Man is Created For Happiness

In Tolstoy’s War and Peace the character Pierre was taken prisoner as the French conquered Moscow, and eventually he went on a forced march with the French as they subsequently fled. He suffered immensely and was lucky not to have been killed like some of the other prisoners. The story relates, “While imprisoned in the shed Pierre had learned not with his intellect but with his whole being, by life itself, that man is created for happiness, that happiness is within him, in the satisfaction of simple human needs, and that all unhappiness arises not from privation but from superfluity. And now during these last three weeks of the march he had learned still another new, consolatory truth—that nothing in this world is terrible. He had learned that as there is no condition in which man can be happy and entirely free, so there is no condition in which he need be unhappy and lack freedom. He learned that suffering and freedom have their limits and that those limits are very near together.” His feet were injured and terribly difficult to walk on, but somehow he managed to continue.

Another prisoner and old man named Karataev had become a good friend to Pierre, and he told a story to the others of a merchant man who “lived a good and God-fearing life with his family” and was wrongly condemned for a murder. The innocent man was sent to Siberia to suffer there. After ten years another convict in Siberia realized that this God-fearing man was suffering for the murder he had committed. The guilty man begged forgiveness and the merchant man said, “God will forgive you, we are all sinners in His sight. I suffer for my own sins.” The real murderer confessed and worked with authorities to get this innocent sufferer freed from the Siberian prison. By the time the paperwork was done to let him free, the man had died. Karataev said, “God had already forgiven him—he was dead! That’s how it was, dear fellows!” The account continues, “Karatáev concluded and sat for a long time silent, gazing before him with a smile. And Pierre’s soul was dimly but joyfully filled not by the story itself but by its mysterious significance: by the rapturous joy that lit up Karatáev’s face as he told it, and the mystic significance of that joy.” In the very next scene two French soldiers came and shot Karataev because he was lagging behind in their forced march, and he died. And just like the story he had told, he was innocent, but in his final moment he had been filled with joy.

                This story reminds of the now famous quote from President Nelson: “My dear brothers and sisters, the joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives.” Pierre learned that happiness came not from the possession of things—he had plenty—but from within. He found it even while a prisoner suffering hunger, fatigue, and great pain. His friend who died, despite intense suffering, had been able to do so with joy. Pierre’s words also resemble the teachings of Lehi: “Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy” (2 Nephi 2:25). We are to find joy through a focus on the Savior Jesus Christ instead of on the superfluous things of the world. In the novel Pierre had sought happiness by living in a manner after the world, but he could not find it. He found it when nearly all was taken from him and he learned from a humble suffering companion. As that companion solider prayed “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and save us!” As President Nelson summarized, “The unrighteous may experience any number of emotions and sensations, but they will never experience joy! Joy is a gift for the faithful. It is the gift that comes from intentionally trying to live a righteous life, as taught by Jesus Christ.”