'Finding Happiness' - A Book Review

Are you happy?

You, reading these words right now. Are you happy? Do you even know? Are you sure?

If you are happy (and I hope you are!) I wonder if you're able to explain why it is that you are happy?

I'm happy today. And I can quite easily explain why. I'm with my family. We're on a sort of mini holiday, staying with relatives. There is nice company, nice food, lots of rest and no work to be done. What's not to be happy about?

But supposing we take all these factors away. Suppose instead that I am at home, exhausted from yet another broken night's sleep with the baby, a mountain of laundry to be done and dishes in the sink. I'm on my own until my husband gets home and it's pouring with rain so I can't get out for a walk.

Am I still happy? Would anyone reasonably expect me to still be happy?

And what if my circumstances were even less favourable? What if I had no family? What if I lived alone? What if, instead of caring for a baby at night, I was tired because of ill health? And what if I was incapable of doing the mountain of laundry or the pile of dirty dishes not because I am busy with something else, but because I am so unwell, so tired, that I'm unable to find the strength to do the most basic tasks, like taking a shower or getting dressed?

How many people would be able to face such circumstances and still keep a smile on their face and a positive outlook on life?

Well, in his book 'Finding Happiness', Abbot Christopher Jamison might well argue that happiness could indeed be found in a life such as the one I describe.

Using Benedictine monastic tradition as his guideline, Abbot Jamison outlines not a 'system' of happiness, but more a way of living, that he argues, can and will lead to real happiness. The guidelines are based upon pursuit of several key virtues, aswell as ackowledgment and denial of several 'demons' that act as obstacles to inner peace and happiness.

So far, so Catholic. And yet, this book is so much more than just an overblown advertisement for organised religion. You don't need to be a Catholic to follow Abbot Jamison's fantastic advice. In fact, you don't need to be religious at all.

For all people, religious or otherwise, a life lived in pursuit only of personal pleasure is incapable of bringing deep and lasting happiness. Pleasure can only be defined in vague terms. At most, it can be basically summed up in the rather wishy washy expression "feeling good". Happiness in this context is distinct from pleasure. It can be best defined as "purity of heart". It has nothing to do with personal circumstances, who you are, what you own, your job, your family, your achievements or lack of them. Happiness can never be bought, or sold, nor it is something that is given to you by someone else. It exists solely in the internal workings of a person; in their mind, their heart and their soul.

Achievement of purity of heart requires that we embrace humility, magnanimity and self-control through chastity and our relationship with food. It also requires that we reject the demons that enslave us, of which says the author, pride and vanity are the most destructive. They are the sins of the soul, destined to rot our relationship with ourselves, those around us and for those of a religious persuasion, they are sure to rot entirely our relationship with God.

In it's most basic form, this book beautifully and eloquently unveils that most paradoxical element of Christianity. For us to be exalted, we must humble ourselves. But whoever would exalt himself will find himself humbled. This does not mean that each of us must leave our homes and families and exercise a mass exodus to the nearest monastery or convent (although St. Benedict did make the radical assertion that private ownership was "an evil practise". Gulp).

But what it does mean is that each of us needs to embrace a level of personal responsibility for the communal happiness of those whose lives we affect. Happiness does not exist in a bubble. By rejecting greed, anger, vanity and pride, we will place ourselves in a position to more effectively help others. This will bring us, and others, true and lasting happiness and peace.

It is this basic message that acts as a guide for the way of life that the author advocates.

The book serves as a powerful rebuttal to the old adage that people should be able to do as they please, provided they hurt no one. It is also a wholesale rejection of the excesses of the consumer culture we live in.

In short, it's radical, it is accusing and it has the power to change lives. I think it has changed mine.