Note to readers • This is an edited excerpt from “After Happiness: Living with Faith in a Time of Crisis,” by Natalie Brown. Published by Greg Kofford Books in July 2026. Reproduced by permission.

The 2008 financial crisis was the start of a major contraction in the humanities job market.

Few of my close friends from graduate school ultimately landed tenure-track jobs. History rendered my decision to leave my doctoral program irrelevant. I had been grappling with privileged Latter-day Saint feminist concerns about whether one could and should balance motherhood with a satisfying career.

However, I was on the cusp of a future in which the majority of women in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would need to work for pay, usually in jobs that were not especially fulfilling. I was mourning a potential life that would not have materialized. But that did not make the grief less real; just less visible.

I have come to believe that the hardest losses to process are the ones that cultural scripts prevent others from acknowledging. In my case, this was the loss of a career I deeply wanted. Others may experience mourning for marriages that did not occur or children they did not have. Our social norms sort which aspects of the human experience deserve visibility and attention according to the power dynamics of our communities. People avoid discussing unhappiness when it undermines these norms and challenges our ideologies. Today, we hear from leading voices that empathy and introspection are weaknesses that prevent us from making hard choices and getting things done. Seeing the needs of our fellow human beings or reflecting on the ethics of our own choices apparently interferes with the progress of an abstraction called “humanity.”

These voices tell us it is progress if the inefficiency inherent to human relationships is bypassed in favor of transactions with machines. The goal, it seems, is to eliminate interactions with humans who make us uncomfortable, cost money, or force us to slow down. Admittedly, this sometimes sounds appealing. Who doesn’t want to avoid that annoying someone? Or the person who is ill? Or spending money? Yet, the appeal of this idea makes it all the more noteworthy that my patriarchal blessing specifically says I should cultivate the “empathy” exemplified by my mother.

The gospel is a corrective to the cultural pressures we face to overlook our fellow humans in order to more speedily accomplish our goals and amass our own wealth. Alma teaches us in the Book of Mormon, the church’s signature scripture, that part of the baptismal covenant is to be “willing to mourn with those that mourn” and “comfort those that stand in need of comfort.” Mourning is at the center of our baptismal covenant. Happiness is not. Happiness validates the status quo. Mourning transforms us. We have a Christian duty to enter into others’ unhappiness, provide relief to those in need, and build a more just society. By contrast, Mormon describes the Nephites as ripe for destruction when they are “past feeling” and incapable of being stirred by the horrors around them.

We cannot empathize if we are unwilling or unable to see unhappiness. We cannot mourn with and comfort people whose experiences or feelings we are taught should not exist or that exist only as a product of their sin. We cannot mourn with people if we see their needs as obstacles that slow us down in accomplishing our work or as products of a lack of faith, effort, or proper attitude. The gospel teaches that mourning is part of our divine work, and it requires us to broaden our perspectives. Latter-day Saints apostle Dale G. Renlund explains, “We cannot completely fulfill our covenant obligation to mourn with those who mourn and comfort those who stand in need of comfort unless we see them through God’s eyes.”

Christ consistently models seeing, touching, and validating the worth of people excluded by society. He pauses his preaching to attend to the needs of the one. He challenges our economic and social relationships. In the parable of the good Samaritan, the powerful leaders of the community ignore the beaten man who lies on the road while only the good Samaritan (himself an outcast) treats the victim with compassion and provides for his needs. Christ associates with and heals persons whom society deems invisible, lesser, or unworthy: the sick, women, adulterers, tax collectors, the possessed, and political foes.

In his book “The Prophetic Imagination,” religious scholar Walter Brueggemann emphasizes that Christ is frequently “moved to compassion,” a form of radical seeing and empathy with the unhappiness of others.

“Compassion,” Brueggemann explains, “constitutes a radical form of criticism, for it announces that the hurt is to be taken seriously, that the hurt is not to be accepted as normal and natural but is an abnormal and unacceptable condition for humanness.”

Christ validates and heals distress rather than asking people to hide the unhappiness that the dominant culture finds inconvenient to acknowledge. Christ challenges norms that protect powerful interests at the expense of those cast aside. He centers the people our society rejects. When we free ourselves from the grip of norms that specify which lives are valuable and which are not and equate wealth with happiness and importance, we can recover our capacity for empathy and more fully see people through the Lord’s eyes. That empathy in turn enables us to see where our actions need to pivot.

Note to readers • Natalie Brown is a Latter-day Saint based in Colorado. She is speaking in her personal capacity. Her views do not necessarily reflect those of the church or any other organization.