Huston Smith on the Most Important Thing You Can Do in 2025

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Huston Smith at 93 signed copies of his book, “And Live Rejoicing” at a bookstore in Oakland, California — and gave a tip for the most important thing you can do in 2025. Photo by Barbara Newhall

The Most Important Thing You Can Do in 2025

Huston Smith was 93 years old, and he had a point that he wanted to make that day.

The man had lived a long and thoughtful life, studying and, in some cases, practicing the world’s great religions. He had taught religion at places like MIT and UC-Berkeley. He had more than a dozen books to his credit, including the best-selling classic The World’s Religions.

And now, on a Sunday afternoon in September in 2012, dozens of Huston Smith’s readers and devotees had shown up to hear him read from his latest book at a bookstore in Oakland, California.

The point Huston wanted to make on that day was this:

Happiness — we should have more of it.

Happiness is the human birthright, he said. “And if we are not happy then that’s a sign that there is something wrong with what we are doing – to alert us to the fact that we must change.”

In other words, from his vantage point of nearly a century devoted to the study of life and truth and the meaning of it all Huston wasn’t telling his fans they could have more happiness. He was telling us we should have more of it.

And so now as another year begins to unfold, I’m telling myself — maybe that’s my new year’s resolution, maybe that’s the most important thing you can do in 2025.

To live rejoicing is something of an obligation we have as living, breathing sentient beings with just enough free will to make some key choices.

The title of this, his latest book, says it all, Huston told the crowd. It’s a memoir, stories of pivotal moments in the author’s personal and spiritual life. The title, And Live Rejoicing, is taken from the eighteenth century hymn, “Oh Happy Day,” popularized in the ’70s by folksinger Joan Baez.

Oh Happy Day

Oh happy day, oh happy day,

When Jesus washed my sins away.

He taught us how to watch and pray,

And live rejoicing every day.

Later, during the Q&A, Huston was asked whether Christianity and Zen were compatible.

Huston said he thought that all of the major religions – he called them revelations – were channeled by the divine. “I do not prioritize any one of them, not my Christianity or any one of them. If that be heresy, then make the most of it.”

Still, he said, “I was born of missionary parents and that meant that I was imprinted with Christianity from the very beginning. You peel Christianity off of me and there is no Huston left.”

“And Live Rejoicing: Chapters from a Charmed Life — Personal Encounters with Spiritual Mavericks, Remarkable Seekers, and the World’s Great Religious Leaders,” by Huston Smith with Phil Cousineau, New World Library.

On that September day, Huston Smith had only four years of rejoicing left to him. He died in 2017. Here’s what I had to say about that: “Huston Smith dies at 97 — A Mentor to Me and to Millions.”

Huston Smith most-important-thing-you-can-do-in-2025 — Huston Smith at 93. *Photo by Barbara Newhall*

0 Responses

Ginger+Rothé says:

January 5, 2025 at 2:34 pm

timely thoughts from you and your mentor. thank you

Reply
1. Barbara Falconer Newhall says:
  
  January 6, 2025 at 9:01 pm
  
  Happy New Year!
  
  Reply

Huston Smith on the Most Important Thing You Can Do in 2025

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