“You can’t hit happiness by aiming for it.”
I’ve been reflecting on this little truism for a few months now, and I think it unlocks a bunch of Biblical truths. So I’ve given it a name: The Boomerang Paradox.
A boomerang (at least the kind you buy at the toy store) doesn’t fly straight. Which means if you throw it at something, you will miss. You are guarantied to miss.
Which is why no one seems to be happy nowadays. They are trying to be happy. That guarantees a miss. If you aim for happiness you can’t hit it.
This is true for just about every important thing in life: meaning, purpose, fulfillment, love, and even life itself. You aim for it, you miss it. (Not to the point of this little article, but this also includes authenticity, spontaneity, and creativity.)
See Ecclesiastes.
I suppose this is part of the mystery of life. The ends are contingent, connected to other things. Happiness, for example, is connected to service. When I serve or bless someone else to my own inconvenience the surprising result is happiness.
But here’s where it gets even trickier (and where the boomerang illustration falls short). Once we see these connections (Happiness is connected to service, character and hope are connected to suffering, etc.) we are tempted to reverse engineer the process.
We see that throwing the boomerang at the tree misses three feet to the left, so we aim three feet to the right. We go and serve someone so that we will be happy. But we still miss. Why? Our aim, it turns out, is always our aim. If my happiness is baked into my motivation to serve, then that act of service is diluted.
Now this is dangerous territory: motivation. As a pastor I’m always warning people away from thinking about their motivations, why they are doing something right or wrong. But let’s put on our safety harness and think about it for a little bit.
If I go to serve my neighbor, lets say, serving soup at the shelter, but I’m doing it to feel better about myself, the boomerang paradox still kicks in. Happiness is an unfurling. Joy it a gift.
It must be lost before it is given back, dead before it is resurrected.
Jesus teaches this most profoundly in Matthew 10 and 16:
He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it. (10:39)
For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. (16:25)
Jesus interrupts our pursuit of happiness, of life, of whatever, and redirects us. “Seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
Our aim is the kingdom of God. We are throwing the boomerang at His righteousness. And if happiness comes along, that’s not our concern.
Thoughts?
“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above” (James 1:17 ESV).
Yet a key aim of Jesus’ teaching was joy that would come to his followers as a consequence of their making deliberate and wise changes in habits of attitude and behavior. He said, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11 ESV).
So we can pursue happiness willfully, but we cannot simply trigger it in ourselves by following some rules or formulas. “The wind blows where it wishes” (John 3:8 ESV).
While we can recognize how our disposition improves when we are helpful to others, we also read Scriptural admonitions to reject attitudes — such as being easily angered (James 1:20) and anxiety (Phil. 4:6) — that simply cannot coexist with joy.
The person who remains anxious about whether he has sufficient joy is going to be stuck because his anxiety crowds out the very joy he seeks, and he is exercising doubt and not faith.
“For freedom Christ has set us free” (Gal. 5:1).