I've been wondering about this a lot lately. When I was a JW, I was always miserable because I was so busy trying to keep up with everyone else, i.e., field service hours, dressing appropriately, having the right attitude, feeling guilty about desiring things not approved by the WTS, such as an education. My own experience as a JW was so filled with unhappiness that it never occurred to me that anybody in the WTS could actually be happy and have a joyful life. Thus, I'm always trying to "rescue" people from the Society. Do you believe there are genuinely happy JWs who don't need to be rescued?
Do You Think Jehovah's Witnesses Are Truly Happy?
by StAnn 29 Replies latest jw experiences
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shamus100
The ones on major anti-depressants are happy. (no sarcasm)
Seems like most are on them.
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knock knock
Absolutely there are plenty of truly happy witnesses. I was never one either but they do exist. More proof of that than of bigfoot too. :)
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free2beme
I think it would be a case by cases basis. To add, most people on this planet are not truly happy or even remotely.
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journey-on
I think some have reached a measure of contentment.....but not happiness in the true sense of the word.
I read this somewhere: "Contentment and unreflectiveness are natural allies". So, you can be content and not happy.
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Hope4Others
No, I think they are stressed beyond belief, everyone I run into lately look so long faced. They have lost any previous happy thoughts
they felt they needed to share with me.
cheers
hope4others
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NanaR
Do you believe there are genuinely happy JWs who don't need to be rescued?
St. Ann:
This an excellent question.
I spent almost a decade as an agnostic. During that time, I did not try to "rescue" anyone else from the Watchtower. I knew the Watchtower did not have the answers, but I didn't have any answers either.
For many years before that, I was a "happy" Witness. That is, I would have told anyone that asked that I was happy, and I really believed that I was. I was (am) married to a man that I was (am) crazy about, I had (have) three beautiful daughters, my dad was my best friend (he died in 1991), my mom was my "hero" (she died in 2005). Thing is, when certain things in this "wonderful life" started to fall apart, I discovered that my "faith" was no help at all.
Now that I am Catholic, I find myself much more able to deal with everything that life throws at me, and I really want for other people to find the REAL happiness and faith that I now have. I don't so much feel that is my job to convince people to leave the Witnesses as it is my job to let them know, mostly through the way I live my life, that there is SO MUCH MORE to being a Christian than what the Witnesses offer -- so much more reverence, so much more history, so much more beauty, so much more prayer, so much more EVERYTHING! And then, for those who find their way out, I want to be able (in the words of a friend of mine) to give them a hug, pat them on the back, and point them in the RIGHT direction.
So I guess what I am trying to say is that happiness is relative to the standard that you have for it in your life. I was once very happy by Witness standards; I now have happiness greater than Witness standards because I have a peace of mind that I never had before.
Great question!!
Pax,
Ruth
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chickpea
certainly not on the scale that would support their claim to be a collective of "the happiest people on the earth", but i am certain that there is a pecentage of dubs that are perfectly content to carry on in the droning existence of b0rg busywork..... a small percentage
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WTWizard
Absolutely no. They might be satisfied to be witlesses, to let others do their thinking for them, and to do as others tell them. But, unless they are creating value, they cannot truly be happy.
And that's besides the fact that the witlesses cannot celebrate anything, have obstacle courses put up before them to do common things, and always have to waste their lives in field circus. Even those in it for the power are not truly happy, since they are destroying value (which makes me wonder how Jehovah Himself lives with Himself, since He is the ultimate Value Destroyer). To be happy as a witless, one would have to be severely or profoundly mentally retarded and have no innate ability to think.
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Quandry
Good question.
I thought I was. In reality, I was so busy that I did not even have time to entertain the question.
My family was always the one to have book study at our house (which meant lots of extra cleaning in addition to the cleaning to show the neighbors we were a clean people), regular in service (along with the tidy book bag and clean car to show the neighbors we were a clean people and be an example for the publishers), study for the meetings (hubbie was an elder and we always had an answer prepared to show the publishers the correct example), cleaning the KHall inside and doing yard work (see hubbie was an elder again), and so many other things that it now exhausts me to think about.
Now, of course, I realize that my "happiness" was based on the "fact" that we were almost in the new system. Of course I had no worries-ha ha I did not have to die,nor did my family!!
Guess what-now I am nearing retirement age and have found out WITNESS OR NON, WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER, AND NONE OF US IS GOING TO GET OUT ALIVE.....