Growing up, my dad had this trademark line he always told my siblings and I every morning.

“Cheer someone up at school today!” He’d say, as he kissed us on the forehead before we hurried out the door.

That simple statement made even my eight-year-old self think about the people I would encounter at school and how I could make their day better. It took the focus off myself and put it on others.

While I’d gotten so used to hearing that phrase, looking back I realize how profound it was. My dad didn’t say, “Have a good day at school,” but rather, “Cheer someone up.”

Being a very black and white man, my father made life simple by reminding us that life is about serving others. He’d always tells us that whatever vocation or job we pursue, we must find a way to serve.

I think a lot of us forget that. We get so wrapped up in pursuing the success our culture tells us we crave, and we forget the most important stuff.

We forget it’s not really about what we do, but how we do it.

We forget the measure of our success is not how much we accomplish, but how many people we lead to Christ.

We forget our lives are for others, not ourselves.

Why Am I Not Happy?

Have you ever noticed how there are so many celebrities and successful people who are unhappy? You’d think these people who have achieved their life’s dream and have all the money in the world would be happy, but many are not. It’s evident from the amount of celebrities who get messed up in drugs and alcohol addictions, as well as the number of suicides in Hollywood.

Matthew Kelly writes about this conundrum in his book, Resisting Happiness. 

“We live in a culture that says the meaning of life is to get what we want, and that when we get what we want, we’ll be happy. We yearn for happiness because we were created for it, so we fall for the lie. We race off into the world to get what we want, but sooner or later we all realize that getting what we want doesn’t make us happy (pg. 39).”

So if getting what we want doesn’t make us happy, what will?

Nothing! Well, nothing this world offers. 😉

We will never be perfectly happy here because we long for perfect fulfillment, which can only be found when we are in total unity with Christ in heaven.

So then what’s the point? What’s our purpose here if we’ll never be completely happy on earth?

Well you see, the closer we get to God and total union with Him, the closer we get to heaven and perfect happiness. The holier we get, the more we learn to purify our love to reflect Christ’s selfless love for us, getting us closer to that perfect union with God. The secret of happiness is holiness!

So in actuality, this life is really about trying to start our heaven here on earth by becoming as close to God as possible.

If you think about it, that’s exactly what the saints did, and there’s a reason you’ve never heard of a sad or dreary saint! How can you be sad when you’re close to Jesus?!? The saints are ones who have recognized the secrets to holiness and clung to them tightly.

And the best part is those secrets are not just reserved for the holiest of saints, but for all of us!

St. John Vianney, a beloved saint from Ars, France, lets us in on the secret to holiness and happiness here on earth. He said:

“Man has a beautiful occupation, that of praying and loving. Prayer is nothing else than union with God. You pray, you love — that is the happiness of man upon the earth.”

Pray & Love

So it’s simple: pray and love! Yet we tend to complicate it so much. But I don’t think it has to be complicated.

The more we pray, the closer we get to God. The closer we get to God, the more we learn about authentic love. The more we learn about authentic love, the more we learn that it’s about selfless service of others and not good feelings for ourselves.

“Human persons are made for self-GIVING love, not a self-GETTING love, and they will find fulfillment only when they give themselves in service to others (Men, Women, and the Mystery of Love, pg. 152).”

An “Others-focused” Life

You may be thinking, “I’m not Mother Teresa or some great saint who has a job of purely serving others.”

Well great! Neither am I! That’s why it’s even MORE important for us to focus on praying and serving others. We need to focus more on having an others-focused life instead of a self-focused life.

So what does that kind of life look like?

It looks like service! It means taking every opportunity to help someone in need. It means cheering that person up at school that’s sad. It means reaching out to a friend going through a difficult time, even if you’d rather do something else. It’s cheerfully helping your mom with the chores when she asks. It’s helping that coworker that always asks you to cover their shift even when you’re annoyed.

THAT is a life of service.

The more we learn to love selflessly, to get outside of ourselves, our emotions and desires, the closer we will get to loving as Christ loves us. The closer we get to that kind of love, the closer we get to heaven, and the closer we get to happiness here on earth.

So take the opportunity today to serve, to do the little things you don’t want to do to help someone else.

Go live for others!

And my dad wants to make sure you remember to cheer someone up today! 🙂

From the depths of my soul, 

Josie