unhappiness

140:4.8An ef­fec­tive phi­los­o­phy of liv­ing is formed by a com­bi­na­tion of cos­mic in­sight and the to­tal of one’s emo­tional re­ac­tions to the so­cial and eco­nomic en­vi­ron­ment. Re­mem­ber: While in­her­ited urges can­not be fun­da­men­tally mod­i­fied, emo­tional re­sponses to such urges can be changed; there­fore the moral na­ture can be mod­i­fied, char­ac­ter can be im­proved. In the strong char­ac­ter emo­tional re­sponses are in­te­grated and co-or­di­nated, and thus is pro­duced a uni­fied per­son­al­ity. De­fi­cient uni­fi­ca­tion weak­ens the moral na­ture and en­gen­ders un­hap­pi­ness.

140:4.9With­out a wor­thy goal, life be­comes aim­less and un­prof­itable, and much un­hap­pi­ness re­sults. Je­sus’ dis­course at the or­di­na­tion of the twelve con­sti­tutes a mas­ter phi­los­o­phy of life. Je­sus ex­horted his fol­low­ers to ex­er­cise ex­pe­ri­en­tial faith. He ad­mon­ished them not to de­pend on mere in­tel­lec­tual as­sent, credulity, and es­tab­lished au­thor­ity.

34:6.8It is the pres­ence of the di­vine Spirit, the wa­ter of life, that pre­vents the con­sum­ing thirst of mor­tal dis­con­tent and that in­de­scrib­able hunger of the un­spir­i­tu­al­ized hu­man mind. Spirit-mo­ti­vated be­ings “never thirst, for this spir­i­tual wa­ter shall be in them a well of sat­is­fac­tion spring­ing up into life ev­er­last­ing.” Such di­vinely wa­tered souls are all but in­de­pen­dent of ma­te­rial en­vi­ron­ment as re­gards the joys of liv­ing and the sat­is­fac­tions of earthly ex­is­tence. They are spir­i­tu­ally il­lu­mi­nated and re­freshed, morally strength­ened and en­dowed.