WE ARE MADE FOR HAPPINESS

We are made for happiness. Happiness is possible only in relationship, friendship and in connectedness. We make friendships, we belong to groups and we marry—because we are looking for joy and happiness and want to make meaning of our life. True happiness dispels all hatred, fear, enmity, suspicion and all that divides us. The creation story teaches us that God who created a lone human being found the person incomplete and lonely and so he made a companion. He blessed this companionship and made it to last forever. He wanted them to be united and in union they might find in each other what they lacked in themselves. He wanted them to find complete joy in sharing and in complementing each other. So we are made for each other—made for sharing. We are for giving and in giving we become worthy of receiving. This is the meaning of companionship; it is all about giving and receiving—which is sharing. What do we share? We share one another, we share all that we are blessed with. We have beautiful gifts and talents, we have abundance of goodness and of course we also have limitations and weaknesses. That makes us human. It is our limitedness and incompleteness makes us to share and invite us to be complementary. In sharing our weaknesses and limitations we stand in need of care and support from our spouse. This makes the famous saying “my better half” makes sense. We are invited to give and find happiness in giving. We ought to give whatever we have and give it generously. When I hope the giver also hopes to receive in return. This “Give and Take Union”, this complementary union is blessed by God and it should help to overcome all the obstacles to happiness. When we refuse to give and when we count the cost of giving we become an obstacle to our spouse’s happiness. We begin to compromise our relationship and make our spouse to look for happiness elsewhere—outside the circle of love. Giving within marriage is a careful act, a pain-taking act and it is cultivated in selfless friendship. It is in this we find the pure joy. We are invited to use all the means—money, fame, comfort, reputation and all that we have made along the way as a means to our happiness and the things to share. They are not end in themselves but only small means to achieve greater joy.