Pope Francis Shares Top 10 Secret To Happiness

Pope Francis smiles as he celebrates Mass at the Royal Palace of Caserta in Italy on July 26.

In an interview published in part in the Argentine weekly "Viva" July 27, the pope listed his Top 10 tips for bringing greater joy to one's life:

1. "Live and let live." Everyone should be guided by this principle, he said, which has a similar expression in Rome with the saying, "Move forward and let others do the same."

2. "Be giving of yourself to others." People need to be open and generous toward others, he said, because "if you withdraw into yourself, you run the risk of becoming egocentric. And stagnant water becomes putrid."

3. "Proceed calmly" in life. The pope, who used to teach high school literature, used an image from an Argentine novel by Ricardo Guiraldes, in which the protagonist -- gaucho Don Segundo Sombra -- looks back on how he lived his life.

Why Faith and Family?

We Africans are reputed to be notoriously religious. Our faith is not divorced from our everyday life.  More so, in Nigeria, our faith imbues our everyday actions and behaviors.  This is evident in how much faith or religious-flavored expressions have permeated our everyday parlance.  And that cuts across all strata of social interactions.  “God dey,” once the solace of the poor, I am told, has also become a succor for the rich.  Someone once said to me, “Father, na before dem dey talk say ‘God dey’ na poor man prayer oh.  Now na rich people even dey pray am pass.”

We are familiar with the passion with which many Nigerians forever cover everything with “the blood of Jesus” or perpetually “cast” and “bind” and then send whatever it is “back to the sender” or “to the bottomless pit.”  Indeed, “God pass dem.” Phrases like “to God be the glory” (a favorite of Nollywood home videos), “na God” and “by his grace” have become acceptable ways of acknowledging greetings and compliments. Some of my non-Nigerian friends, all thanks again to our enchanting Nollywood movies, tease me to no end with “my broda, we thank God oh, we thank God oh.”

All of this indicates that, for good or bad, faith orients our lives, albeit in some quarters, shallow faith and popular religiosity lead to faith schizophrenism, an unstable, inconsistent or contradictory mentality or approach to faith, a situation where one is neither here nor there.  This results in an eclecticism that drives one, as we say, from pillar to post, as one traverses all kinds of churches, spiritual homes, shrines, and beaches—in the name of searching for healing and answers to prayer.