​Always Look for Happiness

From In the Way You Wish To Go (#499) by Rabbi Avigdor Miller 

Just like there’s a fountain of happiness in the human heart, there’s a fountain of sadness and once you turn on the faucet of sadness, it pours out. Some people are chronically sad, and after a while they become so sad that nothing will help them. 

They have money, they have a good health until a certain time, they have everything. They have liberty, they live in America, but they are looking for sadness and they have succeeded in finding it. Now it’s uncontrollable, it comes out of the fountain of the heart, and there’s nothing but tears. Life is sad! And they are now out of control. Life is ruined for them because they have made contact with that endless fountain of sadness, whereas had they made contact with the fountain of happiness — it’s also endless! — things would have been entirely different. 

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Hashem says, “You’re looking for happiness? I’m going to cause happiness to come your way.”

​People who learn Torah don’t commit suicide. People who learn Torah are chofetz chayim (love life), they know that life is happiness. They believe in the World to Come. They have set their sights from the beginning of their careers on succeeding in life in this world and in the next world. Shabbas in this world is mei’en Olam Haba, it’s a preface, a preview of the World to Come. We sit around the tables and enjoy shabbas and eat and sing and we’re thinking about Olam Haba. We’re going to be rewarded for our service of Hashem!

So Hashem says you’re looking for happiness? You’re a chofetz chayim? I’m going to cause happiness to come your way, you’ll find it constantly… But a person who doesn’t like to live, if a person is dumb enough to say I don’t want to live, it registers. Hashem listens to that., too. You don’t want to live? Hashem says, Aha, I’m putting it down in My book, I’ll help you out someday.

You have to say, I want to live Hashem. I want to enjoy life Hashem. I want all good things, all kosher and good things, and I’m going to strive to enjoy life.

Climb the Ladder: Once a day for the next week, express out loud to Hashem your gratitude for being alive.