This is the FCB podcast Network. Our prayers Masoda Day that we won't was sade and we won't say all we got it? Does no one get take that away? Say it's gonna be okay? Our prayers Soda Day that we won't was sad and then we won't say all we got it? Does no one get take that away? Don't don't with bade It's don't be okay. Hi, everybody, welcome back to another episode of Just Listen to Yourself with Kia Davis. I'm your host, Kia Davis, and this is the podcast where we take hot topics, hot button issues, and we discuss those issues and we draw those talking points all the way out to their logical conclusion. I'm wondering if I need to change that intro because sometimes I don't do hot topics. Today is not a hot topic, but it's a hot topic to me. I'm excited to do it. The difference between joy and happiness. It's something that's been on my mind for months now. As you guys know, I lost my father and I've also these things never come one at a time, right like tragedy seems to always be grouped, and so our family has been going through a lot of loss lately on both sides of my family, my in laws and my side, and then, you know, you lose a parent and that sort of sets you on a path of like reevaluating everything. I'm hitting a midlife of crisis, completely unbothered these days. It's been a struggle to care about a lot of stuff. And I don't like that feeling because I'm I'm typically I care too much, you know. And that's kind of why I do my podcast, because it's a place for me to get out my feelings and my thoughts and think through some things. And I've been wanting to think for the difference between joy and happiness for quite a while because when I was in the heat of dealing with my father's death, and it was almost two weeks before he passed, he was in the hospital, so I was bedside with him, had a lot of time to do a lot of thinking. Hospitals are horrid places, and I wasn't happy, you know. And I came home and I was glad that that part was over. I felt relief, but I didn't feel for reasons that should be obvious. I didn't feel happy, but I was struck by a feeling that I did not expect, and that was gratefulness. Well at the time, I was identifying as gratefulness, but I think it was joy and you could probably interchange those a lot. We'll talk about that. That's what I want to talk about. I want to talk through it. I came home and I remember telling my husband, I feel miserable, but I've never been more content because I facing that type of situation made me thankful for where my life is now and who is in my life. And I realized a lot about myself and why I am the way I am. And I came home realizing that I've been punishing myself for a very long time over things or reactions to my circumstances and my relationship with my parents and extended family. That I was punishing myself as selfish, And then I realized that those things were self preservation and it was the Lord sort of protecting me from things that I maybe couldn't handle. I don't know if that makes any sense, but I just realized I was released from a burden, but also I was forced to look around me and in California, you are you get on this hamster wheel. It's hard to resist. It's really hard not to become a part of the rat race. Part of it is the cost of living here. You're always playing catchup, You're always working for the next thing everyone around who has more things, So it's really hard not to get wrapped up in that. But then just to maintain a middle class lifestyle in California, or really any kind of lifestyle is it's a struggle, and you start looking at your life in terms of affordability, and that's no way to go through life. And I got sucked into that trap too. So coming home from all of this drama and trauma made me realize that while I am not happy many often, I have a joy that is irreplaceable and feels comforting. And that has a lot to do with my faith. And so today is probably going to be really faith based. But I want to expand this conversation a little beyond that, because I think Americans are really missing joy. We're letting a lot of life sap the joy, and we don't know the difference between happiness and joy. I want to talk about that. So this is not some hot button issue podcast. This is one of the podcasts where Kira is thinking through something that has really been on my heart and spirit. The other thing that really stuck out to me and really set me on this path of thinking I'm going to sit down and talk about this is I saw a clip from one of my favorite actresses, Taraji b Henson, and she a lot of you listeners will know her from the popular TV show Person of Interest. I used to love that show. She played Jim Caviezel's partner and love interest that they had a really great connection on that show. I loved it. And but others of you will know her from Empire, where she played the Powerhouse Cookie Lions. She left person of Interest to do that show. I was mad when she first did it, but I didn't know what she was going to and then I was like, Okay, I get it, and she was really great on that show. But I saw her on an interview recently, and I keep up with the gossips, you guys know, I like the celebrity gossips. So I happen to know that she's been going through a well. I don't know, but she has shared with the public that she's been going through a lot personally, and she was giving this interview and what she said really struck me to my core. So I'm gonna play this clip for you and I'm gonna talk about why it affected me. But the things that I thought I'm gonna get emotional, I don't want to. The things that I thought was making me happ happy, they don't. They don't cut it anymore. And so I'm in a place where what does that look like? And I'm kind of spinning. And to be quite honest with you, Angie, I haven't been happy, like purely happy in a long time. Oh, give me your hand. I haven't. I'm sorry, I'm not because it's just a wake up call you. No, I'm about to go to Bali for a month by month. She she goes on to say, I'm going to Bali for I think she said six months alone or something like that, and she's gonna, you know, she's gonna try to find her happiness. I was gutted by this clip. I didn't watch a whole interview, just this clip. I was gutted. Her sincerity was real, and I saw the pain in her face and my first thought was, what does she think happy needs to be? You know, she's she's saying to this person, I the things that used to make me happy. Don't make me happy anymore. You gotta understand people. She's she's worked for years in a business that measures achievement by your paycheck and and the number of gigs that you book. So she's fought her way to the top of this industry. She now is an award winning actress, a celebrated actress. She's wealthy, or at least rich. You know, she's got a steady income, is what I'm saying, more so than when she started out. She's got people around her who adore her and want to make life easier for her. She has all the things that she probably imagined would make her happy and that she wanted when she was a young actress. And she's looking around at her life now and she's going