Pursuit of Happiness

The Gospel Path to Happiness

By Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

So learn this great truth early in life: You can never build your happiness on someone else’s unhappiness.

Happy people aren’t negative or cynical or mean, so don’t plan on that being part of the “manner of happiness.” If my life has taught me anything, it is that kindness and pleasantness and faith-based optimism are characteristics of happy people. 

A related step along the path toward happiness is to avoid animosity, contention, and anger in your life. 

Anger damages or destroys almost everything it touches. As someone has said, to harbor anger is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. It is a vicious acid that will destroy the container long before it does damage to the intended object. There is nothing in it or its cousinly vices—violence, rage, bitterness, and hate—that has anything to do with living the gospel or the pursuit of happiness. I do not think anger can exist—or at least be fostered and entertained and indulged in—in a life being lived “after the manner of happiness.”

If you want to be happy in school or on a mission or at a job or in a marriage—work at it. Learn to work. Serve diligently. Don’t be idle and mischievous. 

From a devotional address, “Living after the Manner of Happiness,” delivered at Brigham Young University–Idaho on September 23, 2014. For the full address, go to web.byui.edu/devotionalsandspeeches.