HAPPINESS
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Quotable Quotes
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Happiness walks on busy feet. —Kitte Turmell
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Reader's Digest, March 1986
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HAPPINESS CAN BE BOUGHT
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Psychology and Relationships
Don’t ‘feel guilty’ for spending on these 8 things, says expert: ‘Money can absolutely buy happiness’
Published Mon, May 26 2025, Jessica Weiss, Contributor
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We’ve all heard the phrase a million times: “Money can’t buy happiness.” But let’s be honest, whoever coined that phrase probably wasn’t living paycheck to paycheck.
But scientists have found that money actually can absolutely buy happiness, we’ve just been spending it all wrong. The catch? You need to know what types of purchases actually trigger that lasting and sustainable kind of happiness.
Research shows that strategic spending absolutely pumps up your happiness levels, but not in the way you may think.
As a happiness researcher, there are eight things you shouldn’t feel guilty about spending money on. I would argue that investing in these categories will actually benefit your well-being in the long run.
1. Live music
There’s something magical about belting out lyrics with thousands of strangers. It’s not just fun, it’s science.
When we sing together, our brains release oxytocin (the bonding hormone) and endorphins that create what sociologist Émile Durkheim called “collective effervescence” — that buzzy feeling of connection that washes over a crowd.
Studies show group singing reduces cortisol levels and creates a sense of belonging that can last for days after the final encore.
2. Novel experiences
Our brains are novelty-seeking machines. Neuroscience shows that new experiences cause our brains to release dopamine and create denser memory formation, which is why time seems to crawl during your exciting vacation, but flies during your routine workweek.
Even small novel experiences like checking out a new farmer’s market, calling a friend you haven’t spoken to in ages, painting your nails an unexpected color, can create what researchers call “time abundance,” making life feel richer and more textured.
And when you share these experiences with friends? Neuroscience shows it supercharges the happiness effect — shared joy literally multiplies rather than divides.
3. Time-saving purchases
That shiny gadget you just had to have so often becomes forgotten within weeks. Possessions can just become background noise.
Buying time on the other, is akin to buying sanity. That meal delivery service or house cleaner isn’t a luxury, it’s a mental health investment. Research shows that time-saving purchases reduce stress more effectively than material splurges.
When you outsource tasks you dread, you’re not being lazy — you’re being brilliant. Your future self, the one not frantically cleaning before guests arrive, will thank you.
4. Activities that boost your relationships
After tracking people for more than 80 years, Harvard researchers discovered something surprising: close relationships predict happiness better than genetics, wealth, or fame.
That dinner with friends or plane ticket to visit your sister? It’s not just a purchase — it’s a deposit into your emotional retirement account, paying dividends for decades.
5. Being generous to others
Here’s a brain hack: Your reward circuits fire more intensely when you spend on others versus yourself.
Scientists call it the “helper’s high,” that warm rush when you cover a friend’s lunch or donate to causes you care about. Your brain literally rewards generosity more richly than self-indulgence.
6. Small joys
Your brain’s pleasure systems prefer multiple small hits over one big one. That $4 specialty coffee twice weekly delivers more cumulative joy than one $400 splurge.
These modest, regular pleasures create happiness rhythms your brain comes to anticipate and savor.
7. Counterintuitive challenges
Counterintuitively, challenging experiences — plunging into cold water, completing tough hikes, mastering difficult skills — create lasting satisfaction.
These “earned pleasures” trigger achievement circuits in your brain that passive comforts simply can’t reach. The struggle literally becomes part of your identity story.
8. Making plans in advance
Booking experiences in advance creates a happiness triple play: anticipation joy, experience joy and memory joy. Your vacation starts delivering happiness the moment you book it, months before you pack your bags.
The smartest money you’ll ever spend isn’t on things that impress others, but on experiences that transform how you feel about your life. That’s not indulgence — it’s intelligent investing in what actually matters.
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Jessica Weiss is a keynote speaker and executive coach who teaches people and businesses how to find more happiness, fulfillment and satisfaction at work. With a background in positive psychology, she’s spent 15 years working with global brands like Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson and American Express. She is the author of the upcoming book, “Happiness Works: The Science of Thriving at Work.” She earned her BA from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Columbia Business School.
