HOW HAPPINESS HAPPENS

Rev. Dr. Michael Schuler

January 13, 2008

READING

From M. P. Dunleavey, The NY Times, July 14, 2007

As I write this column I am anticipating a $30,000 windfall... It's not a proper "Take the money and run" kind of windfall. Nor ...would it be life-changing the way a million dollars might be...

Still, in the week or so that this deal has been pending, I have found myself obsessing over what the money could do for us and weighing all the ways the money could be spent. I kept reminding myself that it was pointless to count my chickens before anyone had handed me the eggs, but I could scarcely tear myself away from the movie screen in my head, which was playing out all the possible financial outcomes...

As my dreams unfurled, I was appalled to realize that the wish list I had been carrying around in my back pocket was longer than the hoped-for money. I found myself running out of cash before I'd even seen the check.

I felt like a one-woman example of the varieties of human economic experience. I was greedy despite myself. I didn't have the money – yet it was spent already, and, yes, I wanted more. Research done by behavioral economists suggests that the concept of "enough" is almost absent from the human psyche, perhaps even from our DNA. If there is more to be had, we want it...

I reflected on a conversation I had last month with Brewster Kahle, an entrepreneur who became rich during the dot-com boom when he sold two companies to AOL and Amazon.com. Despite his wealth, he has continued to work on a project that has absorbed him for nearly 25 years: "the dream was to build a library at Alexandria, Version 2," said Mr. Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive, a nonprofit digital library based in San Francisco.

But while Mr. Kahle's vision is inspiring, his lifestyle intrigued me more. Although he and his family can afford to live like millionaires, they generally choose not to. They still rent a house in San Francisco where they have lived for years. "If you rent, someone else fixes up the place," he notes. Kahle drives a 10 year old car. That's not because he and his wife are cheap. "I grew up around rich people," he said, "and the happiest people I've known were those in the middle-class – people who are neither struggling nor floating in money. They have the most options."

Yes, the Kahles' wealth has brought them a level of security and flexibility that most mortals cannot imagine. But I got the feeling that regardless of his net worth, Mr. Kahle would still focus his time and energy on a few things: spending time with his family, working in intellectual copyright issues, traveling to enjoyable places whenever possible. "We've tried to avoid expensive things like second houses and divorces," he joked.

I began to reconsider my "more money is always better" reflex... Perhaps money can buy happiness, but only when you consider what that money is going to cost you.

** REFLECTIONS **

I recently had a chance to witness a stage production of Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice," a play controversial for its overt anti-Semitism but full of memorable dialogue and soliloquies. During the performance, an aspect of the drama that isn't often mentioned caught my attention.

In the very first scene we are introduced to Antonio, a successful Venetian capitalist – the man from whom Shylock will eventually demand his "pound of flesh." Now, Antonio is a remarkable individual; he could even be described as heroic. Wealthy, physically well endowed, a gentleman of high standing in the community, Antonio has many good friends who obviously care deeply for him. And he, in turn, dotes on them. Shakespeare presents Antonio as not only materially successful, but also unusually generous. He lends money freely and without interest – even when the prospect for repayment is small. So what is the problem?

The problem is that this noble soul is not happy. The play begins with a conversation in which his friends tease Antonio about his solemn countenance and his inability to share in their own gaiety. They suggest that, since he has everything else going for him, the absence of a romantic partner must have sullied his mood. Antonio dismisses this explanation, but the issue is never really resolved. As the play ends, Antonio – his life saved and his fortune restored – seems just as downcast as he was initially.

This is most unfortunate – even tragic – because it is happiness that ultimately redeems the human condition. "All human beings seek happiness," the 17th century philosopher Pascal wrote:

This is without exception... This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.

That happiness should be universally desired and sought is, Aristotle tells us, entirely appropriate. It is right for human beings to pursue happiness because, he says:

Happiness is something we choose always for itself and never for the sake of something else... It is something final and self-sufficient, and is the end of action.

Happiness is, then, life's "summum bonum", its highest good, as wisdom teachers have attested for over two thousand years. "The desire or inclination to be happy and to avoid suffering knows no boundaries," the Dalai Lama writes:

As such it needs no justification and is validated by the simple fact that we naturally and correctly want this.

The question is, then, not whether it is appropriate to seek happiness, but by what means and strategies might we achieve this optimal condition. "The great question that confronts us all," The Dalai Lama remarks, is "How am I to be happy?"

I'd prefer to begin that discussion by reviewing a few of the more common misconceptions about happiness – untruths and half-truths that lead us astray.

Consider the synonyms that are often substituted for happiness: "pleasure," "ecstasy", "bliss," "contentment." These terms accurately illustrate that happiness has an emotional component. But that's hardly the end of the matter. Americans, Harvard lecturer Tal Ben Shahar says, tend to conflate pleasure and happiness. Maximizing life's pleasure and minimizing its pain is for us, as for most Utilitarians, the formula to be followed.

