I’d have saved years of my life and thousands of dollars wasted on the Mormon church. From the TV series Six Feet Under:
"If you think that life is a vending machine where you put in virtue and you get out happiness, then you're probably going to be disappointed.”
Happiness, it seems, is not a reward to be earned but a skill to be learned.

I could never understand the oft quoted Book of Mormon scripture, "wickedness never was happiness." I think plenty of wicked people are very happy. I'm pretty sure Joseph Smith was happy when he was deceiving people.

Mormons are taught that they can only be truly happy, in this life and in the next, if they're obedient to Mormon teachings. I remember being invited to my never-mo father's house for a party with his never-mo friends and family - who were all drinking - and wondering why it was more fun than Mormon gatherings, and why everyone seemed perfectly happy even though they weren't Mormon.

Heartbroken said:
I could never understand the oft quoted Book of Mormon scripture, "wickedness never was happiness."


I think this is why testimony meetings always dripped with tearful professions of happiness. In the context of the church, admission of sadness is a confession of personal wickedness.

Is it any wonder that Utahns self-report as among the happiest Americans while having the highest per capita consumption of anti-depressants.
“Man is that he might have joy”

I hate being asked if I'm happy. I consider it an invasion of privacy. But, like Harold's grandfather, I also consider being alive an invasion of privacy.

Running through dozens of emotions during the course of a day is the essence of life. If one of the emotions happens to be happiness and you notice, like a butterfly flitting through for a just second would capture your attention, then that is a nice day.

I don't like the use of happiness as a measure of a good life. If you aren't scared sometimes, nervous, titillated, freaked out, thrilled, and a little bit sad or angry or empathetic sometimes, you are riding a one-trick pony and not working with a full palette.

I based my mission farewell talk on the the premise that only Mormons were truly happy. Within months on my mission I realized that was a joke. And not a funny one. Just one Mormons like to tell with their challenged sense of humor.