to I'm not happy. I do have all these things, and yet I'm not happy. And I don't know what her personal journey. Maybe she described it more in this interview. I just I didn't watch a whole thing, and I don't know what her personal journey is on the inside. Do you know what I mean? Like, I don't know. To me, when I'm struggling with being happy, usually my struggle is I need this one thing and then I feel like I can relax. That's not very uncommon, particularly in the entertainment industry. I was listening to an interview once with I believe it was Brad Pitt, and he was talking about fame, and he said, fame is a very weird thing because it's not real. There's nothing to hang on to. You know, if you get an accounting degree, you come away with that accounting degree, and then you get an accounting job, and this paycheck comes every week and you know what numbers to add and subtract it. You have a job, you have goals, you have line items. You know you can visibly cease progress, right or success. It's in your ledgers. But with fame, there is no one thing that someone can hand to you, like an award or anything and tell you you've made it great, you've made it because you're always chasing the next job, the next thing, and you're always on the bubble. Right if you don't take this next interview, if you don't take this next job, sure you're famous now, but you might not be famous tomorrow. So he said, you never get to relax into it. You never get to a point where you're like, oh, yes, I'm here, because fame isn't real, It's just a concept I'll never forget. They said there's nothing to hold on to, and that has always stuck with me. There's nothing to hold on to. And I don't know what Taragi exactly means when she says I haven't been happy in a long time, but listening to her talk about the things that made me happy don't it's because those are temporary things. There's nothing for her to hold on to. She couldn't hold on to those things because of course those things come and go. And that's where I want to start this journey, this x floration into what is happiness versus joy? And I think really what we're talking about is the permanent versus the temporary. I have been researching and reading and thinking about this subject for weeks, preparing to sit down and talk to you, and I still feel like this is going to be a dumb podcast, but I need to talk about this. If this is a boring episode, go back and listen to one of my more interesting ones. Everybody loves my Black Lives Matter podcasts, Go listen to those. I looked up a lot of quotes I watched a lot of videos. As you guys know, I'm a big fan of neuroscientists Jordan Peterson who and I like him as a touchstone because he's not faith based, so a lot of my thoughts and feelings are going to come out of my faith, which of course I believe is real. But that's not necessarily great content for what is essentially a secular podcast. So I recognize that, y'all know. I love to take it to church on here, but I do want to expand this notion out. So that's kind of why I talk about Peterson a lot on here. I don't mean to seem like I'm a I'm like an obsessed superfan or anything. I just listened to him a lot because he's a scientist and I like that angle, and so he had some really interesting and he's talked about this too, because he's had his own journey. Right. He was a nerd, a nerdy professor at a Canadian university, a nerdy neuroscientist. He's just a nerd, and suddenly his spot blew up because he took a stance on one issue, right, and now he's one of the most famous people in the world, and it damaged him, It damaged his body. He was definitely ill for quite a while. He developed a drug addiction, He had struggles in his family, and it devastated him. He disappeared and I don't know if you remember, for a year or so and came back. He seems to be doing a little bit better, but he talks a lot about how he was so unhappy because his circumstances were unhappy. Right, he was being invited onto all these shows, and it seems cool to be able to do all that stuff, but it is very stressful to be assaulted verbally every time you take an interview or every time you talk to someone on the phone or a reporter. All of his interviews were combative, and he's again, he's just a neuroscientist. He's unnerd. He's not a debater. So he's this like a mild mannered guy and he's going in and people are addressing him as if he's the second coming of Satan. It took its toll, and so he talks a lot about why he was not happy and how he had to learn to find joy, but he already had the neuroscientific base of that. I've found videos of him talking before long before any of all this, when he was still just a nerdy professor, and I'm going to play you some of those clips. But he does talk about the functions that happiness and joy have in our minds and our brains, and I think that's valuable. Happiness feels very temporary, right, and that is what when I was listening to Taragi, I was like listening to her saying I had these things, and the things didn't make me happy. Now to me, of course, my faith is like, the things of this world are temporary, and you must find your happiness or your joy in more permanent, permanent things. I guess why don't we start here with some definitions. I don't find them to be particularly helpful, and I don't think you can define in a few words the difference between happiness and joy, which is why I'm doing a whole podcast on it. They here is the Dictionary's definition of happiness of the quality or state of being happy, good fortune, pleasure, contentment, or joy. And then here is the definition of joy, the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying, keen, pleasure, or elation, or a source of keen, pleasure or delight something or someone greatly valued or appreciated. The dictionary connects joy to emotion, and I think it's the opposite. I think happiness is the emotion and joy is a function. And in Western life we have those two. We conflate those two, and I think it's killing our souls and our mental state. The idea that we're supposed to be happy. It's right there at our constitution right tells us everyone has the right to pursue is But that doesn't mean everyone has the right to happiness. But politically speaking, in this country, we have flipped the script and there are so many people who think that that part of the constitution means everyone has the right to be happy. In fact, that is the basis of a lot of abortion activists. Right, if this pregnancy is going to make me unhappy, I should be able to end it. They used that clause. A lot of lawyers over the years have used that clause to defend abortion rights. Well, you have the right to pursue the pursuit of happiness is right there in the constitution. But if I have to carry a baby to full term, I'm not going to be happy. It's a violation of my rights. We have this idea that we're all supposed to be happy. It's what a lot of unfortunate policies are based on. And by the way, every policy that is meant to make people happier, you'll notice, makes everything worse and people angry, and