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Service – Sunday , August 13, 2006 Service presenter: Elaine Rockwell
Interactive Meditation Spoken
Our meditation today is going to be just a little different. In a moment, we’ll do a little activity, to create a poster together to capture and share some of the ways you complete the sentence… “happiness is… “
On the PBS website there is an exhibit of photos entitled “the Pursuit of Happiness Gallery” a contest asking people to send in a picture that demonstrates your understanding of the pursuit of happiness…listen, and imagine the images as I read one of the captions.
http://www.pbs.org/jefferson/frame4.htm Thomas Jefferson Online: pursuit of happiness gallery
“I was strolling the wide expanse of Santa Monica Beach with my daughter, Samantha, when she pointed excitedly at the flock of seagulls ahead of us. "Let's go," she said as if she'd just discovered how to fly. And so, we went...”
Take a moment now and see in your mind’s eye…your own pursuit of happiness. See something from this last week that makes you say…it was a happy moment.
Written: And now, take the post-it note you’ll find on your order of service and jot a thought about what happiness is to you…based on that happy moment… just a sentence…or maybe a word.
There should be pencils on one of the chairs in your row –
And when you’re finished, bring the note forward and place it on the poster…
Sung Response -- Happiness is
Reading -- The True Measure of Success by Daniel Pink
"The True Measure of Success" by Daniel Pink
…Since the time of Adam Smith, [national leaders and journalists] have used the wealth of nations as a proxy for the well-being of nations. We measure whether life is getting better by checking whether the good numbers (Gross Domestic Product, personal incomes, and so on) are going up and the bad numbers (unemployment, inflation, and so on) are going down.
However, over the past half century, something strange has happened. The U.S.'s per capita Gross Domestic Product - the value of all the goods and services a nation produces divided by its population - has nearly tripled, but American well-being hasn't budged. We've grown almost three times richer but not one jot happier. There's ample evidence that in all postindustrial societies, material wealth and broader happiness are no longer closely in sync.
Fortunately, there are new, direct indicators of well-being. In the past decade, psychologists, neuroscientists, and behavioral economists have performed an enormous amount of research into personal satisfaction and happiness. It turns out that beyond a relatively low threshold, more money doesn't make us much happier. Far more important are things like relationships, engaging work, meaning and purpose in life - none of which show up in the tables of the Quarterly Services Survey. That's why some social scientists... have proposed creating a National Index of Well-being.
All we need to do is collect the data. For instance, we can now tabulate how much cell phone sales add to Gross Domestic Product. But have these phones made us more stressed out because we can no longer elude our evil boss or annoying brother-in-law? Or have they made us feel more secure because we know we can call for help if we're stranded? Let's ask.
Some people wring their hands over how much the U.S. spends on health care. But what if we measured to what extent new drugs and medical technologies improved the quality of people's lives? Maybe the expense would look like a bargain. Assemble measures like these into a national well-being index and, in tandem with revamped economic indicators, it could generate a higher-res picture of the national condition.
Of course, critics may scoff that it's silly to calculate Gross National Happiness (a metric now used in Bhutan). But it's no sillier than spending nearly $150 million a year collecting agriculture statistics, as the U.S. does, even though 98 percent of our workforce long ago transitioned to "non-farm" pursuits.
(Daniel H. Pink (dp@danpink.com) is the author A Whole New Mind, published in March 2005. (Wired magazine, December 2004, downloaded August 2006) Sermon And the Pursuit of Happiness… Elaine Rockwell Happiness is…different things to different people. That’s what happiness is.
In April, I met with a group of 10 women friends for our monthly discussion of what’s on our minds. Our hostess posed the question “…what makes you happy? Tell us about a time you remember being really happy.” We went around the circle and the anecdotes came down to a few words: Music, family, friends, solitude, achievement, accomplishment, and mastery of a new task. All of us agreed that something of what the others had said was true for us as well. And we also agreed that we are not “happily ever after” happy, we are more like “happy now and then” happy.
