Dissatisfiers and Satisfiers

kw: musings, happiness, satisfaction, fulfillment

From time to time I read or hear (radio program) one or another "happiness expert". The article or program will typically include a list of things that do or do not promote happiness. Sometimes I take notes. Collating my notes, I have two composite lists of four items. Here they are, with my thoughts on each:

Things that we think will make us happy, but don't, the Dissatisfiers:

1. Money. You may have heard or read, "Money is the root of all evil." Is it a Bible verse? Not quite. The first phrase of 1 Timothy 6:10 is, "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil". "Love of money" is one word in Greek, "philargyria", or literally, "love of the soul for silver". Note that this kind of love is A root, not The root, and that all kinds of evil, not all evils, are the result. We'll see why in a moment. I once had a dispute with a company executive who promoted "passion for profits". I declared that I had built my career on a passion for excellence, and that profits had always followed. His rejoinder was so double-tongued and self-blind that I was glad I already had an exit strategy! Money is useful, but it is a tool. Some say it can become an idol, but it isn't really. In this "modern" age, few believe in material idols, but people might make education, art, love (or lust), or religion an end in themselves, and thus a false god. Money can be a means to obtain one's idol. But its proper use is to secure one's life and comfort, and in anyone with a willing heart, money can be used to help others. Ask a billionaire, "Is it enough?" It is never enough if money is the goal. As a goal it promotes dissatisfaction.
2. Power. The Englishman Lord Acton is credited with saying, "Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely." As a lifelong observer of British monarchy in the reign of Victoria and her predecessors, he ought to know. But there is a corollary quote by David Brin, "…it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power." In my thirties I said to a supervisor that I was considering aiming for management (I was on a "tech track" at the time). He responded by making me the supervisor of two colleagues. I soon realized that it was all to easy to abuse power, and asked for an end to that experiment. Perhaps that makes me sane, by David Brin's standard, anyway! In the first three centuries of Christianity, nobody would be elevated to be an elder in a church (by a bishop or apostle) if he seemed to greatly desire eldership. Indeed, it was the usual practice to make a "test offer" of temporary eldership, and if the person accepted without protest, the post was temporary indeed, and not followed up with any further offers of responsibility. Augustine wrote that someone had to say, "I don't want it!" three times, on three occasions, before he was eligible to become an elder. "Abuse of power" is much talked about today. Genuine abuse of power is a great source of many evils. Indeed, it matters little how much money you have if someone with power doesn't permit you to use your money as you choose. Liberty is the appropriate power to make your own choices, but confers no right to make choices for anyone else.
3. Pleasure. Here I do not refer to all pleasure, but pleasure as an end to be sought, even by illicit means. Extreme pleasure-seeking leads to addiction. We are motivated by the pleasure/pain principle. However, it is one thing to take pleasure in good work, good relationships, and enjoyable activities, and quite another to seek pleasure to the detriment of others or of one's own well-being. Pleasure can become a false god. When chasing after pleasures disrupts someone's working life, or causes them to fail in school, or to neglect necessary relationships, it is no longer promoting satisfaction, but the opposite.
4. Fame. We all want to be well thought of. We can easily be drawn to wanting to be widely thought of: to have a large number of followers on Twitter or Instagram or whatever; to have the applause from large crowds and so forth. It can be addicting. I accompanied our son to a class camp, with a hundred or so pre-teens. One activity was a campfire. There were several acts and skits, and I sang them a song. They didn't just applaud, the boys cheered and the girls screamed like I was a rock star! I told my son later, "What a rush!! Now I know why rock stars do it." But I'm still glad that, working my way into a music career 50+ years ago, I changed direction and opted for a "day job." I am well enough regarded by the handful of people I really care about. More than that is unnecessary, and leads to dissatisfaction.

