Doing the right thing sucks?

I'm not one to get on my blog, social media or any other outlet and voice my opinions on politics, current events, pop culture, etc. Trust me, my dear, sweet husband gets an earful.

But there's something I can't keep quiet about anymore. It's been eating away at me daily.

Hate. Disgust. Disregard. Disrespect. And a general feeling that doing the right thing in today's society sucks.

As a Christian, I fight urges to self-indulge daily. The urge to spend more, desire more, brag more, increase my self worth and lust for more. I fight the urge for instant gratification. I fight jealousy.

We're all fighting the same battles, but the crazy thing is, instead of uniting as one, we let our own little battles divide us. We turn on each other. We throw about words like "hate" without any further thought on what it really means. We disrespect fellow brothers and sisters because we have easy outlets to do it.

But what's one thing we all want? The thing we all really want?

We want to be happy. We don't wake up every morning craving a day of depression. We want to be happy, but we struggle to allow happiness into our lives. And this is one thing - Christian or not - I think we can all agree on: we want to find happiness in every aspect of our lives.

For Christians, we seek joy from our Savior. We strive to be more like Jesus and honor Him with our lives. We are taught that love is ABOVE ALL THINGS  - love that naturally breeds happiness, peace and true joy. But even if you aren't a Christian, I can't imagine that you would wake up desiring anything short of a happy life. So even if you aren't sold on the idea of a higher power, I think we can agree on the idea that happiness is something we all desire.

Then why do we struggle to spread joy? Why do we say how bad it sucks when we do the right thing? (For example, finding an iPad but returning it to it's owner, and that totally sucks because it could have been yours for the keeping.) Never mind the fact that it's the right thing to do, but how about focusing on the idea that doing the right thing brings joy to others. OTHERS. Are we so scared of allowing others to be happy because we don't want to rob ourselves of a possibility of finding joy? And if so, does this vicious cycle continue to breed, not happiness, but cynicism, disrespect, disregard....

I'm a broken person. I'll be the first to tell you that I'm not perfect - not even close. But shame on me if I can't seem to get past doing the right thing in fear that I'll rob myself of happiness. Life isn't self-indulgence, it's about community; a community in Christ, a community in search for joy, a community who so desperately needs peace. And understanding.

I pray this post finds you broken, too, because only when we are aware we are broken can we begin to mend the pieces. I pray that we can be a community who strives to do the right thing, not because it sucks, but because it does bring about happiness and joy. And hopefully one day we will realize true happiness comes in serving others - not ourselves.