Let's face it, Mormonism fulfilled certain deficiency needs for us on the hierarchy of needs, love, belonging, emotional needs, safety in numbers, and even sometimes, physiological needs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Expanded_Maslow%27s_Needs.webp

But at what cost? How about the 'growth needs' like cognitive needs, aesthetic needs, meaning, self actualization and transcendence of self, Were those needs ever fulfilled by your faith in Mormonism?

I don't think they really were for me. Finding authentic meaning was thwarted by placing my faith in a fairy tale that turned out to be bogus, rather than placing my faith in things that really give my life meaning and purpose, like evolution, science and developing skills and talents. The CULT isn't concerned with talent, cognitive or aesthetic needs. It could care less about self actualization or transcendence of self. There's about zero reward within MORmONism for pursuing those growth needs.

By focusing on our uniquely American, God given right to the pursuit of "Happiness", does that result in a false deficiency mentality?
As if there's not enough happiness to go around, so we have to always pursue it, rather than just realizing we were born happy and all we have to do is quit expecting anything more and we'll be happy.

The disconnect between what was felt versus what was taught was the impetus for my looking deeper into the teachings of the church. I wasn't happy, in spite of following "the one true path to eternal happiness".

For some people, like my dad, the fellowship, sense of purpose, and even the deference to a higher power bring some life satisfaction. But along with that often comes a depressing apocalyptic world view. This is the aspect that overwhelms my mother, and it's sad. We endure her fretting over percieved imminent catastrophe with every visit and it's clear that her beliefs bring her far more fear and worry than happiness.

The inherent self centeredness of humans leads to the assumption that what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Mormons are taught this as a matter of doctrine. They are taught that everyone has a place in the one true church. It's not hard to see the conflict here from an outside perspective, but from the inside, this one size fits all teaching is harmful. Those who are unhappy have only themselves to blame. They must have sin in their lives. Imagine being unhappy, but not being able to identify the sin causing it. Imagine the resultant destruction of your confidence. Imagine feeling like god hates you, but not knowing why, simply because the temple doesn't make you feel all tingly inside like it does everyone else you know...

I don't think happiness can be pursued as a primary endeavor. There are a myriad of other worthy primary pursuits...good relationships, personal integrity, charity and gratitude, and more...that bring happiness as a secondary effect.

The church doesn't have a monopoly on any of these things.

Does Jeff Holland seem happy? Dallin Oaks? Russ Nelson? Dave Bednar? Those don't look like happy faces to me.

Yeah um, about your plan.

Great Comments--all three, so far. I have read many other posts from all of 3 you, and feel like you have a better analysis of what true happiness is and what life is all about--far greater than any of the GA's or other Mormon leaders ever had! I want to thank you for your good advice over the years!

Mormonism is in a great struggle between philosophies there isn't a consensus on how to gain happiness. The written doctrine says there is suppose to be a socialist paradise called Zion. Marx would be proud.

But then there's all these apostles and prophets who believed in the opposite which for this post I'll call 'Reaganism' which is the individual is more important than the state and leveraged buy outs and trickle down economics are suppose to turn us into a shining city on a hill...

There's at least 29,000 working for the COB currently. Since about 1995 Mormonism has gone in the direction of promoting and hiring credentialed and smart people, folks with degrees, especially in IT and Law, those that have been rewarded trophies and golden stars. Most of these bureaucrats are individualistic, they are competitive, they tend to be proud of their own achievements and the world has rewarded them. But I see the members as being rather more ordinary. The members are leaving fast, life's not been so nice to them. The members aren't seeing eye to eye with all these smart people telling them what to do. Hence there is a great deal of conflict. And it's only growing. The management doesn't understand the people. The gulf between the smart hierarchy with the assets and the common folk who are much poorer is growing faster than is healthy. We're headed for lots of troubles in the future.