people just want more because happiness is if I could use an old joke, old dad joke, you know, like it's like westernized Chinese food. You know, you have some and you're hungry an hour later, that old joke. But it is like that. It's like happiness is sugar. It's a snack. It's it can't satisfy you. It can only bring you a moment of pleasure. And I think we we confuse pleasure as joy. I don't think joy is pleasure. I'm not sure it's pleasure at all. I'm gonna read you some stuff, i gonna play some clips for you. Let's get moving on that. But I'm as I'm sitting here, I'm thinking about that rob based on Joy and Pain sanshine, and right, well, it's not that's a sample. But you know the rap song everybody because because everybody dances that song when it comes on joy and pain go together. I'll give you one example, and then I'll move on to smarter people who are talking about this falling in love, the joy of falling in love, and then and then loving. Could you could make an argument that falling in love is a happiness part and loving is the joy part. But think about how much you if you've ever been in love with somebody in those early days, how much you love that person. You can't stop thinking about them when you are a part. It is almost painful. In fact, it is painful. All you want is to be with this person. You can't wait to see them at the end of the day, talk to them during the day. You fantasize about being with them, sitting next to them, holding their hands. It's pain, but there's such pleasure in it. Right If the person just made you happy but their absence didn't cause any stress or pain, would you call that joy? Would you call that love? You know, so, there's an argument to be made the joy really is intricately linked to pain, and that true pleasure has an element of pain to it. I suppose you could look at like working out as that you know you you have the pleasure of having the body you want, but the pain of the workout. I did take a quick break. When I come back, I'm gonna play you a couple of clips and we'll discuss those. We're talking about the difference between joy and happiness. Okay, thanks for returning. I hope you're getting something out of this. Here is a clip. It's about four minutes. It's Jordan Peterson and he is This is Professor Jordan Peterson. Okay, this isn't Jordan Peterson, superstar, so this is This is from before he became a superstar. This is him talking to a classroom about happiness and why it's important to not push for happiness. So I'll play it and I might stop imparts to discuss what I'm hearing and ask you what you're hearing. Right here we go, Jordan Pearson. Because positive emotion is associated with movement forward, Like if you're where you want to be and things are going well, then your behavior should be activated so that you go and get things now. One of the negative consequences of that is that if you're really in a good mood, really happy, you're going to be impulsive and make mistakes. You know, because you hear these dough headed that's a very minor word. People who are always pushing happiness as the as the key measure for successful existence. It's so ill informed that it's embarrassing that that even happens. Positive emotion makes people impulsive maniacs, for example, which is really that's mania, right, bipolar disorder. If you're manic, you're one happy person, way too happy. Everything is great, nothing but wonderful things that are beyond your imagination are going to happen to you, and they're going to happen fast. And so you're down to the mall to buy everything you can possibly get your hands on because you have one hundred uses for everything. And then a week later, you know, you crash into your depressive episode and you realize that you're one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in debt and you've alienated everyone that you know. It's like, that's untrammeled positive emotion. So I love this. This speaks to me. I felt like the Lord led me to this clip because for the last week, well, I will say last week, I was going through some kind of euphoric phase. I don't know what it was, but every day I was waking up happy, which is unusual. I mean not that I'm waking up miserable, but I'm just like, I'm not waking up thinking, Wow, what does it day have in store for me? This is I'm not that person. And I was waking up feeling happy. I was so thrilled to just like stop and talk to everybody, and I felt good and I haven't felt good and so long, and I just was feeling good. And so I told my husband, I'm like, I'm worried about myself. I feel like I'm I feel like I'm too happy. This doesn't feel right to me. Now. Part of that is like I need a therapist, and I probably need to unpack all that with a therapist. Idea that feeling happy feels so foreign to me right now, that's that probably has a lot of deeper issues, and I'm not going to dig into them in this podcast. But my point is is that I was suspicious of that feeling. But I think one of my suspicions is because I have the same notion that Jordan Peterson is expressing here, which is the idea that this is temporary, it's going to go away. But also I'm in a state where I'm maybe not thinking clearly, I'm actually not supposed to be this happy, and that because of my heavy decisions. Important decisions require a certain measure of somberness, and I make a lot of important decisions every day and not I mean, I'm not that that's just so exclusive to me. But and it worried me, It concerned me. So that's what I've been going through over the last week or so, feeling almost manic. Now I'm not a manic depressive. I'm not bipolar, nothing like that, but I just felt dangerous, almost like so happy it was dangerous. I still don't know, like I've come down from that a little bit. I didn't hit some kind of depressive cycle after that. I wasn't even worried about that. I can tell when a depressive cycle is coming on, and I've never had a period of like uphoric happiness for it, So I wasn't worried about falling into a depression. Psycho is more worried about like my judgment in that moment, or that, oh, what if God's playing a trick on me. There's always that thought in the back of my mind because I'm simple and sometimes I look at God as like a trickster, and he's not. He's my father and I but I don't know if I would call that feeling that feeling from last week joy. I think I feel more settled this week, and I think what I'm feeling starting to feel is joy, probably because I've been focusing a lot on this topic and I've been thinking a lot about the difference, and I've been focusing more on creating joy for myself. I want to go on because he's got a lot more intelligent things to say here. How about No, the pure index of positive emotion is no way of determining whether or not a system is working properly, even your own system. You need a balance between positive and negative emotions. Past positive emotions are absolutely exhausting, because if you're in a manic episode, it's like it's time to get everything good right now, Fine, but you won't sleep for a week and then you die because you