Hey listeners this is Barnabas Piper what you are about to listen to is not a typical

happy-rant episode so you're not going to hear Ted and Ronnie and I riff on a whole

variety of topics you're not going to be our usual banter. What you're about to listen

to is actually chapter 10 of the audio book from my newly released book Hoping for Happiness.

It dropped today, Thursday, October 1st, from the Good Book Company.

And we wanted to give you this chapter, chapter 10, so that you could get a sample of the book

and also hopefully to be an encouragement to you.

So the book as a whole looks at themes of happiness and expectations.

So on the one hand trying to help people, especially those who grew up in conservative Christian

context, to feel free to find

enjoyment and find happiness in this life. A lot of us grew up in context where

happiness was seen as trite or even worldly. It was a thing that we should be

skeptical of because it was a temptation. It pulled our eyes off stuff that really mattered. And I don't think that's

biblical and I write about that in the book

and then on the other hand there's what we see around us all the time and we're probably

tempted towards ourselves which is the idea that we pursue maximum happiness in everything.

So we want fulfillment from our work and from our sex lives and from our churches and from

everything and seeking that manically as we do that pursuing the next

pleasure constantly is just a recipe for disappointment. So what is

realistic to expect from this life? If happiness is a thing worth pursuing, but we

can't expect maximum happiness from everything in this life, what is realistic?

That's the goal of this book is to help us find realistic expectations for enjoyment and then to have that grounded sense of happiness that will last.

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