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True Freedom Starts With Virtue: Joy vs. Pleasure, Agency, and 2 Nephi 2 · ToddTalks--Spirit By Design: Your Weekly Survival Guide

0:38
SPEAKER_00: The Founding Fathers didn't mean do whatever makes you feel good when they spoke of the pursuit of happiness.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: They were talking about the freedom and responsibility to pursue a life of virtue, purpose, self-government, and the relate and a relationship with God.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: This is Todd Talks, where I, Spirit by Design, where I help you design your spiritual life in order to help prepare you for the Lord's second coming.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: This episode, as I already mentioned, is going to differentiate between the pursuit of happiness and the worldly idea of pursuit of short-term pleasure.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: The Gospel of Jesus Christ teaches something very similar to what the founding fathers spoke of.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: In 2 Nephi 2.25, it says, Men are that they might have joy.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: But that joy isn't that same thing as constant pleasure.
1:38
SPEAKER_00: Joy is much deeper.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: Pleasure asks, what feels good right now?
1:44
SPEAKER_00: Happiness asks, what kind of person am I becoming?
1:51
SPEAKER_00: And happiness is a much more lasting, beneficial feeling and sentiment.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: So what did they mean, our founding fathers, by the pursuit of happiness?
2:06
SPEAKER_00: We hear the phrase all the time: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: In many ways, I've heard it described that the pursuit of happiness meant landownership.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: Because landownership was seen as freedom from control of the government.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: But what if we've misunderstood that phrase?
2:31
SPEAKER_00: What if the founding fathers weren't talking about the right to pursue whatever makes us feel good?
2:36
SPEAKER_00: What if they were talking about something much deeper?
2:39
SPEAKER_00: Because there's a massive difference between pleasure and happiness.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: Pleasure, as you well know, is temporary.
2:48
SPEAKER_00: Happiness is formative.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: It helps you to grow.
2:53
SPEAKER_00: Pleasure says, give me what I want, and I want it right now.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: Happiness says, help me become who I'm capable of becoming.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: And here's where I think the gospel of Jesus Christ gives us incredible perspective.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: The Book of Mormon says, men are that they might have joy.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: Not pleasure, joy.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: There's a reason for that distinction.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: The Declaration of Independence famously speaks of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
3:25
SPEAKER_00: But the intellectual world of the Founding Fathers generally understood happiness in a much richer sense than simply feeling good.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: Happiness was connected to virtue, character, purpose, flourishing, and living according to moral principles, and as I already said, landownership for freedom.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: And that distinction matters because liberty without virtue eventually destroys itself.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: If freedom means I can do whatever I want, then eventually one person's freedom collides with another person's freedom.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: But if liberty means I have the agency to pursue what is good, then freedom becomes a vehicle for human growth, human flourishing.
4:11
SPEAKER_00: That sounds remarkably close to what we learn in the Book of Mormon.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: Lehi taught about agency, that agency exists for a purpose.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: Lehi teaches one of the most profound doctrines.
4:28
SPEAKER_00: He says, Wherefore men are free according to the flesh, and all things are given them which are expedient unto man.
4:36
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, Wherefore men are free to choose liberty and eternal life through the great mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: End quote.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: That's agency.
4:51
SPEAKER_00: That's in 2 Nephi 2.
4:55
SPEAKER_00: Notice something?
4:56
SPEAKER_00: Agency isn't merely, I get to choose whatever I want.
5:00
SPEAKER_00: Agency is the ability to choose between competing destinations.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: Liberty or captivity, life and death.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: And then comes the most incredible statement.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: Men are that they might have joy.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: Keep repeating that, huh?
5:18
SPEAKER_00: Because it's important.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: God gives us agency because he wants us to become capable of experiencing real joy, not just pleasure.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: Happiness actually requires self-government.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: The founders understood something that modern culture completely forgets.
5:43
SPEAKER_00: Not completely, but it likes to forget.