just burned yourself to a crisp. And so to be overwhelmingly enthusiastic about everything sounds like a real blast. And I've seen full blown mannics and they're having plenty of fun, but it is not a pleasant thing to behold. They're just all over the place, and you know, yeah, it's really not good. It's really not good. You need a balance between these two systems because the whole world isn't explored territory bursting with nothing but promise. That's not the world. The world is that in the bounded space a little bit with that absolute horror show going out around the periphery, and both of your both systems need to be active in order to keep you balanced. People do, unfortunately, sustain damage sometimes to the left prefrontal cortex responsible for positive emotion or the right prefrontal cortex responsible for negative emotion. And if you sustained right hemisphere prefuntal damage, it makes you inappropriately happy and impulsive, and you and your life just goes. You just spiral downhill because you make nothing but impulsive decisions. And you know what the world world consequence of that is. You know, so we're not meant to be happy all the time. That's biblical. But here's the neuroscientists telling us that that also manifests itself physically. You know, the spiritual does manifests itself physically. Those two worlds are connected sidebar, but that there isn't there is solid proof that happy should not be our goal. That's a dangerous goal. Actually, happiness is to be enjoyed, but it is not to be dependent on and certainly not to become an addiction. You didn't see because you're not watching some video. But when he said what happens to their lives, he did the spiraling motion down with his finger. Your life goes around the toilet if you're too happy all the time, And it makes kind of sense. I don't know if you've known anyone like that. I've known man manic depressives. We don't call them manic depressive anymore. I guess we say bipolar. But I've I've known people like that that he described, and it is very disconcerting to see them go through their manic phase. It feels very uncontrolled. Sometimes you get on a good ride with that person and you go have a little fun, but there's always a moment where you're like, ooh, this is gonna get real dangerous, real fast. And then of course you know what's coming on the tail end of that, which is a deep depressive dive. But there you go. We're not meant to be happy all the time. So I'm thinking again about Taraji Henson saying, I haven't been happy in a long time, and maybe part of her despair is that she thinks she's supposed to be happy all the time, and I'm not is counting the tragedy that has befallen her. As you heard in the beginning of this podcast, I am very familiar with that. We all are in some respect or another, So I'm not just counting that. Like, of course, those things leave you in a place of unhappiness. But I think also I sensed another type of stress from her, that she feels like she shouldn't be experiencing unhappiness, that there's something wrong with the unhappiness. And here is the neuroscientists telling us, no, there's something wrong with the happiness. Being happy all the time is the thing you need to be aware of, and how do we balance that right? Because while am I supposed to be unhappy all the time, I don't think this is what the scientists are saying. I don't think this is what the Bible. Oh well, I know that's not what the Bible tells us as well. But let's carry on, get drunk and be impulsive for one night. You can learn what the bloody consequences of that are you try living like that for a month independently of IQ. That's the other thing that's so interesting. You can blow out your left prefrontal cortex and not suffer much of a decrease, especially in crystallized intelligence. But the fact that you're running on nothing but sorry you're right hemisphere. You're running on nothing but positive emotion is going to augue you right into the ground. And then if you're perhaps even more unlucky and you lose the left prefrontal cortex, then you're permanently depressed because there's nothing but the unexplored manifesting itself. We know that if you take depressive depressed people and you do EG analysis, that they have predominant left, predominant resting right hemisphere EG activation and so so that's roughly so what that's very interesting that he says that it's been a while since I've had you guys know, I've struggled with chronic depression. Although I feel like as i I'm aging and learning tools that that is sort of beginning to I don't want to jinx it. My depressive episodes are further and further apart these days. I'll say that I don't want to jinx it. But I was having a deeply depressive episode years ago and went to the therapists. It was it was bad, and I don't take meds. And I don't want to take meds, so we have to do other types of therapy. And one of the things he eventually suggested to me after a few weeks of working through things, is like, maybe electro shock therapy will help you. And I was like, what like they did in the old days where they strap you down, they put a thing in your mouth, and then they shock the hell out of you. It was like, no, no, no, no, it's it's not like that anymore. It's it's nodes that go directly into the brain. But there's some evidence that it stimulates the What this is what Peterson's talking about, the cortexes of the brain that might be damaged or not able to process positive emotions. Carrie Fisher, before her death in her book in her memoir, talked about going to electro shock therapy and how it changed her life as she dealed with severe depression and it helped. So I find that very interesting. I was shocked, No pun intended to hear my therapist say that. I didn't take him up on it, and I just used our therapy tools and was able to pull out of it eventually. But I do find it interesting. I found that topic very interesting. But here's what I'm also hearing Peterson say and biology say, is that happiness is unbalanced and joy is a balance. So it is no good to teeter over all the way into happiness, just as it's no good to teeter over all the way into unhappiness. We have a left brain and a right brain for a reason. When one is damaged, that causes the whole psyche to be out of balance. You have a right hand and a left hand, right, you got a right side and a left side. You have a mom and a dad. You have a husband and a wife. You have a man and a woman. Balance is natural. Balance is what we are required to have to live productively. Perhaps we could say that balance is a part of joy. I read Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis years ago, and I didn't want to read the whole book again, sorry, so I couldn't find this particular quote that moved me, but I remember reading it and it really shifted my notion of what joy is He talked about how he realized when he was thinking about heaven and he felt the sudden desire in his belly for heaven, sort of a desire for home. You know, our Bible tells us that the world is not our home. If we don't feel at home