heaven, hell, and happiness

Sunday School taught us that heaven was a place in the sky where people sat around, floating on clouds, playing harps. Hell was the flaming center of the earth, where the devil (with horns, a long tail, and carrying a pitchfork) lived, waiting for sinners.
As adults, we do not know if there is a heaven or a hell after death. There are heaven and hell here on earth, and one person's heaven can be another person's hell. A secure job with the government would be our father's heaven, but Robert's hell. Being an entrepreneur is Robert's heaven. For our dad, having to become an entrepreneur at the age of fifty was his hell.
Marriage can be either a heaven or a hell. Even though we may deeply love someone, life together can be a living hell.
Money can be the reason for heaven or hell on earth. Many financial advisors recommend, "Live below your means." They say this because many people are barely surviving -- in a living hell -- using borrowed money to live a lifestyle they cannot afford. For others, heaven is having more than enough money to afford their lifestyle.
Since one's heaven can be another person's hell, the question is, what creates a person's heaven or hell? While there are many possible answers, one answer is happiness . . . or the lack of it.
ROBERT: SELFISH AND UNSELFISH GOALS
As with so many things in life, for every action there is a reaction. If a person is unhappy, he may do something to make him happy, for example, like drink alcohol. Feeling low, he may go to a bar, drink a lot, and feel happy. The next day, he pays for his happiness with a hangover. Do this on a regular basis and that unhappy person becomes an alcoholic, still in search of happiness.
Others take chemical drugs to escape their pain and unhappiness. According to the Washington Post, today in America, more than one in every one hundred people are in jail, as many as 20 percent, for drug-related issues.
Being in jail is not my idea of heaven. Some people go shopping to relieve the pain. Money is their drug. The more money they have, the more they shop. Rather than finding heaven, they find hell, living under a mountain of credit card debt.
My drug of choice is food. When I am unhappy, I eat. While I'm eating, I feel happy. The problem is, the more I eat, the fatter I become. The fatter I become, the more unhappy I get, so I eat more, become fatter, and become even more unhappy. In my attempt to reach heaven through food, I wind up in hell. Many people seek to solve their unhappiness through religion. Many have so many problems they feel they cannot solve them, and they seek salvation by hoping God will save them from their hell here on earth.