5 July 2016

“Our life of poverty is as necessary as the work itself. Only in heaven will we see how much we owe to the poor for helping us to love God better because of them.”       Mother Teresa

Last night I watched a documentary about Mother Teresa. It is interesting that, as revealed through over 50 years of letters to her spiritual advisor, mother Theresa was lonely and unhappy and, at times, doubted the existence of God. Other sources have confirmed this aspect of Mother Teresa’s life. It is easily understandable that someone working with the the extreme poverty that Mother Teresa did, would develop depression and a doubt in a benevolent God. 

Recently I have been reading some literature on happiness. Two of the things that many researchers on happiness find is that happiness is enhanced by 1. helping others, and 2. a belief in something greater than themselves. Mother Teresa’s apparent unhappiness seems to go counter to what the researchers on happiness have found. Few people in the history of the world have helped more people than Mother Theresa and the Missionaries of Charity order that she founded. Even with the doubt that Mother Teresa had about the existence of God, she was certainly true to serving something greater than herself, yet she wasn’t happy.

There can be a point when we serve others so much that we deny our own needs and feelings. At the same time, if we don’t engage in activities that help others and that serve the greater good, we will probably have a hard time finding happiness. Extreme altruism and extreme selfishness both can lead to unhappiness and possibly depression. Balance can lead to a more positive world. Mother Teresa, for all the good that she has brought the world, sacrificed her own happiness by denying her own ego.

It is important that we have some level of happiness in our life. We need an awareness of our self as an individual and thus need some ego. I believe that the greatest good we do in this life is the way we lead our own lives, providing a model to others. Spreading happiness, among other positive emotions, is catching and can affect more people than we can imagine. Most of us are not like Mother Teresa. We affect the world most through our everyday positive actions on a much smaller scale.