'You looked so much happier then.'

That was a troubling comment from someone looking at a photo of me taken just a few years ago.

But how could or should I regard the implications of such a view – that the good in my life was less today than it had been in the recent past? I felt slightly hurt, but other than that, did it really matter how I responded?

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, was well aware of the phenomenon of negative influence and regarded an individual’s response as important. In her textbook, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” she wrote: “Do you not hear from all mankind of the imperfect model? The world is holding it before your gaze continually. The result is that you are liable to follow those lower patterns, limit your life-work, and adopt into your experience the angular outline and deformity of matter models” (p. 248).

Evidently, I had some praying to do. Here’s an approximation of how I went about it.

Of course it’s not uncommon to encounter an opinion, a view, or even an indirect influence that implies that human life inevitably includes disappointments and declining good, as the wholly material view of life includes such beliefs. How we respond to those opinions may help ensure that we are not allowing negative influences to limit or define us.

In my study of Christian Science, I’ve learned that we all possess spiritual resources that can help us evaluate the opinions and influences that confront us every day and that can help heal their negative implications. The key is to be willing to stay alert in order to identify and discern the origin of those thoughts. “Are thoughts divine or human? That is the important question,” wrote Mrs. Eddy (Science and Health, p. 462).

Christian Science teaches that God, Mind, is the source of all real intelligence and thinking in the universe, the originator of all thoughts that are real and substantial. Therefore, if someone is voicing an opinion or being the conduit of an influence that is contrary to good, the alert thinker does well to know that the thought is not from God and so has no reality, no substance, and, therefore, no effect.

Thoughts, opinions, and influences that are in accord with the belief that human life includes the inevitable decline of joy are not in accord with the divine. So they can be recognized – and rejected as false.

But how? The ability to reject another’s wrong opinion is an innate spiritual capacity that is ours to exercise with dominion. “No person can accept another’s belief, except it be with the consent of his own belief. If the error which knocks at the door of your own thought originated in another’s mind, you are a free moral agent to reject or to accept this error; hence, you are the arbiter of your own fate ...” (Mary Baker Eddy, “Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896,” p. 83).

In this instance, it was my right to continuing happiness that was being challenged, even in a mild or casual way. So it was important to counter this thought with spiritual truth by seeing that my happiness – or anyone’s happiness – has never been dependent on material circumstances.

The Bible says, “Your joy no man taketh from you” (John 16:22). Through the ages, spiritual thinkers have proved that joy is a quality that can be experienced no matter what material circumstances confront an individual. Many conversations are motivated by kindness, sensitivity to others’ feelings, and goodwill. But if a negative thought, opinion, or influence intrudes, we possess the ability to recognize it as such and dismiss it from consciousness as powerless, affirming God’s truth and omnipotence.

I’m grateful that when I was confronted with the assertion that my happiness was on the wane, I was able to respond with a smile, thankful that this wasn’t true for myself or for anyone, and – for the reasons just discussed – to soon go on my way, rejoicing.