Things that lead to fulfillment and happiness, the Satisfiers:

1. Faith. He that believes only in himself has a fool for a god. We need God, a God who is greater than we are. I speak not of religion, which has to do with what we do. Faith is the belief itself and the object of that belief. Based on what we believe, we may do certain things, and thus be called "religious", but religion without faith is done for fame, and has no useful result. It is said that a faithful person is never entirely satisfied, because we so seldom live up to what we believe in. However, a certain holy yearning to do better is no detriment to the great satisfaction of serving a gracious God as well as we can.
2. Family. Not everyone has a congenial family. If your parents, siblings or other relatives are evil, perhaps it is best to gather a "family of choice." This would be your closest friends (see next item). But in most cases, we are happiest when we spend time with our spouse, children, parents, siblings, and others of our extended family. This is why most people choose to spend holidays with family.
3. Friendship. I knew a youngster during my Freshman year of college who had a huge family. His father had married four times: each of the first three wives had ten or more children and then died, and number four had just had a ninth child and was going strong. He had grandnephews and grandnieces older than he was. Perhaps he didn't need friends. The family farm had forty or more houses on the property, full of his relatives. The rest of us may have only three or four close relatives, or maybe ten or so, but we are built to relate to 100-150 people. We fill the gap with friends and acquaintances. I am not talking about "FaceBook friends" here. Some folks have several thousand of those, but they really have no more than a few dozen actual friends. We cannot be normal if we are entirely solitary.
4. Meaningful Work. I read a book titled Rivethead by Ben Hamper a long time ago. He was a riveter in an auto plant, attaching bumpers to trucks. Stultifying work. He and a couple of others got creative and invented a collective person they named Armand Hammer. By dividing up the work, they had time for other pursuits and a chance to "unwind" (and, I presume, Armand Hammer earned enough to support them all). But it has been truly said, "Love your job and you'll never 'work' a day in your life." I knew someone who strove to excel as a business executive. He was offered a promotion to executive vice president of his company. He was happy where he was, and he felt it was the best fit for him. He didn't think the promotion would be as good a fit, but felt he had to accept it. At the first meeting of the EVP's with the CEO, the CEO began the meeting by saying, "Gentlemen, we have all sold our souls for this." My friend stood and said, "I have not," and left. He resigned and pursued work in a different field, which he soon found was even more satisfying. For many, a job just puts food on the table and pays the rent; they are meaningfully occupied in their church, or volunteering, or carrying on a social hobby. Although just about everyone who writes about this uses the term "meaningful work", it may be better to call it "meaningful occupation" or even "vocation". A Vocation is a calling. When we have a calling we are typically the most satisfied. 

Looking at the second list, I would subsume the first and second points into the third. Firstly to be a Friend of God; secondly, to be a Friend to my family members (as much as that is possible); thirdly, to have Friends to whom I may not be related but who share a mutual love and respect. "A threefold cord is not easily broken" (Ecclesiasted 4:12b). These things lead to satisfaction. The things the foolish pursue lead to dissatisfaction.

Happy is as happy does

kw: book reviews, nonfiction, psychology, happiness, self help

Abraham Lincoln is quoted as saying, "Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be". If you take that notion, add the principle of hedonic adaptation—we get used to just about anything after a while—, and expand it all to book length, you'll get something like Sonja Lyobomirsky's new book The Myths of Happiness: What Should Make You Happy, but Doesn't; What Shouldn't Make You Happy, but Does.

Dr. Lyubomirsky has made a career of studying happiness, and her prior book The How of Happiness is one of a very few self help books with scientific backing (get it, I plan to). Myths goes further, focusing on the turning points of adult life: gaining or losing key relationships, getting or losing an occupation or a windfall, and the inevitable changes of getting older.

