Finding Happiness in Surprising Places
What would make you happier? Winning a massive lottery or becoming a paraplegic?
You don’t have to tell me which you chose (I know), but the experience of others tells a different story.
Philip Brickman launched a study called (drum roll) The Brickman Study. He focused on these two groups: lottery winners and accident victims. His initial finding will not surprise you. Those who won a lottery were bubbling over with happiness, and the accident victims were depressed and even despondent. But …
Brickman contacted these same people a few months later. The lottery winners were over their euphoria, and their level of happiness returned to what it was before. But the paralyzed individuals were no longer down, their level of happiness had returned to its previous level. A few paraplegics even felt happier!
What gives? For the lottery winners, once the initial excitement of quitting a job and buying loads of stuff had passed, they soon took it all for granted. They faced issues with money, taxes, and scheming relatives. Harassment and hassles trumped any happiness.
For the accident victims, they quickly adapted to a new lifestyle. They found joy in simple things they used to take for granted. Even getting dressed would give them pleasure. The disability didn’t improve, but what improved was the way the disabled person handled the situation—and happiness followed.
In his book Stumbling on Happiness, Dan Gilbert said, “When sighted people imagine being blind, they seem to forget that blindness is not a full-time job. Blind people can’t see, but they do most of the things that sighted people do—they go on picnics, pay their taxes, listen to music, get stuck in traffic—and thus they are just as happy as sighted people are.”[i]
Let me offer an observation or two from a Christian perspective. Our human nature is to gravitate toward things and possessions for a sense of happiness and contentment. While we may experience an initial euphoria over our latest purchase, that feeling quickly fades and an emptiness returns. On the other hand, a loss of things or abilities can open our eyes to the reality that our happiness was never truly derived from those things. As the researchers observed in the accident victims, pleasure was found in so many of the simple things of life.
I was deeply moved during a worship service when the speaker, a believer who faltered and ended up in prison, said, “When everything was taken away but Jesus, that’s when I realized all I needed was Jesus.”
I have no plans on winning the lottery. I don’t play it, and I don’t need it. I’m content with what I have. But if all that’s gone, or I lose my ability to use the things I own, I’m confident my level of contentment will not change. That was the apostle Paul’s perspective. He knew what it was to have a lot, and he knew what it was to have zilch. His secret to contentment? Resting in Jesus. As he summed up his remarks on contentment, he said, “I am able to do all things through him who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13).
I’m content with that. Rich or poor. Walking or paralyzed. I’ve got Jesus, and He’ll get me through anything—the good times and the bad.
“Taste and see that the Lord is good. How happy is the person who takes refuge in him!” (Ps. 34:8)
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Banner photo by Dima Pechurin on Unsplash
[i] Daniel Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness (New York: Vintage Books, 2005), 177.
