To Be Joyfully Determined
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Recall a time when things weren’t going well for you, when you didn’t feel quite right, didn’t feel quite like yourself; a time when you couldn’t hear the still, small voice, or when its song was faint; a time when there was some emotional or mental dissonance in your life; a time when you felt disconnected, depressed, anxious, weak, subdued, out-of-whack, broken; a time when your sense of purpose and meaning waned, and you sought help.
You sought help from a therapist—a psychologist or a psychiatrist or some other mental health professional, or you talked to a social worker or school guidance counselor. Maybe you attended a twelve-step group, or an affinity group for bereavement, divorce, cancer. Maybe you talked to a minister, priest or rabbi, maybe your doctor. Maybe you turned to a self-help book or a friend you could trust to give good advice. I assume most of you have been in this situation at some point: you’ve sought help when something didn’t feel quite right.
Put that memory aside and recall a time when things were going great, when you felt exactly like yourself; a time when you could hear the beautiful, compelling melody of the still, small voice; a time when you felt emotionally and mentally healthy; a time when you felt joyful, happy, inspired, powerful, whole; a time when you had a potent sense of purpose and meaning, and you sought help. You said to yourself, “Wow, I feel so good I need help immediately! I need help to figure out what I’m doing right so I can keep doing it—so I can do it more, do it better.”
We’ve all had that experience too, right? No, we haven’t. My guess is there are few people to whom that thought occurs. We don’t typically approach our lives this way. For everyone I know, it’s fair to say we spend an awful lot of time and energy looking at what’s wrong with us, what our diseases are, what our weaknesses are, and how to overcome them. We don’t spend nearly as much time and energy looking at what’s already right with us, what gives us joy and fulfillment, what our gifts are and how to use them well. To the extent I understand it, focusing on what’s right is the essence of Positive Psychology.
Happier is the title of a bestseller by Tal Ben-Shahar. With its bright yellow cover and vivid red lettering, with its seductive new-age style messaging (“Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment”) it has all the trappings of the kind of cheesy self-help book at which I automatically snub my jaded, pious, Generation X, Master of Divinity nose. However, this past January, in search of continuing education credits, my wife Stephany enrolled in “Positive Psychology 1504″ at the Harvard University Extension School. “Positive Psychology 1504″ is the most popular class at Harvard these days, with an enrollment of over 1400. The professor is Tal Ben-Shahar, author of Happier, the bright yellow book at which I snub my nose.
Steph and I share an office. Since her course began, every night as I’ve been catching up on email and preparing sermons, she has been listening to Ben-Shahar’s lectures over the internet. Thus, I have been listening to Ben-Shahar’s lectures—and realizing this isn’t your standard new-age snake-oil self-help happiness class for overstressed Harvard students in search of an easy A. This is a very well integrated survey of an increasing body of scientific studies of the nature of happiness and well-being.
The more I listen, the more I realize Positive Psychology’s emphasis on the quest for well-being, fulfillment and happiness resonates with Unitarian Universalism’s historically positive view of humanity. The more I listen, the more I sense my ministry and our shared ministries can benefit from a dose of Positive Psychology. The more I listen, the more I realize Ben-Shahar’s prescriptions for happier lives require a disciplined spiritual practice that can help answer the persistent question, “How shall we live?”
My jaded, pious, Generation X, M.Div. nose-snubbing isn’t working. Ben-Shahar makes an important, if obvious-sounding point: So often we focus on what is wrong, and we let that determine the course of our lives. What if we choose instead to focus on what is right, on what makes us happy, on what fulfills us? What if we choose instead to be joyfully determined?
For more background on Positive Psychology I read a few articles on Stephany’s syllabus. In The Review of General Psychology, Shelly Gable and Jonathan Haidt write, “In the second half of the 20th century, psychology learned much about depression, racism, violence, self-esteem management, irrationality, and growing up under adversity, but had much less to say about character strengths, virtues, and the conditions that lead to high levels of happiness or civic engagement.”
“In one metaphor,” they explain, “psychology was said to be learning how to bring people up from negative eight to zero, but not as good at understanding how people rise from zero to positive eight.” They also describe how a majority of psychological studies from this era focus on how to diagnose and treat mental illness and dysfunctional behavior, while almost never asking how to diagnose and enhance well-being. For example, “There are volumes of work examining how couples and families resolve conflict but very few studies examining them having fun and laughing together.”