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HELL
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Sartre said, "Hell is other people." T.S. Eliot opined, "Hell is alone." The hell of this modern person is being alone with other people.
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Roy W. Fairchild in the Princeton Seminary Bulletin, 1987
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HELL (he descended into)
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A LENTEN JOURNEY
HE DESCENDED INTO HELL
Read: 1 Peter 3:18-22
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Have you seen Michelangelo’s “The Pieta” at St. Peter’s in Rome? Mary is lifelike and beautiful, holding in her arms the limp, dead body of her Son. It seemed so final, his story: “Crucified, dead, buried.”
What happened when Jesus died? Where was he between Calvary and Easter? After William Booth died, his nurse shocked the mourners by saying, “He has gone to hell.” Then she explained, “That’s where he would be the happiest — there’s so much work to be done there and so many people who need help.”
“He descended into hell.” That’s what we say in the Apostles’ Creed. In the Scripture for today we read, “He went and preached to the spirits in prison.” There are those who believe that our Lord was ministering to certain spirits in Hades, offering salvation to those who had died without hearing the gospel. Whatever the text means, we know that wherever people are, God has power to
save! James Stewart asks, “In those silent hours ... when heaven and earth seemed hushed in suspense, where was Jesus?” His answer: “He was about His Father’s business.”
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None of us can minister to souls in hell. Or can we? Many men and women in our world are living in a kind of hell: imprisoned by moral failure, captives of hopelessness and despair. It is our glorious mission to tell them the good news. God sent Jesus to be our Savior. Jesus died for us. He was raised from the dead. There is forgiveness and new life through him. Those who love Jesus have hope for all their tomorrows.
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-Howard W. Stone
Howard Stone, on the staff of Second Presbyterian Church, Indianapolis, Ind., is our guide during Lent with these weekly meditations, The Presbyterian Outlook, 1987
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HELPLESS
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Mothers and fathers with new babies understand what it means to be helpless. Not only by observing their newborn, but by seeing how a crying fifteen pound bundle can render supposedly mature and rational adults very helpless.
There are times in life when we can feel helpless, unable to move or function normally. Yet, as Christians, we live with an Easter faith that we are never without help. The Easter message is that God did not leave the only-begotten Son who rendered himself helpless on the cross, but God raised Jesus up to conquer the cross and death. Our Easter faith leads us in overcoming our feelings of helplessness.
Pastor Steve in his monthly newsletter, "Who Will Roll Away the Stone?" 1990
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HISTORY GIVING (personal)
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WHY HISTORY GIVING?
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We often start our group processes (L.T.I., conference, retreat, etc.) with history-giving. What’s the point of that? Some folks even get a little uneasy because they feel we should start with the Bible, or with theology. Maybe history-giving is merely a ’’psychological gimic", and not really Christian. Some theologians I know consider it subjectivism. But the significance of it, and its obvious power when tried, spring from a very deep root.
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The fact is that our own honest theology is unfolding in our own personal history. Thomas Odin of Drew University has accurately said, "I am my story”. It is equally true to say, "My God is to be found in my story.”
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REVEALED IN HISTORY
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Early biblical narrative tells of nations who got together to build a tower to the heavens - a vertical search for God. But the Hebrews were on a totally different quest. They had experienced a significant inbreaking of God into their own personal history, and they expected more - so they were, set on a time-line search for God, an unfolding deliverance within the passing of time right here on earth, in earthly events. So they are. described as sojourners, travelers, venturers who glimpse a city from afar, a promised land toward which they are risking. They expect God to reveal Himself in the midst of their own unfolding story.
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If you had asked the Greek about God he would have engaged you in philosophical ideas, or pointed you to Mount Olympus to see intrigues and power plays of foible-ridden deities. The animist looked for gods in nature’s powerful and unusual events. Astrologers looked to the stars for signs of God.
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But ask the Hebrew to tell, you about God and he. would begin: "My father was a wandering Aramean who went down to Egypt and there fell into slavery. And Jahweh brought us out of Egypt...". Our Greek-thinking mind might interrupt to say, “Wait, I asked you about God, not for your history”. He will invariably reply, "I cannot tell you about God, without telling you about my history”. The Hebraic-Christian biblical language is not ontological, metaphysical, or mystical. It is always historical. "Thus, re-telling remains the most legitimate form of theological discourse,” von Rad remarks.