in the world's because we're actually not meant for here. There's something beyond, a place where we will belong ultimately. One day and he found himself longing for it, sort of out of the blue, and he realized that feeling felt pleasurable to him. And he realized the joy is not in the having. The joy is in the wanting. Joy is desire, joy is longing. Think about let's go back to Tragy. I'm not trying to beat up on your girl. You just really moved me with what you said. And I'm praying for you. I really am, because I saw the pain in your eyes when you spoke. But let's take it back to Tragy and she and her saying, I haven't been happy for a long time. All these things I thought would make me happy didn't when she was longing for those things, when she was a young hungry actress or a young woman looking for love, looking for family, a young career woman looking for career. She had a drive, she was driven to get these things, to have these things. It was the drive, the not having the longing that helped her feel content, like I would say joya's contentment. That helped her feel content. Then when she got the things she thought she wanted, right, whatever that is. She didn't lay that out in that clip, but I can only imagine that's what the rest of us want, right, financial security, love, family, a good career, friends, YadA, YadA YadA, maybe having a certain car whatever. Then she got she got the thing. Now there's nothing she can't have. She's a famous actress. If she doesn't have the ability or the connections to get something, she knows somebody who does. And yet here she is, and she's miserable, and she doesn't know what she wants. She doesn't know what she wants. How many times has someone looked at you and said, what do you even want? Do you even know what you want? You know what they're asking you, where's your joy? Because it's the one thing. It's the longing. It's the desire that is the joy, and happiness is the feeling you feel when you is the temporary feeling you feel when you get those things right. I want to be a famous actress. I really want that. It's all I've ever wanted. I want a star role on a primetime TV show. It's all I've ever wanted. I want that. You work for that. Every little step along the way feels so euphoric, it's so great. You're so happy. You're patting yourself on the back. You're feeling like I'm doing this among the way you get it. You get that first job on that big show, and that first day of work, you're so happy. And then on day forty of work, where you're working the fortieth teen hour day in a row on a set in the rain. Movie sets are not glamorous people. I've been on many, and they are not glamorous at all. You're miserable. You're miserable. Where the happiness is gone, right, the feeling of pleasure is gone. Are you still able to enjoy the work the job? Although so, the joy is in the wanting. And that's why I think so many people get joy and happiness wrong, even people. This is why I think that there is no real secular solution to finding deep joy. You need something that's eternal because you need something to always be wanting and longing after. And if the temporary things fall away, they come and they go. You reach your goal, and then you need another one. You know, they come and they go. But what is eternal? What is present? What never changes? What is always there? Heaven, God, your creator, the notion that someday you will be somewhere else, and then you won't need to be searching for joy. You'll be present in joy. You will be joy. But if you have that sense that there is an eternal goal, if you will, then you don't have to worry about losing your sense of joy, because there's always something to long for, there's always something to point to. C. S. Lewis says this, It would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy has offered us. Like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased. Here's another Lewis quote. That really spoke to me. If you this is from mere Christianity. By the way, if you want to get warm, you must stand near the fire. If you want to be wet, you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to or even into the thing that has them. They are not a sort of prize which God could if he chose, just hand out to anyone. And I believe that that speaks to what I said before, that joy is eternal, it's belonging, it's the desire. And if you want joy. If Taragi wants to find, well, I think what she's searching for is joy. I don't think she was able to articulate she's going to boy, you know, my God bless her. My aunt Eartha always says, you know you can move, because we always used to have this in the hood, right Like people would be like, well, I'm moving out, I'm moving out. My neighbors are crazy, the schools are bad, there's crime everywhere, and then move the suburbs, and then the suburban school Then we like everyone from Gary moved to this one particular suburb to get out of Gary, and then that suburb turned crazy too. Like because my Aunt Earth always says, you can run away from your problems, but you can't run away from yourself. If the problems are you and in your family, and you're thinking, well, just a change of scenery is going to change our whole family, you're not going to get there. So I believe me. I understand the desire, the temptation, the idea that if I run away and I find solitude, that I'll have a reset. I believe what she might find in Bali is pleasure, because man Bali looks beautiful and she's certainly got enough money to enjoy it. Well, I believe she'll find pleasure. But unless she's willing to look at the eternal consequences of seeking joy, of getting next to joy, of soaking yourself in the thing that is joy, I don't think that the euphoria will last, and she'll find herself right back in this place of despair because I haven't felt happiness in a while. Happiness isn't a permanent feeling, and it comes and goes. And as you heard doctor Peterson say, it's supposed to I'm not supposed to be happy all the time. That's dangerous. You should be happy some of the time. I heard another quote recently from some I'm probably a neuroscientist, because you know how YouTube gives you all these algorithms. You go down the hole and once you start on Jordan Peterson clips and it takes you to other scientists. And one neuroscientist was saying, happiness is life is mostly struggle and pain, and then happiness is the exception, not the rule. And again, I think we're living in the West is as happy as if happiness is supposed to be the rule. I believe other cultures have a better handle on this notion. And this is just I suppose, the inevitable end, or the inevitable result of a hyper individualistic society. It's been good for us in so many ways, but it's created problems as well. And it's created this idea that we can we can create our own happiness and find it and live in that forever. And then social media doesn't help either, does it. I have these conversations with my daughter all the time, right, I tell her, Look, I get that you like your people that you see on Instagram and TikTok, and you look at their