November 23, 2020
Matthew 7: 24–27 says:
“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”
You’ve probably heard that verse referenced in dozens, if not hundreds of sermons in your life, depending on how long you were in the Church.
Jesus actually makes a pretty good point here. The multiple facets of your life — your seven life areas — will serve you better if they are built on a strong foundation rather than a weak one.
Today, I want to talk about your happiness. Specifically, I want you to examine if your happiness is built on a solid foundation.
What is that solid foundation? It’s you. Your own self.
I know that sounds cliché. It sounds cliché because this is one of those facts of life that everyone inherently knows, but few people actually ever put into action.
The reason most people avoid letting their own selves be the foundation of their happiness is because they don’t trust themselves to be that. They believe (rightly or wrongly) that they are a mess of a person. They know they have a lot of things to sort out (baggage, past trauma, etc.). Fixing all that stuff is difficult and takes time, so they’d rather put it off until “some day” when they have more time.
In the meantime, they decide to base their happiness on external factors. And as we all know (even the Church teaches this) external factors will not reliably bring you happiness consistently and in the long-term.
- It’s fine to derive positive feelings from your friends, but your friends shouldn’t be the foundation of your happiness.
- It’s fine to derive positive feelings from your spouse, but your spouse shouldn’t be the foundation of your happiness.
- It’s fine to derive positive feelings from your job, but your job shouldn’t be the foundation of your happiness.
All of those things could literally go away tomorrow. That isn’t pleasant to think about it, but it’s true. Most men respond to these things the same way: “Well, that would never happen to me.” Why wouldn’t it? Why are you special? How are you immune?
I’d even argue that, since you’ve deconverted, you are actually far more vulnerable to these external factors dropping out of your life.
- Your friends that are still in the church may now think that you’re a “bad influence” on them and stop talking to you.
- Your spouse may swiftly divorce you because she’ll no longer get that happy church family that she wanted when she married you.
- Your job, if you worked for the church, is now impossible and disingenuous. Even if you didn’t work for the church, you could technically be laid off at any time or your company could go out of business.
And also remember this: you once thought your faith in Jesus was absolutely unshakable and was never going away. Look at you now.
After deconverting from your religion, it should be very clear to you that even the most life-giving, comforting, seemingly permanent aspects of your life can disappear.
If you don’t yet trust that your own self is sufficient enough to base your happiness on, then you have a problem that you need to fix. Until you fix this problem, you will always be looking for external factors to give you happiness. All of those external factors will eventually let you down or go away.
Even Christians believe that. Their solution is to trust God for their happiness, but again, as I said before, everything external to your own self eventually lets you down or goes away.
I’m not saying all of this to depress you. I’m saying all of this so that you can be prepared. We only get one life and we simply don’t have time to spend it going through the emotional tailspins that happen when our external sources of happiness screw us over.
If you’ve read this and have admitted that you are a man that depends on external factors for happiness, then great! That’s the first step.
The next step is to firmly decide if you’re going to fix this. Most men won’t make the decision to fix anything. They’d rather throw their hands up and say, “Well, that’s just the way I am!”
You’re right. That is the way you are. But is that the way you always want to be?
Truly becoming happy with yourself and your own life is a process that is highly unlikely to happen overnight. It may take you tons of concerted effort to get to the place where you want to be.
But let me encourage you with this: deconverting from your repressive, fundamentalist religion is already the first, and probably the most difficult part of finally being able to make the foundation of your happiness your own life and your own self. You can finally admit that God (the ultimate external factor) has gone away, and if your happiness can’t come from something like the creator of the universe, then no other external factor will even come close to cutting it.
So with the hardest part done, there’s no reason to stop now. It’s kind of like how the hardest part of a workout session is actually going to the gym. Once you’re there, everything else is easier by magnitudes.
My specific and actionable steps for men rebuilding a happy and free life after their deconversion from religion is covered in great detail in my book. Check it out if you’d like more information about this faster.