We Lived After the Manner of Happiness
by Wendy Ulrich

Love and happiness are both things we can work at, cultivate, plan for. They are things we choose, not things that choose us.

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The other day somebody sent me a YouTube link for a comedian I’ll call Mrs. Jones. Mrs. Jones was a chubby grandma with hot flashes – not the kind of person you usually see doing stand-up. Mrs. Jones made me laugh out loud. Most of the “funny” emails forwarded to me make me sigh and hit the delete button. Mrs. Jones made me laugh out loud.

It felt sort of weird.

Which made me realize that I don’t laugh nearly enough.

I gave a talk once for a Relief Society and I was in a pretty good mood I guess because one woman came up to me afterwards and said, “You are really funny.” I reported this to my oldest daughter when I got home. She looked at me blankly for a moment, then said, “Don’t these people get out much?” Obviously, I am not known as the family comedian.

But I also know happiness can be cultivated. Happiness – like love – is more than a warm and fleeting feeling driven by someone else’s charm. Love and happiness are both things we can work at, cultivate, plan for. They are things we choose, not things that choose us.

When my son was a teenager, he was a little on the sober side. That is, a little sober like NBA basketball player Yao Ming is a little on the tall side. But then he started to change. He started announcing “It’s a beautiful day” in multiple languages. His voice took on an enthusiastic lilt. He acquired a killer sense of humor.

Years later I learned why.

When my husband was a bishop, his counselor Bob was an unusually positive and cheerful man. Without warning, Bob was killed, a devastating loss for our entire ward. At the funeral everyone talked about what a happy person Bob was. My son was only fifteen, but he was listening. And he made a decision, a decision to be like Bob, a decision to be happy.

An entire new field, positive psychology, has developed on the premise that the pursuit of happiness deserves at least as much scientific attention as learning how not to be miserable. For decades psychology assumed its only role was to fix what was broken, to return people to the ranks of the “worried well.” People could pursue happiness on their own time. Now we are learning that people are more apt to stop drinking, cope with bipolar illness, get out of depression, or improve their relationships if they directly pursue happiness in its own right, along with working to reduce their problems and symptoms.

This field of positive psychology was spearheaded by an agnostic who nevertheless turned to the world’s great religions to tap humanity’s collective wisdom about what it takes to live a meaningful, purposeful, happy life. These are some of the things positive psychology has discovered make a scientifically verifiable difference in people’s happiness: expressing sincere gratitude, regular exercise, good social networks, counting one’s blessings, helping people, pursuing goals, acting cheerful.

“In all of living, have much fun and laughter,” said President Gordon B. Hinckley. “Life is to be enjoyed, not just endured.”

I can work at this. And meanwhile, let me know when Mrs. Jones plays Salt Lake.

About the Author
Wendy Ulrich, Ph.D., is the author of Forgiving Ourselves: Getting Back Up When We Let Ourselves Down. She is the founder of Sixteen Stones Center for Growth, L.L.C. and was a psychologist in Ann Arbor, Michigan, for almost 20 years before moving to Montreal, Quebec for a three-year church assignment recently completed. She has served as president of the Association of Mormon Counselors and Psychotherapists, has authored numerous professional articles in both psychology and business, and has done consulting and training for such corporations as Results Based Leadership, Marriott, Johnson & Johnson, University of Michigan, General Electric, and United Way. She and her husband have three children.

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