rooms and their rooms look really cool and tidy. And decked out, and you look at their fridges, and their fridges are full and organized, and you look at their home. Moms do this too, right, the mommy bloggers, they're the worst. Sorry your mommy bloggers out there, but you know what I mean, because you look at their homes and you're like, Wow, how is their how so neat? How is that kitchen counter so clear? She's giving this little demonstration, you start to feel like there's something wrong with you. She's so happy, Look get hurt. Look how beautiful. She has got four beautiful kids that are beautifully dressed. She's got a husband who clearly adores her. Look at them kissing in this video. Oh, their feeling is having such a good time. And I flipped through this social media timeline and it's nothing but good times and nothing but happiness. Or Facebook, right, A lot of you all feel this anxiety on Facebook. Your friends are posting these wonderful milestones in their lives or kids lines. Oh I saw this thing today and I was so excited. Or we went to hear and we had such a great time. We took this great vacation, We bought this new car, my daughter got on this team, my son got this award, and you start to feel like, what's wrong with me? Because I'm not happy and these people look like they're so happy. How are they getting all the things they want? They're not. What you don't see is the mommy bloggers got all of the junk that's on her counter shoved over to one side, out of the frame. You're only seeing a frame. That's all we see each other's lives. Frames. Sometimes you let people in and they get to see the full picture. And that's a brave person, and that should be a very coveted and sacred relationship because not everybody should be in your life. Not everybody is meant to be in your life, is meant to know everything about you. Some things are for you. This is the thing I'd love about having a family. I say this often. Every family is like a secret. Every family it's your own secret. You guys are in your own club, and only you know the innermost workings of your family. There's some kind of treasure in that. I just I love it, and I always harkim back. This is a sidebar by harkim back to Malcolm in the Middle, one of my favorite shows, and How and lois the bedraggled parents go to a wedding, a family wedding, How's family wedding. The whole family hates Lois. They've always hated Lois. They feel How's from a rich, wealthy family. And of course, if you know the show, him and Lois live in Squalor with their four unruly boys, and they hate Lois. They think she's ruined How's life. And she goes to this wedding anyway because he wants her to come, and she's having a terrible time and she's being insulted. She's insulted, and she's trying to be good, and she finally breaks down and she cries what you hardly ever see Lois do in this series, and and she says, are why am I even here? Why are you even with me? Your family hates me? Why are we even together? And he says, I love it when you are around my family because I know that they don't get you. And I like that because it's like you're my precious secret and only me and you know how wonderful you are. Brings me to tears thinking about it. I mean, it's such a ridiculous show, but it was such a poignant moment that your family is your secret, your marriage is your secret. Everyone else gets to see a frame, and that's what you're seeing on Facebook. That's what you're seeing on social media. You're seeing what's in the picture, what's in the frame. You're seeing what can be shown on the screen. You're not seeing the junk piling up on the sides. You're not seeing the bathroom that hasn't been cleaned in six weeks, right, You're not seeing the argument that she and her husband just had about whatever, taking out the trash, intimacy, whose turn it is to get up with the baby. People don't post that stuff. People don't cry and piggy. It's very rare unless you're around some professional photographer. It's very rare to see pictures these days in the modern world of people who aren't smiling, smiling of people who are sad and depressed and angry. We don't photograph those moments. If someone turns a camera on us, we smile. And how many pictures have you taken where you're not feeling happy? You don't want a smile, But that's the automatic response to someone flashing a camera at you. We're all in a picture frame it's not real. We're all just projecting some kind of image forward me, you, all of us do it. And the constant voyeurism of modern Western life, where we can peek into the perfectly appointed homes of people who they are mostly lying to you about how perfect their lives are, b aren't sharing their vulnerable moments with you. See, probably can't even afford half of the things that they're pretending that they have. We're looking at all of those things, we see them every day, and it makes us feel self conscious. It makes us feel like we're doing something wrong. It makes us feel like happiness should be the pursuit of the happiness should be the goal. Again, that's sort of baked into our notion as America kids. It's right there in the Constitution, and it's tearing us apart. I have a friend who a mom friend in the neighborhood, and when we first started developing a relationship, I was like, oh, friend me on Facebook, and she was like, I don't do Facebook. I had to get off Facebook because we live in this very hyper competitive, like real housewife of Orange County area that's exactly where we live. And she was getting very frustrated seeing all of the wonderful positive posts that her friends were putting on Facebook, and she was like, but my marriage isn't like this, my kids aren't like this, my life isn't like this, my finances aren't like this. She was feeling so bad about herself. I actually commend her for being mature enough to say, I can't handle the fakeness. All right, I don't even think it's fake, but it's. But like Facebook is like taking a picture, social media is like taking a picture. Right, you turn to the camera and you smile. You don't. You don't typically show people your most vulnerable moments. We might share some that are going to get likes, like my dad passed away and then you get a hundred messages of condolences, but I'm not gonna like tell you about like how I was making dinner the other day and I dropped something on the floor and I was so tired, I just picked it up and ate it. You know, like your most tragic, pathetic moments. Typically we don't share those on We don't want people to know. And I made that up, by the way, the idea of me dropping I would do that, dropping something on the floor and picking it up and eating it. But I made that up because I don't want to share with you my most pathetic moment. You couldn't even handle it. I don't. But that's how we all feel, right like the world can't handle us at our most pathetic, so we don't put that foot forward, and then it leads us to this idea that everyone else is happy and we're the only ones who aren't, and it's just not true. There's a reason why the self helped section of your