“Do things that make you happy, within the confines of the legal system.” - Ellen DeGeneres, Seriously…I’m Kidding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
“Happiness is not the belief that we don’t need to change; it is the realization that we can.” - Shawn Achor
Hello Family and Friends!
I wish you lots of happiness in the New Year, and we’ll begin to play with that possibility when we meet on January 6. Our theme for the month of January is Happiness. You have already received a synopsis of Shawn Achor’s book The Happiness Advantage. Here is a TEDx talk by him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
I have begun putting into practice especially his principle that he calls the “Zorro Circle,” and I’m finding it very helpful.
I’ll append below this message a synopsis you had seen previously, of another book relevant to happiness, Jonathan Haidt’s book The Happiness Hypothesis. And here’s a TED talk by Dan Gilbert on the science of happiness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
I’ll send you well ahead of time the Zoom link for our January 6 team practice; and I’ll suggest that our topic could be what theme we might choose for the month of February. We could also explore one or two possible themes for the month of March. So many possibilities! For example, this list of ten life skills could give us some ideas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
That should get us started on January 6.
Up, up, and aw-a-a-a-a-y!
Arthur
Book: The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom (Jonathan Haidt, 2006)
Jonathan Haidt’s work is in the field of social psychology. He has been a professor of ethical leadership and is the author of several widely read books. Among the many excellent insights provided in this book is the potential advantage of following Benjamin Franklin’s example and working primarily at building our virtues rather than putting so much emphasis on our faults. The book provides a framework you can use to improve your own psychological well-being.
In Chapter 1 (“The Divided Self”) he establishes a useful metaphor, of the “self” as rider and elephant. Most of our brain is best represented by a powerful elephant – emotions, needs, compulsions, automatic behavior. Our more recently evolved rational brain is the rider. Ideally, they should work in harmony. Although the rider can train the elephant, the elephant will always remain much more powerful than the rider. Haidt enumerates four ways in which the self is divided, including new vs. old parts of the brain, which can be as different as Jekyll and Hyde, and the author includes a case history of a man who underwent exactly that kind of transformation when a brain tumor affected the newer part of his brain, the frontal cortex. An unforgettable example of how our “self” is divided is an experiment done in 1970 with four-year-old children who were asked to resist the temptation to eat a marshmallow for a few minutes. Some four-year-old children could resist, others couldn’t. Fifteen years later a follow-up questionnaire was sent to the parents of the children, now young adults. Those who had been able to resist the marshmallow as four-year-old children had subsequently done better in school and were more likely to have been admitted to top universities. Some of us have already begun to train our elephant as early as four years of age!
Chapter 2, “Changing Your Mind,” begins with the ancient epiphany: Our life is the creation of our thoughts. Anicius Boethius (477-524 AD) had been rich, famous, brilliant, and fortunate in his marriage. At the end of his life, however, Lady Fortune deserted him. He was imprisoned and condemned to death. At first, he “wallowed in his wretchedness,” but then Lady Philosophy appeared to him to explain that Lady Fortune was a fickle mistress and would desert you at her whim. You can never be happy or secure if you are a slave to the whims of Lady Fortune. With this epiphany, Boethius was transformed, and he famously met his death like Socrates, with profound equanimity. He had learned the great lesson that “Nothing is miserable unless you think it so; and on the other hand, nothing brings happiness unless you are content with it.” That’s okay, says Haidt, but epiphanies usually don’t have a lasting effect. The rider cannot simply instruct the elephant and expect it to cooperate for long; the elephant re-asserts itself. For longer-lasting harmony, the rider can constantly work to train the elephant, and Haidt suggests three tools to use: Meditation; cognitive therapy; and serotonin-reuptake inhibitors (antidepressants) such as Prozac. He devotes a section in Chapter 2 to each of the three tools, including the advantages and disadvantages of each (and his reasons for including the antidepressants).
