Why Latter-day Saints Should Be the Happiest People on Earth

It is self-evident that everyone does what he thinks will make him happy, at least in the short run.  No one deliberately chooses to be miserable, though mature individuals may defer gratification in favor of anticipated future satisfaction.  Yet it is obvious that not everyone succeeds in their pursuit of happiness.  The US, despite material prosperity, comes in at only 18^th place in the latest World Happiness Report, down seven spots since 2012.    It also leads the world in per capita consumption of anti-depressants.

Researchers have reported several recent studies of what makes people happy.  Some of the results may seem surprising.  For example, winning the lottery produces only very temporary happiness.  Once the euphoria wears off, winners return to their prior level of happiness, no higher than that of those who have never won.   Major life changes, such as a move or a big raise may be momentarily exciting, but the happiness they produce typically dissipates after a few months.  Likewise, those experiencing tragedy, such as being paralyzed due to an accident, generally return within a few months to the same level of happiness they had been experiencing before.

Does money bring happiness?

Does money bring happiness?  Only up to a certain point, found to be about $75,000 per year.  Once basic needs are met, there is no evidence that higher incomes are accompanied by higher levels of satisfaction.  Sonja Lyubomirsky, a psychologist at the University of California, Riverside found that when people making $30,000 a year were asked what kind of annual salary it would take to make them truly happy, the average answer was $50,000. But those making $100,000 per year said they’d be truly happy if only they made $250,000 per year.   Those making $1,000,000 said they’d need three times as much.   Those making $3,000,000 said the same thing. 

What does research show?

What, then, really does bring happiness?  Interestingly, a 2009 Gallup poll survey found that Utah, with its predominantly LDS population, was number one among all fifty states on the happiness index.

Some of the findings of happiness researchers correlate well with teachings and practices of virtually all religions, but particularly so with those of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  For example:

• Strong social connections are found to correlate with happiness. Multiple studies have shown that Mormons are the most “pro-social” group in America.  Active Mormons reportedly volunteer an average of 35.6 hours per month, not counting missions. 

• Having responsibility for someone or something else — a child, a pet, a garden — makes you happier. In one study, residents of a nursing home were given plants. Half were responsible for caring for the plant themselves. The other half were told that a staff member would do it for them. After six months, 30 percent of those who had no personal responsibility for their plant care had died — twice the rate of those who cared for the plants themselves.  The LDS ministering program can obviously do as much for the ministering elders and sisters as for those to whom they are assigned.

• Arthur C. Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research in Washington, D.C., told a BYU audience that “The most charitable state is Utah,” which gives twice as much as the second-place state does. He added:  “People who give get happier as a result … happiness is the secret to success … you can be a happier person by giving.”  Significantly, Mormons give four times as much to charity as the average non-Mormon. 

• A study at Emory University found that a knowledge of family history was a great predictor of a child’s psychological well-being. No group puts a higher emphasis on family history than Latter-day Saints.

• Having purpose and meaning in life was found to be highly correlated with overall happiness. No religion has a more profound concept of life’s purpose and man’s origin and potential destiny than does Mormonism.

• Spending to buy time and doing things with family and friends was found to produce more happiness than spending to acquire more possessions. The LDS Church strongly emphasizes spending time with family, and virtually all religions deemphasize the pursuit of material riches.

• Lyubomirsky found that 50% of a person’s happiness is genetically determined (what we’re born with), 10% is determined by rather fixed circumstances (health, status, geography, economic level, etc.), and 40% is determined by a person’s thoughts, actions and attitudes, totally within his control. This fits well with the LDS concept of agency and personal responsibility. 

• Counting blessings and expressing gratitude were also found to correlate with happiness. One study of severely depressed patients found that taking time to record just three things daily over 15 days led to a reported increase in well-being in 94 percent of those studied. Meditation for as little as ten minutes a day has also been found to increase happiness.  Such religious practices as prayer and scripture reading obviously fit in well here.

• Purposeful work was found to be more pleasurable than mere leisure. The LDS Church not only provides plenty to do for its members during their employment years but offers unmatched opportunities for volunteer service on missions and in temples after retirement.

• Good health is another predictor of general satisfaction levels. Mormons, with their abstinence from alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drugs and with their emphasis on periodic fasting have better health than the general population and tend to live five to ten years longer.

• Religious people are much more likely to report being very happy than non-believers. The Austin Institute for the Study of Family and Culture studied the link between religious affiliation and happiness in 15,738 Americans between the ages of 18 and 60 years of age.   They found that 45% of those who went to at least one religious service during the week described themselves as very happy, while just 28% of those who never went did so.  However, evidence suggests that it may not be church attendance per se which produces happiness but the social network that it fosters.  Thirty-three percent of those who attended religious services every week and reported having close friends at church said they were extremely satisfied with their lives, while only 19% of those who went to church but had no close connections to the congregation reported the same satisfaction. Latter-day Saints, with their emphasis on a lay ministry, with callings for everyone, in addition to their network of ministering to each other, provide a social framework which psychologists would consider unusually conducive to happiness.

The deepest happiness is a spiritual gift

All the preceding points may be impressive, but if we stopped there, we would be missing the single biggest reason that Latter-day Saints can and should be the happiest people on earth.  It has to do with spiritual factors of which most psychologists are quite unaware, but which are very real and available to all who will follow the recipe. 

