Lisa Grunwald, writing in the Los Angeles Times, made a plea to all parents who want more than anything for their children to be happy. “Don’t wish them happiness,” she says. “Wish them goodness, energy, humour, brains, diligence, discipline, even luck. But don’t wish them happiness. In our cynical age I’d rather wish my children the strength to come to terms with sadness than a guarantee of happiness. When gardeners prepare hothouse plants for replanting outdoors, they subject them to stress to strengthen them, and that’s what I want for my kids. I’d certainly wish them humour but most of all I’d wish them the desire to think about other people’s happiness before their own.”
It’s the same counter-intuitive wisdom that Jesus taught when he said we only find our lives when we give them away.