How does serving G-d properly for the right reasons, have anything to do with happiness, meaning, and depression?
Once, Rabbi Levi Yitzchok of Berditchov saw a man running in the morning to work and asked him to come into the Synagogue to be the tenth person. The man insisted he needed to go to work. Rabbi Levi Yitzchok told him. “What makes you so sure your work and money is in that direction, perhaps it’s in this direction.”
Everyone is looking for happiness, but maybe, they aren’t looking for it in the right places?
Happiness is superficial and fleeting, self-serving, triggered by ego and ultimately, tiring and depressing. Once the laugh and the pleasure are over, it’s over and the hunt is on again.
Meaning and purpose is motivated by a deep and long lasting added value to existence. Purpose and meaning to life is outward directed, while happiness is self-serving, selfish and egocentric.
It’s the entire mentality to live for and seek happiness, whether it’s in love or anything else, that’s faulty. People who are looking for happiness are driven by what they feel they want, need and are therefore lacking. I do the things that bring ME joy. I get married because I see something in my partner that will enhance MY life. I take a job with this company because at this time in life I feel this is what will help ME receive what I am after.
The problem with this attitude is that as our sages tell us, “any love that is based on a consideration, once the consideration dissolves, so does the love.” She was beautiful when I married her, but is no more today, time for a change.
Besides the consideration for love that will most likely sooner or later change, right from the start I don’t allow for a real bond and relationship with the other, since to begin with, it was never the other that was ultimately my focus. It was ME who can acquire what “I” want at this time through the features I see in the other.
Things are constantly changing and therefore I need to be prepared for this eventuality. I will live with the stress, worry, and anxiousness, at the very least in the back of my mind, even while trying to enjoy the moment. As things keep on changing and the prize for self-serving happiness needs to be once again reconsidered and found, a person is under more stress and anxiety and depression in a state of uncertainty.
Once a chossid came to his Rebbe with a personal question. “Why was life a constant struggle?” This chossid found no solace from the many other people he consulted with, until he was told by his Rebbe. “The purpose of life, is to serve.” It isn’t necessarily in reaching anywhere in particular or being served. The journey, the serving, is the purpose. Sit back relax and enjoy the going, the journey.
People who have an overarching purpose for life, for marriage, for employment, see themselves, as the reason to fulfill this purpose and goal. Life, is about offering themselves to fulfill the purpose, life is best spent becoming a part of this greater existence, it’s about serving. It’s about dedication. It’s about commitment and loyalty to the purpose.
People who discover their purpose and live to fulfill their raison d’etre, are always adding psychological and real value, to their existence. Their purpose, is their meaning, and explanation, for everything. These accomplishment are there, and always getting stronger, more and more even if at the moment they are encountering difficulties. The difficulties itself, many times, are enhancing their purpose and meaning for life.
The definitive way to serve G-d, the Torah tells us, is to do so out of obedience. We serve, because G-ds told us to serve.
If we only serve because it makes sense to ME, we aren’t in a relationship with anyone but ourselves. We are small and constantly needing to reassess and change. Life is unpredictable and trying. We are all alone.
If we serve because that’s what makes Him (G-d), happy, no matter what the object of service happens to be, we’ve become connected with a much bigger force. In fulfillment of meaning and purpose comes the deepest happiness which is constant and always there.
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