The secret is found in Galatians 5:22, where Paul tells us that both love and joy (the deepest and most wonderful form of happiness) are fruits of the Spirit.  But neither is acquired by seeking for it directly.  Rather, as Mormon also makes clear in Moroni 7:48, they are received by divine infusion as a result of righteous living.  He said:  “Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ.”  He could have substituted the word “joy” for the word “love,” and the statement would have been just as true.

While all, both in and out of the Church, may enjoy spiritual gifts on a limited and temporary basis, they are guaranteed permanently only to those who choose to exercise faith in Jesus Christ, repent of their sins, covenant to follow Him by entering the waters of baptism, and who thereafter receive the gift of the Holy Ghost through the laying on of hands by those authorized to bestow it.  Those who comply with those four steps and who thereafter keep their baptismal covenants can find a supernal joy in life despite the hardships and trials all are given as part of the mortal experience.  They will come to know what Joseph Smith meant when he said, “Happiness is the object and design of our existence; and will be the end thereof, if we pursue the path that leads to it; and this path is virtue, uprightness, faithfulness, holiness, and keeping all the commandments of God.”

What the scriptures say about happiness

A review of entries in the Topical Guide under the headings of “happiness, happy” and “joy” is instructive.  Here are a few highlights:

• “Men are that they might have joy.” (2 Nephi 2:25.)

• “The righteous … shall inherit the kingdom of God,… and their joy shall be full forever.” (2 Nephi 9:18.)

• “I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness.”  (Mosiah 2:41.)

• “Ammon said unto him … my joy is full, yea, my heart is brim with joy, and I will rejoice in my God.” (Alma 26:11.  The entire chapter is evidence of Ammon’s being almost giddy with joy, despite having been gone on a mission for fourteen years and having suffered all kinds of hardship and abuse at the hands of those he was trying to serve.)

• “Now was not this exceeding joy? Behold, this is joy which none receiveth save it be the truly penitent and humble seeker of happiness.”  (Alma 27:18.)

• “I will impart unto you of my Spirit,… which shall fill your soul with joy.” (D&C 11:13.)

• “If thou art sorrowful, call on the Lord thy God with supplication, that your souls may be joyful.” (D&C 136:29.)

• “We were filled with the Holy Ghost, and rejoiced in the God of our salvation.” (Joseph Smith-History 1:73.  Joseph Smith’s account of how he and Oliver Cowdery felt immediately following their baptism.)

• “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad:  for great is your reward in heaven.”  (Matthew 5:11-12.)

• “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love…. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.”  (John 15:10-11.)

• “For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” (Romans 14:17.)

• “I am exceeding joyful in all our tribulation.” (2 Cor. 7:4.)

• “And it came to pass that I beheld a tree, whose fruit was desirable to make one happy…. And as I partook of the fruit thereof it filled my soul with exceedingly great joy.”  (1 Nephi 8:10, 12.)

• “He has poured out his Spirit upon you, and has caused that your hearts should be filled with joy.” (Mosiah 4:20.)

• “The king said: What shall I do that … I may … receive his Spirit, that I may be filled with joy?”  (Alma 22:15.)

• “He that keepeth the law, happy is he.” (Proverbs 29:18.)

• “Behold, we count them happy which endure.” (James 5:11.)

• “If there be no righteousness, there be no happiness.” (2 Nephi 2:13.) 

• “Wickedness never was happiness.” (Alma 41:10.)

• “There never was a happier time among the people of Nephi, since the days of Nephi, than in the days of Moroni, yea, even at this time, in the twenty and first year of the reign of the judges.” (Alma 50:23.  Significantly, this great happiness was due to the righteousness of the Nephites, and the spiritual gifts they were therefore enjoying, and not to their external circumstances.  This was during a brief lull in a protracted war with a numerically superior Lamanite force, whose leader, Amalickiah, had sworn to drink Moroni’s blood.  Furthermore, they were on the brink of a domestic rebellion, which would place them in even more dangerous circumstances.)

Many other passages could be cited, but these should be sufficient to make the point.  Though, as researchers have demonstrated, a certain level of satisfaction can be found in being an active part of Church organization and complying with its visible expectations, there is a much deeper level of happiness, even joy, to be found in internalizing the gospel itself and complying with its ordinances, including that which gives one the right to the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost.  A synonym for this kind of joy would be peace.  Jesus never promised a life of fun, comfort or ease, but He did promise “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you:  not as the world giveth, give I unto you.  Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”  (John 14:27.)  He repeated the same promise in D&C 59:23 when he said, “Learn that he who doeth the works of righteousness shall receive his reward, even peace in this world, and eternal life in the world to come.” 

 

Personal testimony

I am happy to be a personal witness that these things are true.  When I live the gospel, I’m happy.  When I do not, I am not.  And the peace and joy I find through the gospel far surpasses the excitement, pleasure, and mere “happiness” that the world offers.  We need some of both, but there is really no comparison between the two.  This is the real reason Latter-day Saints, who have accepted the fulness of the gospel and have received the gift of the Holy Ghost as a potentially permanent companion should be the happiest people on earth.  Yet everyone on earth is entitled to the same experience and blessings.  The Church and its members earnestly invite all to join them in the deep happiness which can be found in no other way.   As Nephi’s brother Jacob exclaimed, “How great the importance to make these things known unto the inhabitants of the earth.”  (2 Nephi 2:8.)