Gripping Happiness
In the search for happiness, we’ve inadvertently veered into the realm of this temptation. Once we’re in, we try so hard to keep a grip on happiness with it. We use food not only to find, but also to control, our own happiness. And control is a dominant feature of modern life.
Look at what our culture is telling us. We’ve been taught to believe in ourselves and to depend on ourselves as the way to conquer any problem. We believe we should be self-sufficient and self-directed. It tells us to create our own reality of individual happiness. We hardly notice our secular thinking because it is an integral part of our culture.
We even practice spiritual disciplines as a means of controlling our happiness. Occasionally I see advertisements that tell me I can attract good things to my life through doing a special set of disciplines. There is little said about humility and self-surrender. Genuine religion promises happiness, but not through the ways of the world.
In earlier times, life was hard and more uncertain. You felt blessed if you saw your children become adults and if you had enough food on the table. Agricultural societies were completely dependent upon the weather. Hunger was a very real possibility and ordinary diseases easily brought death. The common people of old were not so much interested in happiness as in simple human dignity. They knew by hard experience that people couldn’t expect to control every aspect of life.
The more civilization advances, the more security we seek. We have unemployment compensation, safety regulations, and modern medicine. We strive to be fully insured and cushioned from hardships. By the standards of the developing world, we are the secure rich with disposable incomes, spacious homes, and several cars. At the same time that we have greater control over the basics of life, we face new temptations, continuous distractions, a faster pace, unceasing change, and endless details. No wonder modern society has an “obesity epidemic.” Amidst the unique stresses of modern life, food is a readily available source of basic satisfaction and security.
Of course, we know that overeating is an unreliable means of controlling personal happiness. The pleasure of eating a frosted donut, the momentary stimulation of chocolate candy, the relaxing effect of crunching tortilla chips, the feelings of security from a large hamburger and fries—are all fleeting. Despite our advanced and discriminating knowledge about food, we return to it repeatedly for good feelings and the easing of bad feelings.
Overeaters use food to escape even the smallest sufferings of daily life. We may feel trapped by an unpleasant circumstance. We dull uncomfortable emotions with the distraction of a snack. We continually try to escape the assorted pains of life. When I found myself inventing numerous excuses to indulge, I realized I was refusing to suffer. Temptation becomes both a shortcut to happiness and an escape from the usual irritations of life.
Through frequent and heavy indulgence, the temptation loses its ability to provide even a temporary refuge or a paltry happiness. The way of temptation promises much but delivers little. We return to it again and again, yet satisfaction remains elusive, moving further beyond reach. In our attempts to control our own happiness, we’ve been robbed of it. We start out trying to control life with this temptation, but the temptation ends up controlling us.
Sadly, we have become compulsive about eating. If we’re around food, we’ve lost the ability to say no. The sight of food draws us like a magnet. Eating has become the center of life. It is the glue that holds life together. We’ve used food to escape the difficulties of life, and now eating has become a prison. We have become dependent on the temptation.
Sometimes there is a way that seems to be right,
but in the end it is the way to death.
Proverbs 16:25
