“Anything you’re good at contributes to happiness.”
--Bertrand Russell
True. But just think of the implications! First of all, what if you’re not good at anything? Although it’s hard for people in this culture to believe, having drunk deep from the American Idol Kool-Aid that anyone can do anything they dream up in their fairy tale heads, some people just aren’t good at much. Rather than trying to “find their thing,” the Bible tells us they are valuable (and can be happy) even if they aren’t. I know it sounds a bit un-American, but there it is. So Russell’s platitude leaves them out. But the second area is far more troubling. When you practice deriving happiness from the things you get good at, what happens to your happiness when you either are no longer good at it or can’t do it because of circumstances beyond your control? Does happiness then flee? It does, but only if you’ve followed Bertrand Russell’s atheistic advice of deriving happiness on anything as flimsy as personal aptitude.
--Bertrand Russell
True. But just think of the implications! First of all, what if you’re not good at anything? Although it’s hard for people in this culture to believe, having drunk deep from the American Idol Kool-Aid that anyone can do anything they dream up in their fairy tale heads, some people just aren’t good at much. Rather than trying to “find their thing,” the Bible tells us they are valuable (and can be happy) even if they aren’t. I know it sounds a bit un-American, but there it is. So Russell’s platitude leaves them out. But the second area is far more troubling. When you practice deriving happiness from the things you get good at, what happens to your happiness when you either are no longer good at it or can’t do it because of circumstances beyond your control? Does happiness then flee? It does, but only if you’ve followed Bertrand Russell’s atheistic advice of deriving happiness on anything as flimsy as personal aptitude.
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