We Might Have Been Happy

I started reading the Book of Mormon again not too long ago and I learned a lot from the example of faithful, obedient Nephi, as well as the not so faithful examples of his brothers Laman and Lemuel.

In chapter 17 of 1 Nephi, the Lord commands Nephi to build a ship.  As he begins to do so his older brothers call him a fool for even trying.  I think they must have had a lot of pent up anger towards Nephi because they start to just verbally rip into Nephi.  They start griping about their father Lehi and how he made them leave Jerusalem and they complain about all of the things they suffered on their journey through the wilderness.  And then they said this:

"Behold, these many years we have suffered in the wilderness, which time we might have enjoyed our possessions and the land of our inheritance; yea, and we might have been happy."  (1 Nephi 17:21)

"We might have been happy."  In my mind, that is one of the saddest sentences in all scripture.  Laman and Lemuel were so convinced that their happiness was dependent upon their possessions and a life of ease and luxury that they missed years worth of opportunities to choose happiness, even, and especially, during times of suffering and opposition.

Martha Washington once said, "The greater part of our happiness depends on our dispositions, not our circumstances."

Our circumstances don't determine our happiness. We do.  We have all been given agency, the ability to choose.  And happiness is a choice.  We can choose happiness during the easiest of times and the hardest of times.

"Therefore, cheer up your hearts, and remember that ye are free to act for yourselves—to choose the way of everlasting death or the way of eternal life." (2 Nephi 10:23)

The day after I arrived in Tennessee I wrote this in my journal: "The Tennessee Nashville Mission is a happy mission.  I am going to learn here how to be happy.  More importantly, I am going to learn how to choose to be happy."  I am so grateful for the many opportunities I have had to choose happiness.  I more fully understand what Nephi meant when he said that he and his people "lived after the manner of happiness." (2 Nephi 5:27)

The Prophet Joseph Smith taught: "Happiness is the object and design of our existence; and will be the end thereof, if we pursue the path that leads to it; and this path is virtue, uprightness, faithfulness, holiness, and keeping all the commandments of God”

Because our Heavenly Father loves us and He wants us to be happy, I am going to begin a series of blog posts that address 12 ways we can "live after the manner of happiness."  So stay tuned! 

And remember, we never have to look back on our life and say, "We might have been happy."  We can choose happiness right here and right now.