5:47
SPEAKER_00: A free society requires people who can govern themselves.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: A free society is not about do whatever gives you pleasure.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: Free love, free everything, free to do whatever you want.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: Self-governance, governance.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: Spiritually, the same principle applies.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: If I can't govern my appetites, emotions, impulses, desires, and behavior, the free society, impulse-driven, emotional-driven craziness that you see all the time nowadays.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: Am I really free?
6:32
SPEAKER_00: If I can't govern my behaviors, my emotions, all of that, am I really free?
6:40
SPEAKER_00: You may technically have choices, but if my desires control me, I'm not experiencing very much liberty.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: If my emotions control me, I'm not experiencing much liberty and may do things that could get me locked up, literally.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: Paul in Romans 6.16 taught, Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourself servants to obey, his servants ye are.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: That's a powerful message.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: And what it means is whatever repeatedly controls me eventually becomes my master.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: Food can become your master.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: Money can become your master.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: Sex of all varieties can become your master.
7:24
SPEAKER_00: Entertainment can become your master.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: Approval, self-indulgence, seeking approval can become your master.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: Anger can become your master.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: Even comfort can become a master.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: Christ came to teach us how to become free, how to control the natural man.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: In 2 Nephi, it says the natural man is an enemy to God and has been from the fall of Adam and will be forever, and yes, unless we yield to the enticings of the Holy Spirit and put it off the natural man.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: All of those things that could become our master: food, money, sex, entertainment, approval, anger, comfort, those are all that natural man wants to be fed, wants to be pleasured.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: Christ wants to teach us how to be free.
8:22
SPEAKER_00: Temporary pleasure says, I want to feel good.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: The gospel happiness says I want to become good.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: And ironically, becoming good produces a deeper form of happiness.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: Think about exercise.
8:38
SPEAKER_00: Nobody loves every workout.
8:40
SPEAKER_00: You know what?
8:42
SPEAKER_00: I've been working out every day for three months, two and a half months now.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: There are days when I'm not happy about it.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: It does not feel good because I'm sore and I'm tired.
8:53
SPEAKER_00: But I do it and I'm having a lot of success with changing my body because of it.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: There's satisfaction in becoming stronger.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: That satisfaction, that feeling of joy that I'm having from changing internally is much stronger than what happens by sitting on a couch, staring at the TV, eating a whole pizza.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: Done that.
9:27
SPEAKER_00: Been there, done that.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: Grew out of the t-shirt.
9:33
SPEAKER_00: Let's think about parenting.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: Parenting is not always pleasurable, but raising a good child produces profound joy.
9:40
SPEAKER_00: What about marriage?
9:42
SPEAKER_00: Marriage requires sacrifice.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: The close best marriages are when two people are working to serve each other.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: Marriage isn't 50-50.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: As I just was listening to an episode, um sometimes marriage is 90-10.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: Other times it's reversed, depending on how each individual is feeling that day.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: And you serve the other when you see that they're struggling, and you become closer together.
10:11
SPEAKER_00: Marriage requires sacrifice, but sacrifice can create a depth of love that temporary pleasure never can.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: I can highly attest to that.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: Think about discipleship.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: Keeping the commandments is not always convenient, but obedience produces something a lot deeper than temporary pleasure or guilt.
10:35
SPEAKER_00: It produces peace.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: Peace in your soul, and that is super strong.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: DNC 130, 20, and 21 teaches there is a law irrevocably decreed in heaven upon which all blessings are predicated.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: God's commandments aren't fences designed to keep happiness away from us.
10:57
SPEAKER_00: They're the laws that teach us how happiness actually works.
11:02
SPEAKER_00: So the commandments are a happiness system, they're a function used to help us be truly happy, be joyful.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: God isn't saying don't do that because I don't want you to have fun.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: He's saying don't do that because I know where that road ends.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: I know where it leads.