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MY "OTHER" IDEOLOGY
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Once I sought to prepare myself professionally by studying a system of theology in a seminary, and that was important. But what I did not recognize was that a very crucial experiential theology was unfolding in the midst of my life in my marriage, with my children, in my struggle with my selfhood.
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It is not that God is confined to my history. The whole of Scriptures is the Story of God. But what I really experience of God is showing up in my history. No matter what I say to you conceptually about God, you will see the God I really know and trust in my
history. Here my true theology is unfolding.
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I used to ask folks to share their "spiritual pilgrimage." But then I just got church histories. Now I ask for depth moments of all
kinds. Because, as we roam across the landscape of our past and present with an infra-red-like searching memory, it will locate and call up the "hot spots" - the energy-laden points of our history. And as we share these we are sharing the meaning and the mystery of God in our lives. We are unique in all the world of religious people in believing that God is about the business of meeting us in the stuff of our own personal story.
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Pastor Stan Jones, April, 1979 - leader of our Young Pastors' Retreat at Stony Point Center, NY
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HOLY INGENUITY
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Holy Ingenuity, By PAUL A. CORCORAN
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After six years and three major repair jobs, the Property Committee still had trouble with a leak that dripped from the ceiling in the Sunday school closet. “What you’ve got there is your classic beam runner,” the man from the roofing company informed them. “The water comes in on one of the beams and runs along it who knows how far till it finds an outlet. A lot of your old churches have them.”
With that bit of news, he zipped up his jacket and headed for his truck. As far as he was concerned, a problem named is a
problem solved. As far as the insurance company was concerned, it was an act of God, “and we don’t cover that,” the agent said. “I guess that’s your department, isn’t it, Reverend?” he concluded with a snigger.
So “Reverend” took care of it. He got a bucket and put it under the drip and instructed the sexton to empty it every Saturday, or when it was full, whichever came first. And that was that — $36,000 for the roof, and the floor stays dry because of a $2 bucket. "Quod perficit, perficit" (what works, works).
THE PROPERTY COMMITTEE decided to make a survey of the whole church to see what other repairs were needed. They found that “the reverend” had used his brand of fixit in a lot of places, and all that the new Five-Year Plan for Maintenance needed to do was replace a few worn-out parts.
For instance, the main entrance from the parking lot is a double door equipped with an automatic plunger device, panic
bars, safety glass and a broom handle that holds it open in hot weather. The committee found a crack in the broom handle, so they bought the sexton a new broom, cut the handle from his old one for the door and sawed the cracked one into wedges to hold up the social hall windows that keep sliding down.
What the committee was discovering, of course, was something every practicing pastor knows about from Day One — Holy Ingenuity. It’s one of the great unrecognized virtues of the faith. You may not see it in theology books or on architectural drawings, but if you go through any church and look in back of things and around corners and beneath ledges, you’ll see a whole other
ecclesiastical world where Holy Ingenuity is the true Saving Grace.
And if you go into the pastor’s study and look on the shelf nearest his desk, you’ll see his copy of the classic volume, "The Role of Paper Clips, Tape and Rubber Bands in the Reformed Faith," more commonly known as Calvin’s Substitutes.
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SEARCH COMMITTEES should realize that a strong sense of Holy Ingenuity can be as valuable in a minister as charisma,
sound theology or good looks. Take the case of the crack in the Transfiguration of Our Lord Memorial Stained Glass Window. One member said that she could see daylight right through Peter’s left foot.
The man from the art glass studio came out and examined it and said that it could be taken care of, but it would mean replacing the entire lower left panel all the way up to Peter’s knees and part of John’s gluteus maximus. “You can’t just cut across glass like this with a pair of scissors, you know,” he declared. Then he quoted a price.
“Id obliviscetur!" (“Forget it!”) said “the reverend.” The next day, he went in and fixed the crack his own way. You can’t really tell that there was ever a crack there, and you have to get your nose up real close to Peter’s foot before you can smell the faint scent of bubble gum. It not only saved the church a lot ofmoney, but it also saved John’s gluteus maximus.
I know that in our congregation we couldn’t survive without H.I., as we call it at session meeting. You take our pipe organ, for example. It’s the most expensive thing we have in the church, except the minister, but it’s our pride and joy. The craftsmanship is exquisite, and it’s bigger than the one the Lutherans have.