We are all familiar with the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” However, Chapter 3, “Reciprocity with a Vengeance,” adds commentary and revisions to the ancient wisdom. In his discussion of a scene from “The Godfather,” Haidt shows that much of what the mafia boss is saying reveals his deep understanding of effective reciprocity. The author is not commending the values of organized crime. His point is that knowing how to use reciprocity effectively is a key to social vitality and to personal happiness.
Chapter 4, “The Faults of Others,” begins with this quote from the book of Matthew in the Bible: “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?...You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.” The author emphasizes the wisdom of learning to see ourselves as others see us, to recognize the faults in ourselves and thus reduce our own self-righteousness. It can vastly improve our relationships with others and our happiness.
In Chapter 5, “The Pursuit of Happiness,” the author makes reference to what other authors have called the “happiness formula,” H = S + C + V, where H is the level of happiness you experience; S is your biological setpoint (including your considerable genetic predisposition toward or away from happiness); C is the conditions of your life; and V is your own activity. You can enhance the conditions of your life (C) through your goal-directed actions (V) and thus increase your happiness. In Chapter 6, “Love and Attachments,” the importance of companionate love (the kind of bond that makes for a successful marriage lasting many years) is emphasized. The work of Emil Durkheim is cited as reference for the importance of the attachments found in highly integrated societies. Durkheim presented evidence that they make life worth living. Comparing people in different religious or ethnic groups and also comparing people in closely integrated families with those living alone, he found higher suicide rates among the less integrated and the more isolated people. Our relationships with others are essential for good mental health, even though they are often very stressful. In closing chapter 6, Haidt refers to a line from Jean-Paul Sartre’s play No Exit, “Hell is other people.” Haidt agrees, and then writes “But so is heaven.”
Adversity can inspire self-improvement and joy. In Chapter 7, “The Uses of Adversity,” the author emphasizes the importance of developing our potential by meeting adversity. For maximum benefits, however, adversity “should happen at the right time (young adulthood), to the right people (those with the social and psychological resources to rise to challenges and find benefits), and to the right degree (not so severe as to cause PTSD).” In Chapter 8, “The Felicity of Virtue,” Haidt refers to Ben Franklin’s extraordinary life (1706-1790). Psychologists had long used a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). In accord with Franklin’s emphasis on virtues, Martin Seligman and colleagues recently studied many references that cite lists of basic virtues (such as the Boy Scouts, “trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, …”). From these sources they developed a diagnostic manual for strengths and virtues (referred to as the “un-DSM” by psychologists). The un-DSM is generating research and a variety of productive initiatives. Haidt concludes the chapter with a breakthrough insight, based on evidence that both politically liberal and politically conservative college students are in favor of demographic diversity (race, religion, social class); whereas there was much less support for diversity of opinion (moral diversity, involving such things as controversial political questions). Haidt then calls attention to the American motto e pluribus unum (from many, one) and suggests we emphasize both the “many” and the “one,” perhaps even using Ben Franklin’s idea of creating a “United Party for Virtue.” Sounds like a plan.
Recent research has found that people experience their work in one of three ways: as a job, a career, or a calling. Which of the three it turns out to be is not determined by the “job description,” but by how the person approaches the job. Amy Wrzesniewski, a psychologist, studied hospital workers and found that “the janitors who cleaned bed pans and mopped up vomit…sometimes saw themselves as part of a team whose goal was to heal people.” They brought to their “menial” work a creativity and self-direction that raised the “job” to the level of a calling. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and colleagues have studied not only “flow,” but also its culmination in a “vital engagement,” defined as “a relationship to the world that is characterized both by flow (enjoyed absorption) and by meaning (subjective significance).” The final short section of Chapter 10 is entitled “The Meaning of Life” and could be considered the author’s “bottom line” to the preceding ten chapters. “It is worth striving to get the right relationships between yourself and others, between yourself and your work, and between yourself and something larger than yourself. If you get these relationships right, a sense of purpose and meaning will emerge.” The book concludes with advice to embrace opposites: “By drawing on wisdom that is balanced – ancient and new, Eastern and Western, even liberal and conservative – we can choose directions in life that will lead to satisfaction, happiness, and a sense of meaning.”
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