Many years ago, during a phase in which I allowed myself to think myself a victim, I was seeing a therapist about "depression", and he had me read the book Necessary Losses by Judith Viorst. It was a big help, and this book would have helped even more. My real problem was coupling the usual mid-life crisis that accompanies one's mid-40s with the stresses of having an infant in the home. Most 45-year-olds have only vague memories of the infant stage of their teen-aged (or older) kids. A few years later, seeing a therapist over a completely different issue (thankfully, relating to non-relatives!), at one point he asked me, "What do you do when you are feeling bad?" I said, "I do something I like." He replied, "Then you don't need me any more," and I haven't been to one since.

The biggest "attitude adjustment" I underwent came later, after I experienced dying of cancer, but was rescued at the last minute by a terrifically skilled surgeon. As Samuel Johnson said, "…when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully." Here is a before-and-after example. All my life I have been dogged by a tendency to over-submit to authority, and in particular, to quail when challenged. A few months after finishing chemotherapy, a manager (my boss's boss) assigned me something that was far and away outside my competence, in an area I had no interest in pursuing. I could see it was a recipe for failure, and sent a note, declining. She came storming to my office, pretty much trying to say, "Take it or else", and I said, "Look, I already died. What more can you do to me? Assign it to someone who is already good at that." For the rest of my career I operated as an equal partner with any supervisor or manager. And I was a lot happier!

The principle of hedonic adaptation is central to the book's approach, and is well studied. It is encapsulated in the proverbs, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder," and "Familiarity breeds contempt," as applied not just to relationships but to anything we might care about. For example: you have a bitter fight with a cherished friend, and there is a period in which the two of you do not communicate. You are alternately devastated and insultedly enraged, but you are definitely not happy. For a time, the matter consumes all your thoughts, but if this goes on for weeks or months, you have to go on with life, and you do. If someone asks you, "Are you happy?" you are likely to respond the way you would have the day before the blowup. Then you get the chance to reconcile, and the two of you forgive each other and resume the friendship. You are over the moon. Then in time, your general level of happiness returns. Over several weeks' time, your "mood meter" might go like this (ironing out lesser events):

Within limits, we get used to both the bad and the good. This goes for money also, for example. We are all happy to get a raise, but it doesn't seem to take very long to find ways to spend it, and we are no happier than before. Suppose it is a big raise, so you buy a boat (or name your favorite extravagance). You are tickled to pieces! A year or two later, you are wondering if you can afford an even bigger boat, or even worse, getting irritated at the amount of upkeep.

Now, what about aging? Can we really age gracefully? It seems we all know someone 5 or 10 or 20 or even 40 years older, who is still good looking and healthy and keeping busy with enjoyable things to do. We might wonder, can I do as well? Look around some more. It is also likely that you know someone of a similar age with this or that problem, and maybe coping with the tighter budget of a "fixed income" retirement, but who seems quite content…or not! If you have known that person a long enough time, do you remember his or her general mood half a lifetime ago? It was probably similar. This gets back to Lincoln's quote.

Externalities don't determine our "inner climate", though they do affect day-to-day moods, more or less severely. As in her earlier book, the author presents a number of methods to attain perspective. I find it akin to Stephen Covey's "circles of concern, circles of control" principle. He advises us to take a careful look at everything we worry about, to determine which we can control and which we cannot. In his view, to be both happier and more effective, we must do what we can to increase our circle of control and to decrease the circle of concern until, ideally, they match.

Dr. Lyubomirsky would agree, and each chapter ends with a section titled "The Prepared Mind" (based on Louis Pasteur: "Fortune favors the prepared mind."). If we have suffered a reverse in any area, and can step back, and expect to adapt to it, we can do so more quickly. If we have a pleasant (or ecstatic) surprise, and we can step back, and realize we will also adapt to that, we can perhaps avoid the negative swing that often occurs when we say to ourselves, "Well, that wasn't quite as good as I imagined, long term." Nobody can get what Lucy wanted in one of the Peanuts strips, when she said, "Why do there have to be ups and downs? I don't want any downs. I just want ups and Ups and UPS!!"

Don't we all. Not available, folks.