#208 THINGS THAT BRING HAPPINESS

Have you ever been in a rut?  Is a blue bird blue?  Sure you get into a rut, but you know that's where we bog down and become frustrated, unhappy.  I wonder why it is we often allow ourselves to get into a rut and needlessly stop doing the things that we enjoy.  Did you know that research studies have been conducted where people were asked to list the activities the enjoyed most.  And then they were asked to indicate how often they actually participated in them.  And a surprisingly large proportion of people said that they never did the things they really enjoyed.  There's that rut!  We get ourselves into a rut and needlessly stop doing the things we enjoy most.

I'm convinced that one of the reasons we get into this rut is that we often think that these fun activities aren't so important.  Listen, they are they are important!  That old cliché "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" is true.  It has been found by doctors and counselors that people who participate in enjoyable, fun activities aren't nearly so depressed as their neighbors.  They have fewer tensions, they are easier to get along with and they're happier.  In other words, if you like playing a lot of checkers, or if you enjoy sewing or camping -- keep it up.  As long as it is moral and right, keep it up.  You know, it is amazing that an important key to being happy and living a long life is to continue to do the things that you enjoy.

Some of the happiest and most enthusiastic people in the world are past ninety years old.  And one of the secrets to their happiness is that they have continued to do the things they enjoy most in life.  Why in the world get involved in a rat race, and bind upon yourself more responsibility than you can comfortably handle.  And then you let your tensions destroy you.  Why do that kind of thing?  We do it to get more money, to buy more things, and then when we get them we can't even enjoy them.  John D. Rockefeller, Sr. was a farm boy growing up living in the country, enjoying the simple things in life.  But when he became a businessman he drove himself harder than any slave was ever driven.  Oh, he made the money all right.  When he was thirty-three he made his first million dollars; ten years later he controlled the biggest business in the world; and then in the next ten years, when he became fifty three, he was the richest man on earth -- the world’s only billionaire.

But do you know what he had to pay to get rich?  He gave up the things he really liked to do.  He became as solitary as an oyster; he felt unloved; his digestion was so poor he could eat only crackers and milk.  And as one biographer pointed out, "He enjoyed nothing."

Somehow we've got to focus in on the right target.  We've got to get our priorities in order.  We've got to slow down a little, take time.  Take time to enjoy those things we want to do.  Life is too great to let the tensions get you down.  We need to take time to think.  To think about the purpose of life, what it’s all about.  If I may speak from a personal point of view, I like to take time to be with my family.  To play tetherball with the kids; to ride bicycles around the neighborhood; and I like to take time to sit with my wife on the patio during the early morning hours drinking coffee and just talking -- and listening.  I like to take time to be by myself, to step outside in the yard late at night and look at the twinkling stars and the golden moon, and then to talk to the God behind it all.

Take time to enjoy what you like to do, and take time for God.  He's the one who makes sense out of all this chaos, out of all this monotony, out of all these tensions.