The Difference Between Excitement and Happiness

Except for death and taxes, nothing else is sure. It was so Benjamin Franklin said, and he was a wise man. Let's take taxes away and say that, except for death, nothing else is sure. Much better. Life as we know it is always changing. No condition is permanent, as they say. Medieval Persian Sufi priests put it beautifully when they said, "This too shall pass," in reference to each thing on earth. The things we value, treasure, hold dear to our hearts - all of them "too shall pass." Only what transcends the material world lasts forever. All of this serves as background to our understanding of the difference between excitement and happiness. The good feeling we get about material pleasure is excitement. Whenever anything pleasing happens to us, like: winning the lottery; winning an election; getting a promotion; marrying a sweetheart; acing an exam; birthing a cuddly kid - any delightful thing at all, the good and positive feeling we get because of it is excitement. It is not happiness. Nothing in this material world can make us happy. Let me repeat that: Nothing existing in this physical world can properly make us happy. 

Aristotle sees happiness as the condition of the soul such that it cannot be taken away. Because every material thing can and does change; is definitely taken away at some point, nothing material can properly cause happiness. Happiness is transcendent of the physical world. A person can be happy when their situation is awful and shitty. You see someone. They are poor, destitute, alone, unemployed, unmarried, crippled, terminally ill, imprisoned - beset with every misfortune you can think of. And you ask them, "Are you happy?" You would expect the answer to be negative, but if they told you they were in fact happy, you need not doubt them. Happiness transcends the material world. Now, notice that all the bad conditions I mentioned were strictly physical. I said for example poor, not mean; alone, not lonely; destitute, not despondent. These physical conditions need not translate to emotional (soulful) ones. Two people may be alone, one feels lonely because of it; the other does not. Two people may be poor and destitute, and unemployed. One feels depressed and dejected because of it; the other does not. Two people may be slapped across the face such that the five fingers of the slapper imprint themselves on their faces; one feels angry and vengeful, the other does not. All this reminds me of what Jesus said concerning the last day, as contained in Matthew 24:40-41: "Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left."

It is not the physical situation we're in that determines our soulful or spiritual state. We can refuse to allow the physical, or material, or bodily, or cosmic, or earthly conditions we face dictate our emotional state. Our bodily hunger does not have to make us feel bitter or crappy; our loss of a loved one does not mean we have to feel mournful or sad; that we live alone does not have to make us feel lonely; that we lost a job does not have to make us feel dejected or depressed, and so on. If we separate our emotions from the material situations we encounter in our everyday life, we can be happy in spite of material misfortune. But even worse than the state of our emotions is the state of our intellect. If a person lets their physical or material condition dictate their emotions so often and so much so that they unwittingly adopt a mindset that is negative, such a person is really in trouble. At the emotional or soulful level, a person may feel sad or lonely, or experience any of the many negative emotions there are, in response to a bad physical situation. Such a person may recover emotionally when the bad physical situation they are responding to, by means of the bad emotion they're feeling, goes away. The worst that can happen with such a person is that they become emotionally unstable, with their feelings swaying like pendulums set in motion by the physical experiences they encounter as they go along their life's journey. But the one whose intellect is corrupted never recovers from negative emotions, but actually stays negative perpetually. Because not just their souls (emotions) are corrupted, but also their spirits (intellects), they actually bring about negative physical situations consistently, and definitely subject their emotions to negative responses perpetually. For these individuals, reality is a vicious cycle: Because they are always thinking negatively, they bring about negative material situations, and respond in emotionally negative ways, which confirm them in their negative thoughts that create even more negative material conditions to which they respond in emotionally negative ways, on and on and on. All this reminds me of what Jesus says in Mark 3:29: "But whoever sins against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven, but is guilty of an everlasting sin."

So we see that there are gradations of experience: positive material experiences can make us excited, but happiness takes place only at the level of the soul and the spirit. Happiness at the level of the spirit or intellect is the highest and the ideal form of happiness. It is the condition of the soul such that it can never be taken away. So, when a person is rich and beautiful and awesome in every material way, don't necessarily expect them to be happy. Indeed, they may not even feel excited; they may already be bored with their material blessings. And when someone is poor or ugly or a loser, as they say, don't necessarily expect them to be sad. They very well could be happy. I recall the case of a Mexican immigrant to our country. He came with his wife and three children. He said that, when he first came here, he suffered so much: His dream was to open a restaurant and make Mexican-style cuisine. He and his family would get up very early every morning and prepare the food, and set it out for their customers. They did this everyday for many years, until eventually the business took off and the immigrant became rich. But when he was asked by a journalist what his happiest days in our country were, he said it was the days of the struggle; the days when the sheer toughness of the challenge made him even more excited. 