Unfortunately, that formula doesn't really sit well with the human psyche. Ben Shahar recalls an episode from that classic TV series "The Twilight Zone" in which a ruthless criminal, having been shot and killed by the police, finds himself in the afterlife. He is greeted by an angel who informs him that his every wish will now be granted. Amazed and somewhat baffled to be in heaven, the criminal soon settles down and begins placing orders. In the twinkling of an eye, each desire is satisfied: money, exquisite cuisine, beautiful women. Life after death, it appears, could not be better.

However, as time goes by, the pleasure he derives from this continual gratification of his appetites begins to diminish – psychologists call this "habituation" – and the criminal asks the angel for some task that will make him feel useful. He's told that he can have anything he wants – except the opportunity to work. Over time, the criminal becomes increasingly frustrated. He goes back to the angel and says he now wants to go to the “other place" because heaven is just driving him nuts. The camera zooms in on the angel, whose benign countenance now becomes sinister. "This is the other place," he says with an ominous laugh.

The problem with hedonic life – a life defined by the pursuit of pleasure – is that it is essentially meaningless. Too much of a good thing is not necessarily wonderful, contrary to Mae West's famous claim. It actually deadens our sensations, diminishes gratitude and induces despair.

And yet the identification of pleasure with happiness is remarkably strong. Even Mary Oliver, a poet for whom I have immense respect, composed a piece entitled "Happiness" that could just as easily have been called "Over-indulgence."

In the afternoon I watched

The she-bear; she was looking

For the secret bin of sweetness –

Honey, that the bees store

In the trees' soft caves.

Black block of gloom, she climbed down

Tree after tree and shuffled on

Through the woods. And then

She found it! The honey-house deep

As heartwood, and dipped into it

Among the swarming bees – honey and comb

She lipped and tongued and scooped out

In her black nails, until

Maybe she grew full, or sleepy, or maybe

A little drunk, and sticky

Down the rugs of her arms,

And began to hum and sway.

I saw her let go of the branches,

I saw her lift her honeyed muzzle

Into the leaves, and her thick arms,

As though she would fly –

An enormous bee

All sweetness and wings –

Down into the meadows, the perfection

Of honeysuckle and roses and clover –

To float and sleep in the sheer nets

Swaying from flower to flower

Day after shining day.

For a bear, perhaps, this is what happiness looks like. But humans and bears are differently constituted.

At the other end of the behavioral spectrum, we encounter those who say "a pox on pleasure; happiness consists in doing the right thing, in living an upstanding and virtuous life." Consider again the words of Aristotle: "The happy life is thought to be virtuous ...and it does not consist in amusement."

Our own pious, Puritan ancestors were similarly disposed. Dismissing carnal pleasure and leisure as downright diabolical, they emphasized sobriety and self-control. Even the entertainments our protestant forebears permitted themselves conveyed this message. "The Mansion of Happiness," an early 19th century board game, is a case in point. Its rules began with a series of couplets:

At this amusement each will find

A moral fit to improve the mind;

It gives to those their proper due,

Who various paths of vice pursue,

And shows (while vice destruction brings),

That GOOD from every virtue springs.

Be virtuous, then, and forward press,

To gain the seat of happiness.

According to Daniel Gilbert, philosophers and preachers often felt obliged to "identify happiness with virtue because that is the sort of happiness they thought a person ought to want." But are the virtuous really happier than the un-virtuous? Only when those virtues are -- whole heartedly embraced -- rather than simply imposed by an external authority.

A third misconception has to do with wish-fulfillment: happiness happens when we get our heart's desire. Winning the lottery, publishing a best-seller, giving birth to a child, winning an election – all those things we dream about, work and sacrifice for expecting that we will be happier later than we are right now. Unfortunately, when we try to predict what will make us happy in the future, we often miscalculate and end up pursuing goals which, once realized, prove disappointing.

For instance, a client of Molly Stranahan's finally was in a position to build his family's "dream house" – a really big house, he told her. But then, soon after they moved in, each member of the family staked out a section of this McMansion and made it their own. As a result, that family rarely interacted anymore. They grew apart, which has led the owner to rue his decision and remember fondly his former, much smaller home.

Economics writer James Surowieki offers another example of faulty "wish-fulfillment." Studies have been done of people who wished to purchase a piece of electronic equipment. Having been offered a choice of three models of a particular product, from the fairly simple to the very complex, 60% of shoppers typically chose the item with the most features. This item, they supposed, would satisfy them the most.

But when they got that piece of equipment home and begin to use it, "feature-fatigue" quickly set in. The purchaser became frustrated with the plethora of options at his or her disposal and professed that they would have been happier with a simpler model. The goal itself was ill-conceived and didn't deliver the expected satisfaction.

The moral: If you want to be happy, be careful what you wish for.