11:21
SPEAKER_00: Imagine an airline pilot.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: Hey, I'm an airline pilot, ignoring the limitations of an aircraft because a limitation feels restrictive.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: You don't remove operating limitations because you want more freedom.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: That's a good way to rip your wings off and kill everybody on the airplane.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: You respect the limitations because they make safe flight possible.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: Freedom without boundaries isn't freedom, it's called risk.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: The pilot doesn't say, I want the freedom to ignore altitude, airspeed, fuel limitations, wing limitations, g limitations.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: He says, I want to understand the airplane well enough to operate it safely.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: The gospel works the same way.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: God understands the human soul.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: He knows the operating parameters.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: Now in Alma 41.10, it states, Wickedness never was happiness.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: That's almost a direct contradiction of modern culture, if you can believe it.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: I can believe it.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: I see a lot of unhappy people screaming lots of unhappy things.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't say wickedness never produced pleasure.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: That's a different thing.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: Sin can be absolutely pleasurable.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: It can produce temporary pleasure.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: That's why temptation works.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: If sin were always miserable immediately, Satan wouldn't have much time, wouldn't be able to mess with you that much, would he?
13:05
SPEAKER_00: Problem is that temporary pleasure can disguise long-term destruction.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: Look at alcoholics.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: A pleasurable drink in the evening is slowly killing their liver and becoming an addiction that they cannot put off.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: That's just one example.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: Satan's counterfeit is fascinating.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: God offers joy through obedience over time.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: Satan offers pleasure immediately followed by consequences, guilty conscience, or the deadening of your spirit.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: That's why temptation is so powerful.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: It compresses the reward and hides the bill.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: It hides the consequences.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: In fact, so many people today are committing sins and don't want to acknowledge that there are consequences.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: But the consequences always show up.
14:11
SPEAKER_00: The gospel is the reverse.
14:14
SPEAKER_00: Christ sometimes asks us to sacrifice now for something better later.
14:19
SPEAKER_00: That's faith, that's discipleship, that's discipline.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: That's why delayed gratification is actually a spiritual principle.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: Look at what look at the life of Jesus Christ.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: Was his life always pleasurable?
14:36
SPEAKER_00: No.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: He experienced rejection, temptation, pain, betrayal, hunger, fatigue, suffering, a lot of suffering for you and for me because we're sinners.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: And yet Hebrews teaches something astonishing.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: After Gethsemane, Calvary, in Hebrews 12, 2, it teaches who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: Joy was on the other side of his sacrifice.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: He didn't pursue pleasure, he pursued purpose.
15:13
SPEAKER_00: He fulfilled his purpose.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: And through that purpose came the greatest joy imaginable.
15:20
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Satan tried to tempt him multiple times with kingship and governorship and power and all the things that Satan likes to tempt people with.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: And Christ said, get thee behind me, Satan.
15:42
SPEAKER_00: In Matthew 5, we read, Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are they that mourn.
15:51
SPEAKER_00: Blessed are the meek.
15:52
SPEAKER_00: Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: The Savior's definition of a blessed life isn't comfort, wealth, entertainment, and pain free.
16:07
SPEAKER_00: Though you can have those things as part of your life, that's not the purpose of your life.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: The purpose of a blessed life is something deeper.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: It's a life aligned with God.
16:22
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes that comes with pain and struggle and difficulty.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: That's a different definition of happiness.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: But joy is on the other side when your life is aligned with God.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: The American experiment was built around the idea that people possess God-given rights and the liberty to pursue happiness.
16:49
SPEAKER_00: But liberty was never intended to mean freedom from morality.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: Though they tried to do that today, the Declaration itself begins with the idea that the laws of nature and of nature's God.
17:05
SPEAKER_00: The founders understood that rights and responsibilities belong together.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: And the gospel takes that principle even deeper.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the founders, one of the founders also said that the Constitution was written only for a God-fearing people and would not abide any other kind.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: God gives us agency, but agency without accountability becomes chaos.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: Agency plus accountability becomes character.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: And character creates the capacity for lasting happiness.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: Agency plus truth plus virtue plus purpose plus Christ equals lasting joy.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: Another way to put that is choose, become, receive.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: Choose according to the truth the right path.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: Become the kind of person capable of receiving greater blessings and receive deeper strength, peace, and purpose and joy by following this path.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: That's very different than the world's I want, I consume.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: Repeat.
