How Others See You

This last weekend was Stake Conference.  The prevalent theme during the Saturday session was missionary work, both with sharing the gospel with non-members and with doing genealogy and temple work for the dead.  The meeting began with two youth speakers, one young man and one young woman, followed by two converts, one recent and one who's been a member for about twenty years.  All of them said a variation of the same thing: members of the Church are happy.

As this phrase came up time and time again, I started getting annoyed, maybe even a little angry.  I would not describe myself as "happy."  Content, perhaps, and even jovial at times, but I don't consider myself a happy person.  Yet here were four different individuals that keep using the same language.  Is it just a quirk of Maryland?  Maybe, but I think there is more at work here.

Part of my issue with "happy" is that I consider it to be descriptive of moments, not states of being.  For example, when I landed my new jobs, I was happy (though that's putting it mildly: I was ecstatic).  While I will remain appreciative and satisfied to be employed, I don't think "happy" will be appropriate anymore.

Another problem with "happy" is that, to put it bluntly, I have too broad a vocabulary for "happy" to be satisfying.  Just as an experienced painter will think of colors in more specific shades ("What a lovely azure flower"), I tend to think of descriptors that are specific and narrowly defined.  "Happy" is too broad.

Even with that in mind, I struggled with the idea that members of the Church are recognized by outsiders as being "happy" because I didn't think that that applied to me.  Then I thought about the past year and how much I've changed.  For example, I used to regularly scowl whenever I went grocery shopping - I'd worked enough retail jobs that I would automatically be in a bad mood by simply entering a retail establishment.  I would never be rude to anyone, but I would be as impolite as possible.  Now, however, I am very polite when interacting with other customers and the store's staff.  I even smile at people.

I think the problem I have with identifying myself as "happy" is that my current disposition is so new, that I haven't internalized it yet.  It's like when you lose or gain weight: you put on or lose pounds pretty slowly, but you don't notice it until one day your pants fit differently.  I've lost some emotional weight, but I've only just realized it.  Even so, I doubt I'll accept "happy" while there are so many other adjectives I can use.