The Great Myth of “I’ll Be Happy When This Is Over”

The Watchdog is turning 62 this year, which means two things are now undeniably true:

1. I’ve spent a lot of years confidently believing things that turned out not to be true.

2. I now recognize just how stubborn I was about letting go of them.

For most of my adult life, I believed in what I now recognize as a complete fairy tale: Once I get past this season of trouble, then I’ll be happy. You know the story. Just get through this financial stress. Just get past this conflict. Just survive this season. Then, finally, peace, joy, happiness, a hammock, and maybe a gentle breeze.

Spoiler alert: that day never comes.

Trouble never really leaves. It recedes for a while, then comes back from a different direction. Different decade, different problem. Same reality.

When you’re young, the trouble feels dramatic and urgent. When you’re middle-aged, it’s heavier and more complicated. When you’re older, it’s maybe more tame but more relentless. Some troubles are big. Some are long. Some are short. But even the short ones have a nasty habit of being replaced by something else waiting just around the corner.

I honestly thought, well into adulthood, that someday trouble would finally be behind me. As if life were a math problem you eventually solve and then close the book.

Turns out, life is not a math problem. It’s a recurring quiz.

And here’s a verse that finally wrecked my illusion, even though I’d heard it my whole life:

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.”
James 1:2–3

Notice what that verse does not say. It does not say, “Be joyful after the trial.” It does not say, “Hang on until happiness arrives later.” It says consider it joy when you face trials. Not because the trouble is good, but because trouble is unavoidable, and how you respond to it is where maturity is forged.

That realization took me nearly 60 years to grasp, I mean to really understand it. I suppose when you hit 60, you start to see the end in sight and part of this has caused me to realize this about trouble. When I shared this hard-earned insight with my wife, she simply said, “I’ve always known that.” And of course she had. Same truth, same destination, she just didn’t need decades to figure out that trouble isn’t a detour in life; it’s the road.

That’s not Christian fluff. That’s ancient, hard-earned wisdom.

Some of my preachers tried to tell me this for years. I distinctly remember Homer Lindsey coming back again and again to one simple idea: thankfulness. He leaned heavily on this verse:

“Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
1 Thessalonians 5:18

Notice the precision of the language. It doesn’t say give thanks for all circumstances. It says in all circumstances. That’s not denial. That’s discipline. That’s learning how to live without postponing gratitude until life finally behaves itself.

Paul says something similar from a much more personal angle:

“I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances…whether living in plenty or in want.”
Philippians 4:11–12

Contentment, according to Paul, was something learned over time. In my wife’s case, though, it really does seem to be part of who she is. Through ups and downs, through seasons of real difficulty, she has consistently been content in a way that never depended on circumstances cooperating. I lived right next to that example for decades, and somehow still managed to miss the lesson.

Recently, I found myself having a conversation with one of my adult children who is going through a genuinely difficult and emotionally painful season. And I had to admit something that surprised even me: that it wasn’t until I was about 60 years old that I finally learned this lesson. I told them that when trouble comes, even severe trouble, you eventually have to accept that this is part of life, and that waiting for it to end before allowing yourself joy is a losing strategy. You have to enjoy the journey somehow. You have to appreciate what you have now. I had to admit to my adult child that I lived most of my life not realizing that I was actually in the best years of my life, and was stupidly waiting for a better time to come!

I also told them something else that felt important to say out loud. While I may not be facing severe trouble at this exact moment, I know full well that something is always waiting around the corner. Jerry Vines always said "you're either in a storm, coming out of a storm, or about to go into a storm". I could get sick. My wife could get sick. Our elderly parents could get sick. Life has no shortage of ways to remind you that control is an illusion. Pretending otherwise doesn’t make you wise; it just delays the lesson.

That conversation is part of why I’m writing this.

What Homer was really saying, and what I was too stubborn to learn was this: If you wait for trouble to leave before you allow yourself to be happy, you will die waiting.

Money won’t save you from this. People love to believe that financial success is a force field against trouble. It’s not. Money simply upgrades the class of problems you get. A lack of money causes trouble. Having money causes a different kind of trouble. Lose it? Trouble. Manage it? Trouble. Protect it? Trouble. Argue about it? Trouble.

Pick your poison.

Health issues don’t wait for your bank account. Family conflict doesn’t care about your retirement plan. Aging doesn’t pause because you finally got things “figured out.”

Another verse says it even more bluntly when Jesus himself said:

“In this world you will have trouble.”
John 16:33

Not might. Not occasionally. Will.

The lie we tell ourselves is that happiness is the absence of trouble. It isn’t. Happiness, real happiness, is learning to live inside the trouble without being owned by it.

I no longer wait for the storm to pass before I allow myself peace. I don’t postpone joy until the next chapter. I don’t tell myself, Just get through this, then you can breathe. Because there is always another “this.”

The secret, if you want to call it that, that my wife has always known is learning to be content, grateful, and even joyful while life is doing what life has always done: being hard.

I’m thankful I finally learned that. Late, yes. But better late than still believing the lie at 80.

Trouble isn’t leaving. That’s okay.

I don’t need it to.