (NRSVUE, italics added)

And yet this is what the Apostle Paul had to say about the work God had given him to do,

Not that I am referring to being in need, for I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Philippians 4:11–12 (NRSVUE, emphasis added)

Later, Paul told Timothy “Godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Timothy 6:6).

What was Paul’s secret? 

What did Paul learn? 

Paul learned the secrets that all happy people know, beginning with what this article went on to talk about, what the happiest people all have in common:

Some commitment in relationships appears to be good, but more commitment appears to be even better. In general, people appear to feel better about themselves and their lives when they move into a more committed relationship.

A Sure, But Bizarre, Path to Happiness

The apostle Paul, and all believers, know that the deepest satisfaction comes from being in a committed love relationship with God and in Jesus. The cost of the commitment, and the hard work that goes into this relationship, as well as the hard work that results, is all so very worth it.

Epilogue to the Happiness Series

During the course of rereading How We Choose to be Happy, and posting on what I learned from my own relived journey of seeking, and also searching for, happiness, I suffered a great (to me, anyway) loss that took my breath away. I am so thankful God had me reading this book to remind me not to turn away from the experience of my own sadness, but to welcome my tears of sorrow. There is a time, the writer of Ecclesiastes wisely notes, to weep and to mourn, just as there is a time to laugh and to dance (Ecclesiastes 3:4).

One recent morning, as I was mulling over the truths of centrality and recasting, I found myself standing in line to pay for something when a greeting card caught my eye. Over the peaceful image of a dogwood in full bloom was a phrase from one of Kahlil Gibran’s poems, and as I read it I felt the Lord’s reframing of my own recent story.

That is living in integrity, in the liberating truth of love and loss, joy and sorrow, delight remembered with tears. The deeply happy person has capacity to feel all those things to their depths and heights and breadths, with a spirit so generous we can have compassion for ourselves as well as others. I bought the card and took it home with me to remind me of God’s tender, gentle kindness to me.

And then I realized with stunning clarity: because of God’s love for me, I can do no less than love myself. If there is no condemnation in Christ, if there is no shame, no humiliation for God’s own with the Lord, then I can do no less with myself. There is no shame in tears, no humiliation in mourning loss, no matter how small that loss may look to others.

The deeper the relationship with the Lord, the more you and I will find peace in our thoughts about ourselves, our satisfaction in life, our general happiness and our ability to weather distress. Flowing out of our committed relationship with the Lord will come a commitment to other believers who are one with you and me in the Holy Spirit.

[Cover Image: Photo by Onur Binay on Unsplash]