If you look closely at the hand-carved music rack on the console, you’ll see two bright-red rubber bands wrapped around it to hold the organist’s hymnbook open. Our service contract calls for the organ people to come once a month and tune the
instrument, clean the contacts and replace the rubber bands. You don’t spare costs when it comes to a valuable pipe
organ.
I don’t mean to say that only ministers and musicians can use Holy Ingenuity. I know better, from personal experience. A few summers back, the church dipped into the Memorial Fund to buy an air conditioner for the office. They didn’t just get one from Cheap John’s, either. They called in an air conditioning engineer, and he recommended one that offered super quiet and complete climate control.
That first summer, the staff worked in blessed comfort and the bulletins came out sharp, clean and crisp. But when winter came, cold air poured in underneath the air conditioner. Three visits from the air conditioning engineer didn’t help, but the problem was solved when the secretary went across the hall to the ladies’ room and got some paper towels and stuffed them into the crack. Now all we have to do is replace the paper towels each October and we’ve got climate control year-round.
IT’S THE SAME all across this land of the free and home of the brave. From the little white frame churches of New England to the alabaster cathedrals of California, the observant churchgoer will discover pulpit lamps with cardboard extensions fastened to them to keep the lights from glaring in the preacher’s glasses, the Apostles’ Creed taped to lecturns in case of mental blank, thumb tacks holding antependia in place, old bulletins wedged under wobbly-footed Communion tables and matchsticks jammed into amplifier controls to keep anyone from turning up the P.A. system too far.
As the Scriptures say, “He who has eyes to see, let him see.” While he’s at it, let him see all the human rubber bands and paper clips who hold the church together and make it work. They’re God’s bits of Holy Ingenuity.
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The Presbyterian Outlook, 1/5-12/1987, p. 9
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HUGGING - The Perfect Cure for Whatever Ails You
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No batteries to wear out
No periodic check-ups
Low energy consumption
High energy yield
Inflation proof
No monthly payments
No insurance requirements
Theft proof
Non-taxable
Non-polluting
And, of course, fully refundable
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HUGGING IS HEALTHY
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It relieves tension
Combats depression
Reduces stress
Improves blood circulation
It’s invigorating
It's rejuvenating
It elevates self-esteem
It generates good will
It has no unpleasant side effects -
It is nothing less than a Miracle Drug!
-Ann Landers, Phila. Inquirer, 3/15/86
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HUMANIST
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Confessions of a Hillbilly Humanist
By DANIEL W. MASSIE
How strange, I thought to myself, as I sat before the crowd gathered to hear the planned debate on “Christianity and Secular Humanism,” that I should be cast in the role of the defender of the secular humanists. . .
Mississippi-born, educated at conservative Belhaven College with a major in Bible, card-carrying evangelical, I must have seemed a curious choice as spokesperson for the camp commonly viewed as the “cultured-despisers of religion.” But
here in the hills of upper east Tennessee, where Vickie Frost and the fundamentalists are forever present in the media, in
the courthouse down the road in Greeneville, where the infamous “Scopes II” trial took place last summer, and in
picket lines outside the convenience stores selling objectionable magazines, true “liberals” are hard to come by, I suppose, and you have to take what you can get.
I had no one to blame but myself, of course, for I had written a guest commentary in the local newspaper expressing an opposing point of view from that in another commentary written by a local clergyman in the Presbyterian Church of
America who was now my worthy opponent in this debate and was seated at the opposite end of the table.
The original commentary to which I had objected bemoaned the increased secularization of American life, identified “Humanism” as the culprit responsible and called for a return to the Judeo-Christian values that shaped the founding of American culture. The writer sought to draw contemporary battle lines — not between religion and non-religion, but between the false religion of humanism and the true religion of Christianity.
Inasmuch as I share some of my opponent’s concerns over the increased secularization of American life, why is it that I find the response of the “religious right” to the current cultural dilemma so disturbing? I would briefly summarize my objections under three headings:
CAUSES. The changes that have come about in Western culture simply could not have occurred without the passive, if not
active, consent of the traditional religious community. Thus, to lay the blame for this at the feet of the humanists only continues the sad story of the church’s need for a convenient scapegoat whenever we cannot face up to the enemy within ourselves. I am reminded of Curt Sytsma’s satiric poem, “A Humanist Manifesto”:
In every age, the bigot's rage
Requires another focus,
Another devil forced on stage
By hatred's hocus-pocus:
The devil used to be the Jew
And then it was the witches;
And then it was the Negroes who
Were digging in the ditches.
