Victor Frankl was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who chronicled the horror of three years in four Nazi concentration camps, in his book “Man’s Search for Meaning.”
He writes about finding hope even in the most hopeless of situations. He speaks about the intersection of success and happiness:
“Don’t aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run – in the long-run I say! – success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it.”
Jesus speaks in the Gospel today of the characteristics of discipleship.
Jesus prays not that we be taken out of this world, not that we might escape the world. It is in confronting the challenges of this life that we live out our Christianity.
Jesus tells the first disciples that He will give them the qualities that we need for discipleship.
He prayed that we would be united as His disciples and that we would seek unity among those we minister to.
He goes on to say true joy, as His followers is found in seeking to make our families and communities places of happiness and peace for one another.
As Victor Frankl suggests, happiness for ourselves is found outside ourselves.