Is Happiness a Gift or Something We Create

​What determines our happiness more, the world we wake up to in the morning, or the world we create throughout the day?

Yesterday, before I went on my morning run, I wrote about this possiblity I'd been pondering. The possibility that the secret to life is found in serving others.

I based much of that conversation on the scripture Philippians 2:3, which says: Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

Well, then on my run yesterday I listened to Dr. Rangan Chaterjee interview Laurie Santos about happiness. She's a professor of psychology at Yale University and hosts a podcast herself called The Happiness Lab.

Santos is also an atheist, which made much of her conversation with Chaterjee interesting to me, given I'd just written about the biblical implications of happiness.

She spent a great deal of the hour and a half interview talking about the things we can intentionally do to bring happiness into our lives. She suggests that happiness is something we produce -not something we inherit.

One of those "produce" things she focused on was serving others. She said research shows "others focused" people are significantly happier than self-centered people.

Santos talked about a study where three different groups of people were given a sum of money. Then, they were given one of three assignments - spend the money like you normally would, spend the money on yourself, or go spend the money on others.

The results? The people who spent money on others, even though they were doing it as an assignment, were the happiest people in the study. This same study also bore out that the more income people spend on other people, the happier they are.

You know, the bible says that when it comes to inheriting everlasting life - heaven - in many cases those who are currently first, well they will be last. And those who are last - they will be first.

Science seems to suggest that biblical standard applies to earth as well. It seems to suggest that happiness - or heaven on earth - is tied to our desire to make those who are last - first - AND, at the expense of what would appear to be our own shot at being first.

The bible - and science - suggest there is no expense involved in serving others. Going from first to last isn't a downgrade in happiness or in life. Quite the opposite, really - serving others seems to be the quickest way to go from coach to first class.

The beautiful news? We don't have to wait for someone to come down the aisle and offer us the upgrade. We can get up this morning and simply choose it.