The other difficulty with "wish fulfillment" is that happiness is, by definition, always displaced into the future. Cultivate virtue, and at the end of the game God will make sure you get your reward. Work hard, and in retirement you'll reap the fruits of your labor. But conceived this way, happiness is indefinitely deferred – always around the corner and never in the immediate vicinity. According to Ben Shahar, a more sensible and sustainable approach is to "enjoy the journey on our way to a destination that we deem valuable."

Misconceptions aside, then, how might happiness be properly conceived? How does it happen? A rather unremarkable old Italian couple observed by the writer James Kavenaugh provides us with some clues.

They run a grocery store in my neighborhood. They do not often speak of God or Jesus or salvation, but I know they feel the divine presence.

This couple loves each other and always greet me with a kind word and a smile. They smile when I buy a half-pound of hamburger for some homemade chili. The store is their home, their life, their community. They know almost everyone by name, or at least by face. They charge more than the supermarket, but they also give more.

And when I leave the store, I somehow feel more human, more in touch with the realities of life, more of a man, closer to God. They work every day from nine till nine. They eat lunch and dinner together while they work. And when I say, "you work too hard," they answer, "This is where we are the happiest."

And I believe them. They do not work at all; they spend the day serving their friends. Then they go home, have a glass of wine, watch TV and say their simple prayers to a friendly God or light a candle to their Madonna. Sometimes they play cards or reminisce. Then they go to bed.

At times I sing a little when I leave their store, not because I have been "saved," but because in the beauty of this vision, I catch a glimmer of the divine in my own life.

When we unpack this brief account, what do we find? First, here is a couple who know how much "enough" is. They aren't interested in expanding, diversifying or franchising. They have opted out of the "rat race" which requires a person always to subordinate the present for the prospect of future material gain.

Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, had a high estimation of happiness. And he also realized that the work that was necessary to accumulate capital and create a strong economy wasn't particularly gratifying. Thus, it was necessary, in Smith's opinion, to delude people into believing that the production of ever greater wealth would make them happy. Most Americans labor under that delusion even today, even though study after study has shown only the slightest correlation between wealth and happiness. But not that old Italian couple, who understand that a growing economy doesn't guarantee that their spiritual and emotional needs will be well satisfied.

A second point: when Kavanaugh observes that the couple work too hard, their reply is worth considering. It is not to insure a prosperous retirement that they work hard; it is not in obedience to some externally-imposed work ethic, or to gratify themselves with a bigger TV. They say: "Here, at work, is where we are happiest."

Can that be possible? On opinion surveys people generally say that they prefer leisure to work, but in responding this way they may be mis-remembering. When asked to recall occasions when they felt most vital, capable and engaged, the same people mentioned work most often. Often as not, the sensation of "flow" – of being so engrossed in a meaningful activity that one experiences a profound sense of well-being – is experienced in one's work.

When we identify happiness with leisure activities, which often produce pleasure but aren't particularly challenging or meaningful, we will remain unappreciative of the happiness that is delivered by purposeful, stimulating work. The arbitrary division of life into these two categories – work and leisure – makes sustainable happiness that much harder to achieve.

A third observation: Aristotle believed that "without friendship, happiness is impossible." For this old Italian couple, the good will of their patrons appeared to be every bit as important as the purchases they made. In other words, the rapport between shopkeeper and customer added significant value to the work. Furthermore, their compatibility, shared sense of commitment and mutual devotion provided this couple with what Ben Shahar calls a "psychological space of safety and security" that helped them stay happy even on difficult days. Occasional pain, grief and disappointment are not inimical to happiness; lack of purpose and meaningful connection are.

An element of altruism also informs this couple's behavior – a belief that what they offer, though small and unspectacular, is nevertheless helpful. "They charge more than the supermarket," Kavenaugh says, "but they give more." This is the fourth lesson in their story. They give more not because some ancient code of ethics requires them to, but because they themselves have discovered that it augments their happiness to do so.

In studying happiness, Kennon Sheldon reports that people who focus on making connections and contributions experience greater happiness than those for whom social and material rewards are a top priority. The Dalai Lama agrees, saying: "Altruism is an essential component of those (spiritual) actions which lead to genuine happiness."

Add all of this together and what do we end up with? Something very similar to a concept introduced by the ancient Greeks: Eudaimonia, which simply means "human flourishing" or "life well lived." It is not something serendipitous that just "happens." It is something we can very clearly help to happen.

And yet there is also something ultimately mysterious and ineffable about this blessed condition. Up early one morning, sipping fresh coffee and observing the awakening world outside his window, poet Raymond Carver felt uplifted and wrote:

Happiness. It comes on unexpectedly

And goes beyond, really,

Any early morning talk about it.

Perhaps so. After all the investigation, analysis and attempts to capture its essence have been exhausted, happiness remains something of an enigma. But that, too, might be necessary, for humans appear to be happiest when life contains an element of mystery, where opportunities for the exercise of our insatiable curiosity continue to be available.

And that, noble Antonio, is my take on the topic. For further guidance I recommend a new book entitled 14,000 Things To Be Happy About. It's bound to become a classic.