bookstore or of Amazon or wherever we buy books these days is so big. There are so many books. Everyone's looking for happiness, no one's looking for joy. I got another Peterson clip. This one's a little more produced. So this is new Peterson, right, This is Peterson after he's joined the Daily Wire, and he's got he's very bespoke. Now, he's got his suits and he's got his fancy haircuts, and he's definitely a more emotional version of himself these days, given what he's gone through. And I also think that Peterson has gone through a bit of a spiritual transformation, so that's shifting things. But he's still he's still speaking from his base of knowledge as a scientist and I think that this little produced video of him talking about happiness is it's valuable. You need an antidote to suffering, and it has to be deep, and knowing deep moves to you tectonically, and it's not a trivial thing. It's better than happiness. There are times in your life when you're not going to be happy, and then what are you going to do? Your goal is demolished, and there are going to be plenty of times in your life when you're not happy. There might be years. And so it's a shallow boat in a very rough ocean, and it's it's it's based upon a misconceptualization. Happiness is something that descends upon you. Everyone knows that. You know. It comes upon you suddenly, and then you should be grateful for it, because there's there's plenty of suffering and if you happen to be happy, will wonderful, enjoy it, be grateful for it. What you should be pursuing instead is well, it's two things. Is you should be pursuing who you could be, then be the first thing. It's like, because you're not who you could be, and you know it, you have guilt and shame and regret and you brate yourself for your lack of discipline and your procrastination and all your bad habits. You know perfectly well that you're not who you could be, and God only knows who you could be. And so that's how you should be strived. That's what you should be striving for. And associated with that, you should be attempting to formulate some conception of the highest good that you can conceive of that you can articulate, because why not aim for that. It's like, your life is short and it's troublesome, and perhaps you need to do something worthwhile with it, and if so, then you should do the most worthwhile thing and you should figure out what that is for you. And part of that's definitely going to be to develop your character. That's why so many young men disappear into video games. It's that's all acted out in the video game. So I have to act that out in their own life. Not that I despise video games because I don't, but not a substitute for life. And then maybe if you're fortunate and you do that carefully, then happiness will descend upon you from time to time. And that's the best you've got. Like this is a mortal game. You're in this with your whole life, and you'd think that what that would mean, at least in part, is that you need to find a game to play that's of sufficient grandeur and nobility so that perhaps even the fact that mortality is built into the structure now becomes justifiable. I mean, it's a hell of a it's a hell of an ambition. But but I don't it doesn't seem to me to be something that's impossible. I think you can live your life enough so that it justifies itself despite its limitation. That's the real question. Can you do that? And I believe that you can. And I believe that what that means is that the human spirit fundamentally triumphs over death. Ooh, does Jordan Peterson even know that he's preaching the gospel what he is calling a human spirit? I will call the Holy Spirit God right, that triumphs over death. That is the gift that God gives us. Whoa Peterson taking it to church? I don't even know if he knew it in that clip, That is what he is describing God has done for us, defeated the death that lies inside that we're all born with. The death, which is the depth of sadness that people like Taraji was experiencing that and I've been experiencing off and on, and you've been experiencing that depth of sadness, that whole that can never seem to get filled. That there's not one thing that ever seems to be the thing that helps me feel satisfied. It's never that car, it's never that job, it's never that relationship. When will I be happy? You do not have it within you to be content within yourself. You'll need an external goal. You need an external source of joy. And I don't mean a material source. I mean exactly what Jordan Peterson was talking about. And that is what God did for us right put to death the deaths of sadness through a sacrifice. Love requires sacrifice, Real love requires sacrifice, and so God gave us his son to sacrifice, to be the sacrifice, to satisfy death, to overcome death. And that is what Peterson is saying, is the human spirit overcoming death. That joy overcomes death, the death of the spirit, the death of the soul, the death of who you were meant to be. Joy overcomes that. So happiness is your temporary feeling and it's not supposed to be normal in your life. And I think that is a revelation that I have had this week. And I think that's why last week when I was feeling so euphoric, that I was feeling suspicious of it because I'm like, well, this isn't normal. It's not and it's not supposed to be. And that's not to say that you're supposed to walk around being miserable, but it's just to say that if you're not happy and you're not experiencing that feeling of pleasure and happiness every day that you're there's nothing wrong with you and you don't need to feel worried. What you want is joy. And so when you don't feel the happiness, what you do is you look to joy. You do you look at what c. S Lewis says. He says, he says, we're getting only a piece of what God has for us. We're so shallow, we're so stupid, we're like children, were so immature. We're asking God for a piece of candy, and he's saying, I could give you the universe if that's what you would ask for. You want a piece of candy so that you're going to feel pleasure for the five minutes it takes to consume that. And I want to give you a joy that lasts forever, that is immeasurable, eternal, and impossible to defeat. A joy you can wake up to and with every day, even when you're feeling terrible. And that's how I want to end this podcast. I want to say that I have come to the conclusion and I'm not trying to act like I'm the first person to think about this. I'm telling you that this is me having some personal revelations that joy is only external. What I'm saying is this because you'll find a lot of people who will say, well, joy is an internal feeling and happiness is just material things. I think it's a little more nuanced than that. Happiness is a material feeling. But joy, while joy is deeper, right, it is internal because it's you. It's something that must penetrate all of you. You can't find joy within yourself, and the world keeps telling us that we can. And that is why we are seeing such utter chaos and confusion among people. People don't know who they are. People are