My guess is the answer is yes. I'm not an expert in the area, but I'll hazard to venture the postulation that every thinking individual has and does. What an individual does with that thought, or how much the individual ponders on it, varies.
How about that bill of materials you are working off of? Have you really looked at it to make sure it is a proven and accurate bill of materials? Or are you afraid that if you do, you will find out you've been sold a bill of goods that is in reality nothing more than a bill of lading?
Maybe you aren't afraid of it. Maybe you have even recognized it. So, if this description fits you, have you gotten to that point of wondering if that bill of lading you hold is actually representative of the baggage you are carrying, or is it a gross misrepresentation?
I'm not going to philosophize on that. If you want to, go ahead. I probably would end up finding myself lost in my own psuedo-philosophizations...
I bring the questions up because in the endeavor to understand oneself and the world in which one is found, the thoughts and questions may be worth examining in light of the basic and eternal principles of truth that frame the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Viktor Frankl observed, by both personal experience as a prisoner at Auschwitz and Dachau and in clinical experience working with people, that an individual is willing to endure any level of suffering if he or she is convinced there is meaning in that suffering. On the other hand, suffering without meaning leads to despair. Or as he put it in other words, perhaps directed to those who live in self-imposed mental concentration camps, suffering unnecessarily is masochistic and not heroic.
I think maybe I will spend some time reading more of Viktor Frankl. It has been over two decades since I read "Man's Search For Meaning." At the time, I really didn't grasp a lot of it, being a mere unexperienced college freshman at BYU. I still don't understand why the book was part of the required reading list for an English class... all I can figure is maybe because the content was so universal and in harmony with the true Gospel of Jesus Christ that the best way to get the greatest number of young students exposed to it was through the universal English class required of all freshman. Taking a philosophy class was optional. English was required. And it probably wouldn't have gone over too well with many young students, still working on gaining and building testimonies of the Gospel, adding it to -- say -- the required Book of Mormon classes.
Anyway, I digress from what I wanted to share. As I've been working through the depression I have been suffering at different intensities (and often allowing myself to suffer unnecessarily) since probably about the time I first read Frankl, I came to understand something recently. Did I say depression, and did I openly admit to suffering it? Oh woe is me! The shame... I am somehow less of a person, and less reliable, less capable, less (fill in the blank)... Well, I'm not ashamed to own up to it. I don't have a problem with my suffering depression anymore than I would have a problem with suffering the common cold. If you have a problem with me or anyone else suffering depression and thinking we are less of a person or capable son or daughter of God, then perhaps you are the one with the real problem. But as said, I digress from what I wanted to share.
Too often -- and I know I'm generalizing here but indulge me and you may find something of value for yourself -- we end up accepting a false bill of lading for what we think is a bill of materials for happiness. What do we equate the concept of happiness to? Or in other words, how do we recognize if we are happy or if something is happy?
In the Gospel, the Sunday School question answer to that is along the following lines: "Behold, I say unto you, wickedness never was happiness" (Alma 41:10) and "Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy" (2 Nephi 2:25). But, that really does not answer the question of how one properly conceptualizes happiness, does it?
For myself, I have come to realize that conceptualizing happiness as the feeling that is illustrated in such songs like "Dancing On The Ceiling," "All Night Long," and "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" from '80's artists Lionel Ritchie and Wang Chung, respectively, is as misleading and incomplete as the notion that joy is nothing but a hopeful notion that one's suffering isn't all that bad.
Now mind you, I'm not berating the feelings that are the basis for these songs. They have their place, and certainly can be an aide in having wholesome fun and lifting of spirits.
Let's face it, joy is a lot more. It certainly isn't some twisted masochism of merely suffering without knowledge of a purpose.
If you have conceptualized happiness as that fleeting release of energy and positive emotions you felt and experienced at a fun party or church dance, I think you will be ever searching for and never quite filling the "need" that this conceptualization creates in you. In other words, you have accepted a bill of material that can never be completed, and in so doing you end up with a bill of lading you didn't realize you had with cargo you didn't intend on carrying. Likewise if you think that you can and will only experience or understand joy well after you have intimately known and lived misery.
You could miss experiencing the beauty and all encompassing nature of The Lord's Atonement now and later if you don't learn, exercise faith in, and experience that true, simple, and lasting happiness comes from being a recipient of the healing nature of His Atonement!
So, be careful you don't end up being sold or selling yourself a bill of goods...