The devil once was colored pink
And labeled communistic;
Now, all at once, in just a blink,
The devil's humanistic.
DEFINITIONS. I confess I find particularly objectionable the way the religious right continues to define narrowly, to categorize judgmentally and to simplify matters. For example, all humanists are quickly placed in the same camp and assumed to be of one mind on issues.
While I certainly do not consider myself a ' “secular” humanist, I do embrace much of the proud tradition of classical humanism
and would describe myself as a Christian humanist without apology or reservation. It matters not for many in the religious right, however A humanist by any other name remains a humanist.
Along with “humanist,” the terms “Christian” and “Judeo-Christian” are also used with very restricted, if not distorted, meanings. Tim LaHaye, one of the acknowledged gurus of the religious right, gives to his fellow conservative Christians a checklist which, when applied, will be a litmus test indicating whether a potential candidate for public office is really pro-moral, thus deserving the support of the Christian community. Sadly, the list primarily concerns issues of personal morality—pornog-
raphy, abortion, homosexuality, etc., and all but ignores corporate sins of racism, militarism, indifference to hunger and the like.
“Judeo-Christian values” are more complex than the religious right would have us believe, when we stop to recall that Jerry Falwell, Jesse Jackson and Pope John Paul II would each claim to represent them.
More and more I have come to see that when the religious right says Judeo-Christian, they really mean Christian; when they say Christian, they really mean Protestant; and when they say Protestant, they really mean fundamentalist! The truth is that genuine Christians who recognize biblical authority and who claim the Lordship of Jesus Christ frequently come out on the opposite sides of societal issues, no matter how much our conservative brothers and sisters might wish otherwise.
SOLUTIONS. Finally, I confess to being uneasy with and unsupportive of the proposed political solutions to America’s cultural malaise offered by the religious right in their political agenda. Frankly, it is frightening, especially in a country where religious nationalism has often been an idolatrous threat. Yet, Tim LaHaye issues a call to arms by the conservative militia, admonishing them to get behind “Christian” candidates (see the checklist if you have any doubts) and back the conservative cause, which
LaHaye says is embodied in the agenda of Ronald Reagan.
Do you know what the religious right ultimately want? They want us to reaffirm America as a religious, i.e., Christian, nation rather than a secular nation. Now that’s particularly frightening for this hillbilly humanist who suspects he knows which brand of religion they would like to see in charge. Most of us have either read of or have experienced the political and cultural consequences when religious factions are in power and are convinced they are executing the will and wrath of God.
God forbid! Why, I wouldn’t even trust my fellow Presbyterians to run the country, much less the fundamentalists! Give me the checks and balances that have worked rather well for better than 200 years in this republic. Give me a society where there is a true religious pluralism that seeks not to favor any one religious or overtly non-religious point of view, where all of us are free to believe and worship at will, where mutual respect and restrained tolerance are in vogue, where we all enter the market-place of ideas and allegiances on equal footing, free both to present and to further pursue the Truth that is greater than all of us!
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DANIEL W. MASSIE, an OUTLOOKeditor-at-large, is pastor of First church, , in Kingsport, Tenn.,
THE PRESBYTERIAN OUTLOOK March 9, 1987
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HUMILITY
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(After Mary falls sick and may have pneumonia...)
Rev: Pray for her Andrew. Pray for God's help and mercy.
Andrew: Pray.
Rev: Yes, pray, because iIf ever there was a man in need of mercy, it is you.
Andrew: You know I'm not one for prayin', for goin' down on mah knees.
Rev: Well, pray on your feet man! It's what's in your heart and mind that matters, not whether you kneel or not,
though that would be good for your soul. It's this stubborn pride of yours that's made you live inside yourself
so long.
Andrew: I've forgotten how to pray. I can't do it. I can't feel the need for it.
Rev: Humble yourself, Andrew. Humble yourself. If you love the child - pray for her.
Disney's "Three Lives of Thomasina"