so confused because the Oprahs of the world tell us that we need to look inside yourself for joy, find joy within yourself. But Jordan Peterson that little clip he talked there about how well we know all the terrible things about ourselves. I think it's hard to feel joyful about myself because I know the terrible thing I did the other day, Like I know, I picked up that thing off the floor and then ate it. You know, we know all the horrible things we think and fantasize about, and the lies we've told, and the things we've taken from people. We know this about ourselves. So any joy you would find in yourself, I think would be corrupted because we all have some sort of sense that there's something not right about us. And that's why joy has to be external. You have to find your joy is outside of yourself. Now, I believe that the only true joy is eternal joy, and that's in the Lord. But I recognize that my all of my audience are not believers like I am. I have many atheists in my audience, So I don't mean to well, I do mean to suggest that if you want eternal joy and contentment, that that is found in an eternal and never changing God. But we can also look at the pursuit of joy as the pursuit of something external, something service oriented. I found this article while I was researching, and it talked about how it was research article and it was about how married couples have higher levels of happiness. When I read through it, I realized what they were discussing as joy because in the article they talk a lot about the principles like what marriage does. So it wasn't like a romantic sort of feeling that they were saying people were reporting, but that it is a feeling of its service, your debtated to the well being of another. You feel that you are partnered with this person. There was all this language in this research that had to do with the reason why these people report contentment more so when they're married, is is that they were focusing on the needs and wants of someone else. And I don't mean to I don't want that to sound dangerous, because sometimes you know, there are people who become obsessed with fulfilling the needs and wants of someone else, and then that becomes your idol, that becomes what you worship. I'm not suggesting you worship service. I'm suggesting that you that you look at service as a path to joy. And so if you are wondering how do I find joy in my life, there's the joy that the eternal God offers, and one of his principles to finding joyous service. So go serve your community, or serve your spouse, serve your family, serve your neighbor. Find something that drives you towards purpose and makes you long for more of it, right makes you so. When I was doing community service, it was a grind and there were days when I did not want to get up and go to work. But I wanted to see more of the good results that we were getting. So there was always that goal in front of us. I wanted, I wanted to see more. The joy came in in knowing, like I had kids come through our program, and I know, there's no more helpless feeling than knowing you're sending a girl back to a home where she's being sexually abused night after night, and you can't do anything. I can't take her from the man who's coming to pick her up after school, you know, I can't. I can report, but that's a whole that's a whole different thing. When you live in a place where every child is under duress to report something is oftentimes has no This was my experience has no results. So you have to just I know what that's like, and that can drive you to deep despair and a sense of helplessness and ineffectiveness. But my joy would be in having her there with me during the afternoons and knowing that for this two hours she's safe. For this two hours, someone who cares about her is sitting next to her and laughing with her and helping her. That's where the joyots, and that's where the happiness is. And I'm very unhappy to send her back into a situation that I know is terrible. And some of you out there might be saying, well, take that kid, go take her into your home. But when you work with when you work in troubled communities, that's every kid. That's not just one kid, that's every kid. And you can be deeply discontent with the notion that you are not solving all their problems, or you can choose the joy of knowing that you are serving them in the way that you are able, that you have been called to serve them. You are serving them, and your joy is in the purpose for their lives and for yours that that gives. So joy is external. So if you're feeling like Taraji, if you're feeling like I don't feel happy, embrace that. I think we need to embrace that. I'm learning to do that, like not be scared of my unhappiness or not feel like that means there's something wrong with me, but rather to feel like that's normal. That's normal life. Unhappiness is normal, but joy is the antidote to everything. And joy is permanent and eternal, and it doesn't have anything to do with what I have, or where I am or who's around me. I'll leave you with this proverb seventeen twenty two. A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit drives up the bones. You knows it doesn't say a happy heart, it's a joyful heart. I'm sure that the original Hebrew is a little different, but it's not happy. It's joy. A joyful heart is metac Happiness won't heal you, but joy will. James, Chapter one, verse two. Count it all joy, my brothers. When you meet trials of various kinds, embrace your unhappiness. Embrace it because it's what will will help you appreciate and recognize joy and John sixteen twenty four a promise from the Lord. I'll end with this, until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask and you'll receive that your joy may be full. I implore you not to look at that as a statement of ask for things and you will receive. Ask for contentment and you will receive. It's okay to be unhappy, but they're is joy. That's how I see it. How do you see it? Let me know. J L. T. Y at ProtonMail dot com. J L. T. Y at ProtonMail dot com. Don't forget to sign up for my substack just credavis dotsubsac dot com. My book is still available for sale, and it's an election cycle, and so there's great advice in that book about how you can get involved right where you are in changing the culture and in making a difference. So go look that up drawing lines and you could just type that into Amazon will take you right to me. Order that book and get prepared for twenty twenty four. Woof, it's really rushing up on us. Thank you to all the listeners. Of course, please leave me a review of five star rating if you would, I'll talk to you again soon, but until then, every once in a while remember just stop and listen to yourself that we will say all we gotta does, No one can take that away, no bad, It's gonna be okay. My prayers are sold to day that we won't was bade, and we won't was said. All we gotta does. No one can take that away, don was bade. It's gonna be okay. This has been a presentation of the FCB podcast Network, where real talk lifts. Visit us online at FCB podcasts dot com.
