Article October 3, 1988 Issue

Other people's behavior

Happiness means never having to wait for someone else to change—because our joy and satisfaction come from God.

Dale Ashley Bryant

Some years ago the teacher in a communications seminar that I was attending made what was to me then a startling statement. He said that we should never base our happiness on our own expectations of other people's behavior. It is better to be concerned about our own behavior. After all, we have control over that!

As a student of Christian Science, I was struck by the wisdom of this advice. Indeed, the Biblical admonition "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling"^{ Phil. 2:12.} came immediately to mind. If I were to believe that I derive my happiness from the actions of another, I would be breaking the First Commandment, shirking responsibility, and making myself a meddler in other people's business.

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me [God],"^{ Ex. 20:3.} says the commandment. This simple directive covers the entire range of human thought and behavior. When we think that we can be happy only if another behaves as we desire, we attribute our well-being to a person—or to something other than God. If the behavior changes to match our expectation, we entertain a false (and temporary) sense of happiness; if the behavior fails to conform to our outline, we feel that our happiness has been denied. But God is our constant source of all good.