The most common career advice people hear these days is that in order to be happy you have to pursue your passion.
This is the first generation I’m aware of that has swallowed such a lie.
Today I’d like to present three problems, huge reasons that pursuing your passion as a path to happiness is problematic, and then three solutions to that problem:
1. Everyone says “Follow your heart”. But Jeremiah 17:9 says
“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?”
2. According to research concerning the things we become most passionate about, we tend to be passionate about things we are really good at. The problem is you can’t get really good at something unless you practice a lot at that thing.
3. Passions are a precarious precipice upon which to build an edifice of happiness partly because it can be very difficult to tell the difference between a passion and an addiction. Passions are just as likely to destroy our lives as bring fulfillment.
In every previous generation, the common wisdom was that our passions, our emotions, must be molded and directed if we are ever to be happy.
Going all the way back to Aristotle, who had much to say about passions, the term used for passion was Pathe-from which we get words like pathetic, and empathy & compassion (both meaning "to feel together"). When Cicero sought to translate the Greek Philosopher into Latin he said he had difficulty choosing the best word for passion, since Pathe can refer to illness (the root word for pathology, the study of illness, and psychopath, sick soul). Both Cicero and Seneca taught that the passions have to be governed or directed, otherwise they will destroy a person. Recent research has demonstrated that our emotions-our passions-are related to a group of chemicals, and confirms the validity of some of the ancient wisdom on the subject.
We human beings are a bundle of chemical reactions. Those chemical reactions determine what we do and how we feel and how we respond to stimuli. They are NOT pre-determined, but are very much under our influence. If we indulge our desire for alcohol, there is a very addictive chemical released in our brain called Dopamine. I would guess there may be other chemicals involved in the process as well (we are complex creatures) but this is the primary one currently identified. We get the same Dopamine boost when we eat food or are sexually stimulated. All of these activities are regulated by Dopamine, in the sense all of these activities result in the same kind of stimulation in the brain-our brain's way of telling us that such an activity should be repeated. Unfortunately, alcohol is unhealthy, and it invokes the same response in our brain as activities that are healthy. Same with food, the foods that are not very good for us create the larger Dopamine response. A person who is addicted to food or alcohol or sex is not addicted to any one of those things, but to the chemicals in the brain that make those things feel good.
These natural feelings, or passions, can, however, be directed by us in a number of ways:
1. Create healthy addictions. When we gain our pleasure from exercise (which also releases Dopamine & Serotonin) we get a good addiction. When we grow accustomed to healthy food, the unhealthy foods are much less appealing-they don't feel as good. If you pray and meditate on Scripture, research indicates you can actually begin to create Dopamine and Serotonin at will, by looking inward and upward.
2. Don't start addictive behaviors-if something is an issue for you, avoid it completely. This principle isn't stated enough these days. The best way to lose fat is to NEVER get fat in the first place. The best way to quit smoking is to never smoke. The best way to avoid becoming alcoholic is not to drink. If you know you have a weakness in an area, avoid those things which trigger your addiction-clean out your home, your phone, your computer, your relationships, your life of those things which lead toward unhealthy addictions.
3. Fill your life with healthy rewards. There is another pleasure chemical-oxytocin. It is what makes you feel good when you hug someone you love. It is the same chemical that is released when you do something altruistic or generous. When you help someone else you get a shot of oxytocin. The thing about oxytocin is it protects against the much more dangerous and potentially unhealthy addictive pleasure chemical Dopamine. In other words, when your life is filled with the pleasure of giving and serving and building up others you build up a resistance against the emotional roller coaster of looking for a dopamine high.
Jesus taught about happiness.
Blessed, the Greek word Markarios, means "O how happy"
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
"Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.
Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
I’d like to suggest there are three categories of Beatitudes:
1. Pursue Character (Create healthy addictions-Self Discipline)
a. Blessed are the poor in spirit
Brian Doyle
Speaking of his friend, author Peter Matthiessen
“ . . . and most of all, I think, he was liable to humor, and humble enough, despite a healthy ego and sense of himself, to know very well that humor is the final frontier, that humor has something crucially to do with humility, and that humility is very probably the one inarguable mark of maturity, and whatever it is we mean when we use the word wisdom.”
b. Blessed are the meek
Meekness is strength under control.
Yao Ming is 7’ 6” tall, and weighs more than 300 lbs.
He also has a young daughter.
When he drives to the basket that is strength.
When he goes for a walk in the park with his daughter, that’s meekness.
2. Pursue Purity (Don't start addictive behaviors)
a. Blessed are those who hunger & thirst for righteousness
b. Blessed are the pure in heart
3. Pursue Peace (Fill your life with healthy rewards- Leadership)
a. Blessed are the peacemakers,
b. the merciful,
c. the persecuted for righteousness
JOHN WOODEN
“You can outscore another team on the field and still lose. And you can be outscored on the field and still win, if your character is right” John Wooden
It’s a matter of character.
you can take these three principles and put them in a nutshell: Pursue God’s will. MAKE HIS WILL YOUR PASSION
Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these thigns will be added to you-the things we think of as the means to happiness are the results of pursuing things that appear on the face of it to be associated with the opposite of happiness: discipline, purity, leadership.
When I was 16, during summer vacation, when I was spending most of my days sitting in front of a TV or reading, I woke up with a song going through my mind. It was a full orchestra playing a song I’d never heard before. It was the most frustrating experience in my life. There was nothing I could do with the song. I wasn’t a musician. I couldn’t play the song on a piano, or write it down. That day I sat at the piano & practiced 6 hours; then the next day same thing, then again, and again. After 6 months of this my parents got me in piano lessons. That same year I started taking voice lessons. . . Today I direct a music conservatory in Bangalore.
When a song started playing in my head, I had no idea I’d become a musician. That was God’s way of drawing me into His will.
Again, about the same time, when I was 16, during a time of prayer I felt God telling me I would one day train pastors for the ministry. I don’t remember this, but my mom told me the story several years ago.
When God showed me in prayer that I would train people for ministry, I had no idea one day I would have the priviledge of working with such a dedicated faculty, of training young pastors here in India, who come to me years later and thank me for helping mold their undesranding of ministry, of training some of the finest musicians and music teachers in the country.
Most of the work of preparation for the roles I now play has been tedious and difficult. The fruit of the labors is now very sweet, but the labor itself was not always that way. God lead me to a career more fulfilling than I could have asked for or imagined. But the path to get there has been very challenging.
I’d like to conclude with a poem John Wooden used to always recite when he would speak on the subject of the path to victory
The Road Ahead or The Road Behind
by George Joseph Moriarty
Sometimes I think the Fates must
Grin as we denounce and insist
The only reason we can’t win
Is the Fates themselves that miss
Yet there lives on an ancient claim
We win or lose within ourselves
The shining trophies on our shelves
Can never win tomorrow’s game
You and I know deeper down
There’s always a chance to win the crown
But when we fail to give our best
We simply haven’t met the test
Of giving all, and saving none
Until the game is really won
Of showing what is meant by grit
Of fighting on when others quit
Of playing through, not letting up
It’s bearing down that wins the cup
Of taking it and taking more
Until we gain the winning score
Of dreaming there’s a goal ahead
Of hoping when our dreams are dead
Of praying when our hopes have fled
Yet losing, not afraid to fall
If bravely, we have given all
For who can ask more of a man
Than giving all within his span
Giving all, it seems to me
Is not so far from victory
And so the Fates are seldom wrong
No matter how they twist and wind
It is you and I who make our fates
We open up or close the gates
On the road ahead or the road behind