18:25
SPEAKER_00: I want it, I like it, I need it, I want it, I get it, I repeat.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: You can have money, a beautiful house, a successful career, great food, entertainment, travel technology, recognition, and still be miserable.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: Why?
18:46
SPEAKER_00: Because happiness isn't primarily an accumulation problem, it's a formation problem.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: You can also have money, a beautiful house, a successful career, great food, entertainment, travel technology, and recognition.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: If those are the afterthought, those are the results of pursuing a God-filled life.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: The question isn't how much can I acquire, it's who am I becoming.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: When I talk in the episode about becoming wealthy, I talked about what John Jim Rohn said that go after a million dollars because of what the kind of person you would be required to become in order to make a million dollars.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: Who am I becoming?
19:43
SPEAKER_00: If you're going after joy and happiness, who is the kind of person that you are becoming in order to have joy and happiness?
19:52
SPEAKER_00: And there's a law irrevocably decreed in heaven upon which all blessings, which blessings?
20:00
SPEAKER_00: Money, beautiful house, successful career, great food, entertainment, travel, technology, recognition, joy, happiness, prosperity all come from living the commandments.
20:14
SPEAKER_00: The soul needs more than pleasure.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: We can have entertainment instantly, food, information, shopping, communication, all of that instantly.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: But stimulation isn't satisfaction.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: Dopamine, the dopamine hits you get from scrolling, isn't destiny.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: The soul needs meaning, it needs relationships, it needs purpose, it needs service, it needs a spiritual connection, and it needs God.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: We all have a God-sized hole in our heart, and the world has you try to fill it with all these things that I've been talking about.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: Addictions.
20:56
SPEAKER_00: Everything.
20:58
SPEAKER_00: But the only thing that can fill it is Jesus Christ.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: That's what'll fill that hole.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: And when that hole is filled with Jesus Christ, we don't just have temporary pleasure, we have joy.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: So in your daily pursuits, ask yourself, what am I pursuing today?
21:21
SPEAKER_00: What choices will make me stronger?
21:25
SPEAKER_00: Who can I serve?
21:27
SPEAKER_00: What do I need to remember?
21:30
SPEAKER_00: Did I choose Christ today?
21:34
SPEAKER_00: We've probably been asking the wrong questions.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: The question isn't what will make me happy today.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: Maybe the question should be, what kind of life will make me happy?
21:48
SPEAKER_00: That's a huge difference.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: Pleasure asks, what can I experience?
21:53
SPEAKER_00: The gospel says, What can I become?
21:58
SPEAKER_00: And that, coupled with Christ's answer to that question, take up thy cross and follow me.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: Christ says, Come follow me.
22:11
SPEAKER_00: And when you follow him, you will receive the blessing which says, Men are that they might have joy.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: You will learn how to have joy.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: That, my friends, is the pursuit of happiness.
22:28
SPEAKER_00: When we pursue Christ, when we pursue truth, service, virtue, and purpose, happiness begins to pursue us.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: Because wickedness never was happiness.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: But righteousness, properly understood, isn't a prison.
22:45
SPEAKER_00: Obeying commandments isn't a prison.
22:48
SPEAKER_00: It's a path to freedom.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: And Christ didn't come to take our happiness or our freedom away.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: He came to show us where it actually lives.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: And that, my friends, is the path that you want to trod.
23:04
SPEAKER_00: This is Todd Talk's Spirit by Design.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: I hope you've learned a little bit to help you on your path towards joy.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: If you like what you hear, leave five-star review, donate to the show.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: Or send me a message if you have questions, you want to hear a specific topic, in the emails in the show notes.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: Happy to hear you, happy to listen, and as always, have a blessed day.