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Okay, so the title of this talk is The Happiness of Human Limitations, which is purposefully

paradoxical as far as talk titles go, because I think our first inclination when encountering our limitations, when conceptualizing

our limitations, is to assume or to conclude that they run counter to, or that they are in some

way a hindrance or in some way a block to our happiness. Father Gregory, that was a complicated

sentence. What do you mean? Okay. I'm going to propose that our happiness is to be found by embracing our limitations, by living within our limitations. When I think a lot of our intuitions might run in the opposite direction. We think like, if I'm going to be happy, then I'm going to be wholly unlimited. I'm not going to be hemmed in by these various limitations. I'm not going to be hindered by obstacles or whatever else.

Okay?

So I think, just to kind of tap into that intuition, there are a lot of folks out there who say to themselves or say to each other, like in effect, my real life is elsewhere.

You know, like once I graduate, like then, you know, we'll get about

the business of living our real lives. Or once I work my way through all of the accumulated

debt of the last four years, like then I'll be about the business of living my real human life.

Or like once I get ordained, or once I get married, or once I get married or once I'm financially secure or like once I retire or like once I'm dead.

Like a lot of us have in our minds a kind of time or a kind of horizon beyond which we'll have entered into our real lives.

But up until that point, like,

this isn't my real life. You know, like, you kidding? You think I'm going to look like this

when I'm living my best life? This is not my best life. Like, I can't even keep my habit clean.

Like, I have purple sprays right here on my right cuff because convicted that my teeth aren't sufficiently white.

I got one of those whitening products, but it's a purple whitening product, which seems

counterintuitive, but trust me.

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