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President of the American Enterprise Institute Arthur C. Brooks writes a column at National Review.com that outlines a very narrow minded, ignorant view of happiness. To sum it up, Brooks says that making a lot of money is the key to happiness.
Like most columns by conservative columnists these days, he starts of criticizing President Obama. At a commencement address in 2009 President Obama encouraged his audience not to “chase after all the usual brass rings”. He said that this has been in our culture for too long and that we could do better.
It kind of reminds me of Romans 12:2 “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
Needless to say, Brooks disagreed. He went on to argue that materialism and the pursuit and accumulation of wealth will not only make the individual happy but that each individual’s personal pursuit of happiness and wealth is what’s best for society as a whole. Brooks expends a lot of words criticizing Obama’s policy of wealth redistribution which has nothing to do with Obama’s speech, but he uses it to explain his premise that redistributing wealth does not make the recipient “happy”. Rather earning wealth is what brings happiness. “People who feel they have earned their success are much happier than people who feel they have not,” he writes.
And he had evidence to support his thesis. He cites a 1996 study that found that people who thought they were successful were more likely to consider themselves “happy”. A 2001 study found that people who believed they were successful were less likely to feel sad.
He pointed out that money itself does not make people happy, but success is what makes people happy. He said that money “is merely the symbol of earned success”. He offered that the best way for someone to achieve happiness is by working hard through the free enterprise system which is “not just a money machine — it is a happiness machine.”
It’s obvious that he missed the whole point of President Obama’s speech. The fact is that it is a major part of our culture the belief that working hard and making a lot of money is the key to happiness, and it is also a major part of our culture that one’s own personal happiness should be one’s primary goal in life.
Why?
Why am I so important that my goal in life should be my own personal happiness? Is that what life is about? The truth is that we live in a society where the individual ego is at the forefront, where each individual is taught to serve his or herself and that “me” is the most important person in the world. Striving to achieve wealth, success and happiness for myself should not be my primary goal.
Another part of our culture that we should be encouraged to avoid is the consumer culture. I want what I want. I have to wear the right clothes to fit in. I have to keep up with the Joneses. I want a Vegematic. I want a Pocket Fisherman. I want a handy appliance that'll scramble an egg while it's still inside its shell. Our culture has us working jobs we don’t like and/or going into debt to buy things we don’t need.
But the Bible teaches something different.
Romans 12: “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”
Philippians 2: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!”
The Bible teaches that we should NOT seek our own interests of personal happiness and wealth. Look not only to your own interests but also to the interests of others. Don’t think of yourself more highly than you ought. Think of yourself as a member of one body with many members each member belonging to the others. And consider others better than yourself.
The President was right. We can do better than what our culture instructs us.
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