The new year is approaching, and many young men, tired of the recurring sense of meaninglessness and monotony in their everyday lives, are thinking about making some changes. If that’s you, then I have some some unsolicited, yet ancient advice. I would like to say it’s something I wish someone would have told me earlier in life, but people did tell me. I just didn’t listen.
Whether you realize it or not, as you’re contemplating your life and reasoning about what changes to make, you’re actually being philosophers. The history of philosophy boils down to one particular thing that all philosophers have been searching for since time immemorial: wisdom. After all, the term ‘philosophy’ means a love for wisdom (Gk. philo = love, sophia = wisdom). And why a love for wisdom? Because virtually all philosophers, from Plato to Aristotle to Aquinas, would say that the overarching pursuit of wisdom is the means to an end, and that end is what is known as the good life. That is the end we’re all after, when we stop to ponder our lives and employ our reason in search of meaning and truth. Acquiring wisdom is a means to that end.
The problem is that many of today’s modern philosophies and their prescriptions for the good life almost always start in the wrong place. They’ll typically tell you to start with things like articulating your long-term goals, developing your career ambitions, getting in the gym, spending more time with family and friends, volunteering, or other things like that. In essence, what they offer as first-fruits to the crisis of meaning in your life are varying bits of self-help principles.
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with helping yourself and applying practical, science-backed principles, but I would say that these examples are all meaningless as first principles for any of us trying to get our lives in order. If the good life necessitates the pursuit of wisdom (which it does), then it’s time to acknowledge that the starting point of wisdom isn’t changing our habits. Wisdom doesn’t start with making a book list, eating cleaner, or opening up a retirement account. Writing your resolutions and goals down might bring you a surge of dopamine, but they won’t make you any wiser. No, wisdom starts with getting right with God.
For any young man who is in search of the good life in the new year, this is the fundamental proposition:
“The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.” (Prov. 9:10)
If you want true happiness–what Aristotle called eudaimonia–start by fearing God. You can go to the gym consistently and make lots of money and get your life together by all worldly appearances, but all of it is vanity without God. Without God, the end of all these things is the destruction of your soul in hell. What good is it to gain the world, but forfeit your soul? If you want real meaning, pornography and materialism and unrestrained hedonism won’t give it to you. Nor will the precepts of atheism and agnosticism, because these are meaningless philosophies, by definition. Rather, the good life starts when you surrender all of yourself–your intellect, your senses, and your will–over to God’s direction rather than your own. In other words, happiness is on the other side of fearing God.
“The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” Ecclesiastes 12:13 ESV
To spell this out practically, fearing God means listening to what He says and then doing what He commands us to do. Listening and doing. Right thinking and right living. Orthodoxy and orthopraxy. This is the duty of men. God’s commands aren’t mere suggestions or one of many paths to happiness. It’s the only path. And if you want happiness, you have to actually walk that path, opposed to simply acknowledging it and pretending. You have to actually apply God’s wisdom to your life and practice His commands, because His commands are, by definition, the embodiment of what it means to be good, and when you walk in accordance with them, you experience the good life. “For this is the love of God,” writes the apostle John, “that we keep [God’s] commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3).
You are more than an animal. You are a creature designed for such a relationship with our Creator, and when you act in accordance with your nature, you flourish—you experience eudaimonia.
To sum up my advice, here it is: if you want the good life, get wisdom. And where does wisdom begin? Fearing God. This isn’t legalism or dead ritualism. Nor is this an appeal to that empty sort of overly feminized sentimentalism that turns faith into feelings. This is real, concrete, steel-in-your-chest love. This is the path to the life we truly want. This is the life we were made for. It’s our telos; our chief end. It’s the potential that we, as men, have a moral duty to actualize.
You want the good life in the new year? Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and everything else will get a little bit clearer.
“What is the chief end of man? Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.” (Westminster Shorter Catechism)
Colton Banks 