So how can we achieve it?

Many people fail to see joy because they have an ‘I will be happy when’ mentality, a belief that once we finally ‘make it’, we’ll be content and happy. What if we don’t make it? What happens then? Is our happiness solely dependent on whether something happens in our lives or not? Is our happiness conditional on our success?

If we let this mentality define us, our lives will become a spiral of momentary peak moments every time we ‘make it’ but without ever truly understanding and embracing the joys that come from learning the ‘aha’ moments and growth we experience while working towards our goals.

It’s not that we shouldn’t focus on our goals and destination. The destination is what gives us purpose. It’s the driving force behind our efforts. But while we enjoy making those efforts, it doesn’t hurt to pause and let the positive emotions linger a little while longer and celebrate our progress every day, no matter how small. If we don’t progress and experience a setback, we can still recognize the lessons that the experience taught us and how we can do and become better. When we do this, happiness becomes something that we can pursue and achieve every day.

Another important thing about happiness is that it is not the absence of struggles, frustrations, pain, opposition, and other unpleasant feelings. We all experience some degree of difficulty in our lives. Happiness is learning how to live with difficulties and responding to them the best way we can. How we respond to these difficulties can expand our capacity to see, feel, and embrace happiness. In our response lies growth and learning that can lead to fulfillment and joy. We can grow through what we go through with optimism and hope for good things to come.

The last and key aspect to achieving lasting happiness is walking side by side with God every step of the way. Because happiness is the purpose and design of our existence, it is not surprising that before sending us to Earth, God prepared a path to help us achieve what we came here for, if we choose to. This path has been laid out for us in the holy scriptures, written by prophets of old and living prophets in the latter days.

This path to lasting happiness is not about living perfectly because no one can attain perfection in this life, except Jesus Christ who was perfected line upon line, precept upon precept. All that God requires of us is our best efforts.  In a meeting with Primary children, President Russel M. Nelson shared perhaps the most reassuring words to help us better understand the immense love that God has for us. He said, “[T]he Lord loves effort, because effort brings rewards that can’t come without it.” Our efforts to follow the commandments, love God, our neighbor, even our enemies, forgive others, live humbly and peacefully, respect others no matter their beliefs, care for ourselves and those in need, remember Him in times of joy and sorrow, and strive to continue in the path that will lead us back to Him, really do COUNT.

Our efforts count no matter how small we think they are. If we give it the best we can, He will magnify our efforts and help us reap the promised reward of eternal happiness. Happiness doesn’t just happen, we make it happen through Christ who is the ultimate author of lasting happiness.

The post How Can We Achieve Lasting Happiness? appeared first on morefaith.ph.

Comparing our lives with the lives of others can lead us to envy others’ strengths, successes, fortunes, and lifestyle so much that we begin to resent our own lives, lose our confidence in ourselves and our abilities, see and magnify the things that we lack, and become ungrateful for what we have. When we give in to these feelings, we lose sight of the joys in our own lives. We put our lives on standby and try to live the “perfect life” others are living, allowing ourselves to believe that such a “perfect life” really exists.

If we have fallen prey to this, it may be time to evaluate our desires and goals. Are we living our lives in a way that is pleasing to God? Or are we living it to please other people—a good number of them we barely know? If our lives resonate more with the latter, here are some ways we can claim back our lives from this trap.

Find a role model. Following everyone’s updates and stories on our social media could consume many hours in our day, not to mention that it becomes exhausting when we compare our lives with each of theirs. Find a role model instead—someone we look up to, a person we want to emulate, someone whose values resonate with ours. When we have a role model, we usually do not compare ourselves with them and envy what they have but they become an inspiration to help us further improve ourselves. Once we find a role model, we can assess our current state, our abilities, strengths, and areas we can improve to see how we can progress and become like the person we look up to. Once we see where we can improve, then we roll up our sleeves and go to work. The advantage of finding a role model is that we can spend just a small portion of our day following one or two people and spend the rest on improving ourselves, which is a lot better than spending hours wishing for what others have.

Align our improvement efforts with the Lord. We must not forget that, more than our efforts to become like our role model, our ultimate goal is to become like Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. On our journey of improving ourselves, we must seek God’s help and guidance because He does not intend for us to improve alone, unless we choose to. God desires for us to continuously improve ourselves. He is happy when He sees us doing our best to become better versions of ourselves every day. When we reach out to Him, He will not only strengthen us but also elevate our efforts to help us reach our goals.

Accept that perfection does not come in this life. Life on Earth is not perfect, nor will it ever be, although sometimes we let ourselves believe that some people seem to have achieved it. But the bottom line is, we all have struggles, they may differ in degrees and forms and it may not be very apparent on social media, but we all have battles we are fighting every day. However, all of us also have moments of joy, blessings to be thankful for, friends and family relationships that we treasure, and most of all, we all have a loving Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ whose love for us never falters. So let’s celebrate our joys and the joys of others and continuously seek to improve ourselves, keeping in mind that we cannot attain perfection through our efforts alone.

Life is too short to be spent resenting our lives and wishing we had the life others are living. Let’s embrace the life we have been given, find the little joys that each day brings, and celebrate milestones along the way to becoming better.

The post Comparison Is A Thief Of Joy And We Don’t Even Realize It appeared first on morefaith.ph.

It is only natural, especially when hunger, sickness, war, crisis, pain, financial problems, and lack of love or understanding continue to prevail. What do we do to feel happy when it seems too difficult? The scriptures teach us three of the top ways to feel happier.

Practice Humility

“The meek also shall increase their joy in the Lord, and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.” (Isaiah 29:19) This tells us that meekness, which is a form of humility, will most certainly make us happier.How?

More often than not, we misunderstand “meekness” as being weak, and letting ourselves be trampled upon by others. The meek, the lowly, and the humble are actually those who are aware of their mistakes, of their weaknesses and submit themselves to the righteousness of God. It can be difficult to try to tone down the natural pride that we all have, but we can look to our Savior as a prime example of meekness.

Obey His Commandments

We usually hear this tagalog question when we eat something so indulgent, we know it’s going to be bad for us, “Bakit masama para sayo yung mga masasarap kainin?” Just as with His commandments, sometimes we can feel restricted or unhappy when we obey the things we are asked to do or not do. In Mosiah 2:41, we are reminded of how happier we can be when we obey His commandments.

“I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual…..that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness.”

Remember That Happiness Can Be Found In Him

We tend to look at material and abstract things as important sources of happiness. What we forget is that true happiness can only be found in Him and not in this world. Because of Him pain turns into comfort, sorrow turns into joy, guilt becomes peace and hate becomes love.

“For in this world your joy is not full, but in me your joy is full.” (D&C 101:36)

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