Or think of Charles Lwanga and companions, the twenty-five martyrs of Uganda. They suffered the fury of the flames because they were Christians and their king was a pagan. The story had it that these courageous Christian boys were smiling from ear to ear like Cheshire cats, even while the flames slowly burnt them to ashes. In spite of all that extreme pain, they were happy. Their souls and spirits were removed from the material experience of their bodies, and so they were truly happy even while enduring unimaginable bodily pain. Let me give you another example. I remember that when I was in high school, one day I was late for assembly. I would have been early, but a wicked senior - I was a freshman then - had made me do chores I wasn't supposed to. Now, the punishment for being late to assembly back then was to endure the crack of the whip on your bare palms. As I walked toward the teacher to receive the strokes of the cane, I prayed to God in my heart. I said, "O God, you know I was not supposed to be late; I don't deserve this whipping." All at once, my soul seemed to leave my body, and I didn't even feel anything in the next few seconds or minutes or whatever. All I knew was that I presented my palm to the teacher, and moments later I walked past him, so that the next latecomer could present his palm as well. I did not feel a thing! Or think of Socrates, or Boetius, or St Paul - all these men, and many others like them, including Nelson Mandela, were at some point in their lives unjustly imprisoned. And each of these men, in spite of the material misfortune they experienced, remained joyful, hopeful, optimistic - in short, remained happy. I am told that Mandela, while he was in prison, was sometimes offered material gifts if he could abandon his vision of peace and freedom, but he repeatedly said no. The material misfortune he experienced was nothing compared to the beatific vision he had glimpsed, and which he was resolutely committed to in soul and spirit. Boetius in particular said he was comforted in his prison cell by Lady Philosophy, who visited and consoled him, reminding him of the freedom his intellect and emotions could experience in spite of the pain his body was enduring at the time. For Boetius, God, the beginning and the end, for whom time was nonexistent, was able to preserve his emotions and his thoughts from the painful physical sensations of his body.

Even when the physical sensations we experience are positive instead of negative, the excitement we feel because of them is still not happiness. If someone should ask you why you are happy, please do not be an idiot and begin to say you are happy because of one material thing or the other: your cousin gave you a present; your lover gave you a valentine; you got laid yesterday; you aced an exam - do not say you are happy because of anything material. They do not last! Take me for example; there are many things I am excited about, but I never mistake this material-experience-driven state of excitement for happiness. No senor! I'm not that stupid. For example, I am excited to be a boy. I like having a penis rather than a vagina. I have already said that this is one of the things I love the most about myself. Yet, even though I am very excited to be a boy, and would like to be a boy forever, I know it doesn't make me happy. When I die, I will stop being a boy, but my soul will go on. Also, through gender reassignment surgery, some boys have changed into girls. Crazy, right? You don't even know the last of it. 

Another thing I am excited about is the fact that I'm in the seminary, since I'm a boy. Oh, how I would love to be a priest soon! Ah! Someone asked me sometime ago what I consider my sweetest moment will be, and I quickly said, "My sweetest moment will be my first mass." Oh, the homilies I shall give! You don't even know. And yet, even though I am excited about the prospect of being a charismatic priest, I realize this possibility can be taken away from me. What if something happens and I am sent away from the seminary? What if one day my rector sends for me and says, "Samuel, I know you desperately want to be a priest; I know you already are fantasizing about the awesome masses you will say, but sorry we cannot keep you in the seminary. So sorry, Samuel." It can happen. And so the prospect of being a priest makes me excited, but not happy. Yet another thing I am excited about is that I live in the greatest nation ever in the history of humanity. What I mean is that I live in the greatest country to have ever been made in the billions of years that humans have inhabited planet earth. There has never been, there currently isn't, and there will never be a country like the one in which I live. I wasn't born here, but if I had my way I would live here, work here, die here and be buried here, and my spirit be entrusted to another soul here as well - in short, I would love to live here forever. But what if something happened that made me have to leave? What if I lost my opportunity to be here? So, even though I am exceptionally excited to live here, it doesn't make me happy.

Still another thing I am excited about is belonging to my religious community. So, I'm not just a priest-to-be, I'm also a religious-to-be. As a religious, rather than a secular, priest-to-be, I get all my needs taken care of. I need not worry about anything: food, insurance, transport - anything. It makes life easier and, for someone like me that loves to read and write, it means I have time to devote myself to spiritual and soulful things, rather than physical or material ones. And so I am lucky; I am excited. But again, it is a situation of life that can be taken away from me. What if my superior, my priest-friend-benefactor, suddenly says, "Samuel, we are so sorry, but we cannot keep you anymore. So sorry, Samuel." It can happen. And so, even though I am very excited to be a religious, it doesn't make me happy. One more thing I am excited about is the fact that my biological brothers are doing well. Two of them work in two of the largest financial institutions in Africa, especially my younger one, Chima. I am so proud of this young man - you don't even know! This guy has endured some shit, I tell you. Remember I said I lost my dad when I was five? Chima lost dad when he was zero (0). My dad died some hours before Chima was brought out of our mother's womb. So Chima didn't even get to see our dad. And even though I lost our mom when I was eleven, Chima was only six. And yet, he struggled through high school, college, Service; and now works in a very large bank. Isn't that just the coolest of the cool! And when you meet this young man, this my brother Chima, of whom I am so proud, you won't even know that he has been through some serious stuff. He remains optimistic, faithful and focused on moving forward with his life. Every Sunday, you can find him in church saying his prayers and thanking God for everything the divine has done in his life. And so each time I think of Chima and my other biological brothers, I am grateful and excited because they are doing well. But what if - and God must surely forbid this - they lose their bank jobs? What if they stop doing well? I would then stop being excited, but I could still be happy, with hope and faith and love in my soul. 

So you see. The material conditions of this life are fleeting. They do not last forever. Happiness on the other hand is a condition of the soul (and spirit) such that it cannot be taken away, regardless of our physical, or material, or bodily situations. We may be excited about our material conditions, but they do not make us happy. We may even endure terrible material conditions, but they need not make us sad. It would be very foolish for someone to reply, in response to the question, "What makes you happy?" that the good fortunes experienced in this world are responsible for the so-called happiness the person claims to have. No. True happiness is transcendent of the physical world, and lies in the soul and in the spirit. Synonymous with heaven as it is, happiness as we've previously defined is the situation of courageously doing what one knows beyond a doubt to be right in spite of challenging material conditions. This sort of happiness is what we all should strive for, especially since we know that, once we find it, we get to keep it forever. Because no one, however powerful, will take it away from us.