To be fair, in my experience there are many psychologists who already approach therapy in this positive light. And to be clear, no one in the Positive Psychology movement is suggesting that psychologists ought to stop studying and treating mental illness, dysfunctional families, alcohol and drug abuse, etc. The Positive Psychology movement is simply appealing for balance—not only a focus on how we reduce the negative, but how we enhance the positive.
We can bring the same appeal to the religious life. So much religion focuses on human brokenness, sinfulness, disconnection from the sacred—our spiritual pathologies. It’s necessary to take into account the human capacity for evil, but I never want us to forget the importance of beginning the spiritual life with a proclamation of what is right and good about humanity, with an affirmation of the inherent worth and dignity of every person.
Happiness and fulfillment, says Ben-Shahar, come from what we choose to see and seek, what we choose to focus our attention on. These days it can be difficult to see goodness, dignity, worth and wholeness, let alone bring it into our lives. In a world facing potentially catastrophic climate change; in the midst of tragic land wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a more amorphous and seemingly unending war on terror; in the midst of an economic recession with enormous housing and job insecurity; in the midst of a first world culture focused on material consumption and addicted to corporate media—in the midst of all this breaking and brokenness, all these generators of fear, anxiety and numbness, all these demonstrations of human shortsightedness, arrogance, selfishness, and sinfulness—how do we focus on what is working well, on what brings joy, on what brings happiness and fulfillment? Tal Ben-Shahar says, “Practice.”
What do we practice?
Start with joy. Ask yourself: What brings me joy? Ask this every single day. Notice the answers. Remember the answers. And be joyful.
Then gratitude. Ask yourself: For what am I grateful? Ask this every single day. Notice the answers. Remember the answers. And offer thanks.
Then praise. Ask yourself: What in my life is worth praising? Ask this every single day. Notice the answers. Remember the answers. And offer praise.
Then strength—don’t shy away from strength, don’t shy away from being strong and powerful. Ask yourself: In what ways am I strong? Ask this every single day. Notice the answers. Remember the answers. And be strong.
Then meaning and purpose. Ask yourself: What gives my life meaning and purpose? What makes me come alive? Ask this every single day. Notice the answers. Remember the answers. And come alive!
Then, because our memories fade, because our lives are full and hectic, because the pressures of life in this often toxic culture will compete ruthlessly with our ability to hold onto the answers to these questions, turn them into rituals. The things that give you joy, the things that fill you with gratitude, the things that are meaningful, the things that make you come alive: turn them into rituals so they become anchored in your life.
Ben-Shahar says “It could be working out three times a week, meditating fifteen minutes every morning, watching two movies a month, going on a date with your spouse on Tuesdays, pleasure reading for an hour every other day, and so on.” If civic engagement brings you a sense of meaning and purpose, make it your ritual. If working with your hands or numbers or people is one of your strengths, make it a ritual. If watching birds at the feeder gives you joy, make it a ritual. Anchor it in your life. Ben-Shahar quotes Aristotle: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence… is not an act, but a habit.”
I struggle with whether such practice is really just a privilege of the elite, of the mentally well, of the unaddicted and unafflicted. Ben-Shahar doesn’t address this question. But in my reflections I find that this capacity of striving for happiness and fulfillment is a human capacity. It is universal. Certainly poor people, people with mental or physical illnesses, people in struggle can answer these questions, experience joy, discern strengths—and it would be insulting to suggest otherwise. This practice is not a privilege for the few. Everyone can engage in it. Everyone can come alive. There’s an old gospel hymn in our hymnal called “I’ve Got a New Name.” Everyone can claim a new name. Let us sing, then, trusting there is a path that can get us to the name of joy, to the name of well-being, to the name of strength, to the name of gratitude, to the name of praise, to the name of meaning. Let everyone come alive and be joyfully determined.
- Transitions, Expected and Unexpected - January 1, 2017
- On Setting Out and Coming Home - November 1, 2015
- The Place We Require of Humans - September 1, 2012