The womens’ group inspired me to do some more thinking about the subject. I remembered that an older cousin once said to me “You seem to have a gift for happiness.” I was surprised by the comment at the time, and the womens’ group conversation brought it back to me. What does that mean…”you have a gift for happiness?” I am not sure it is an accurate observation... I get as depressed as anyone else I know from time to time. I was still chewing on that question when, a few weeks later, I was standing in the check-out line at the grocery store. My eyes came to rest on this headline:
SPECIAL REPORT: HOW TO BE (AND STAY) HAPPY – 3 RESEARCH-TESTED SECRETS TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE.
I examined the magazine a moment and discovered that the secret of happiness was available to me for only $2.99 so I bought it. So much for the old theory that money can’t buy happiness.
The cover story, was entitled “What really makes us happy?” by Dorothy Foltz-Grey.
The author shared information about the relatively new academic discipline of “positive psychology” and its two-fold goal: to relieve suffering and increase happiness. Prior to the 1990s, most of the psychological studies were directed at discovering why things were wrong with people and trying to fix them. More recently, researchers at the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania have been working to itemize character strengths that make people thrive. They have found 24 such character strengths.
You can view the whole bundle at www.authentichappiness.org On the website, you can even take a quiz to learn your own happiness-generating strengths. Out of all the traits, they came up with four core strengths associated with happiness: gratitude, hope, zest, and the ability to love and be loved.
Those may be basic traits for receptivity to happiness, but what do you do with those traits if you have them? How do you use them to make yourself happy? According to the article there are strategies that research has proven will make you significantly and sustainably happier.
Sometimes when we talk about happiness we mean… contentment, pleasure, gladness, cheerfulness, joy, glee, bliss, delight, exhilaration, or ecstasy. I was curious to learn what these researchers mean when they say “happiness.”
The positive psychologists’ definition of happiness is “deep contentment.” Research has suggested deep contentment can be achieved by pursuing one of these three types of happiness: 1) The pleasant life – a life full of pleasure, joy, and good times 2) The engaged life – lose yourself in some passion or activity, finding what the Zen masters call “flow” or 3) The meaningful life – not so many high moments or blissful immersions, but packed with a sense of purpose
Research has shown that each of these paths can give people a fundamental sense of happiness, even if it can’t be observed from the outside. So how does this theory mesh with “real life?”
My own experience has been something of a metamorphosis. I think I started out as a number 3 – a meaningful life - seeker. I read Newsweek in high school for fun when most of my classmates were decorating floats for the homecoming parade; I was convinced that John Kennedy was talking to me personally when he said, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. Then, a few years later, a conversation with my college roommate shocked me – I asked her what she wanted out of life, expecting her reply to be “the end of the VietNam war,” or “world peace.” She said, “I want to be amused.”
I thought it was the most trivial, irresponsible –- wait, you mean that’s an option? I could just want to be amused? I do not have to personally save the world to justify my existence? ...Maybe Mary had something there. I was secretly drawn to the idea, but it went underground for a number of years.
When I joined this church in 1989, I became a number 2 -- I found it easy to become engaged, to lose myself in the joy of spiritual seeking in the company of others who are not afraid of questions. I found it an easy place in which to explore and develop my talents, to try new things, to be with others and do more together than I could have done by myself. I found it sometimes difficult to confront my own issues of individualism vs. community, and I found the hard lessons of engaging with others when we disagree were more readily learned because I was in an atmosphere of trust as an accepted member of a committed community. I have many happy memories of people I have spent time with engaged in doing things for the church and for myself within the church.
And these last few years I find myself easing into my college roommate’s worldview. I, too, want to be amused. As a number 1--pleasant life seeker, I now want a life full of pleasure, joy, and good times. I’m a little concerned about admitting this in a room full of people for whom social justice is not just a good idea, it’s on the daily to do list --
- Brush teeth - Eat breakfast - Save world
My quest for a pleasant life as my focus may strike you as self-centered, lightweight, even in its way irresponsible. My hope is that you will regard this choice as just another example that happiness is …different things for different people… And, more than likely, I’ll cycle through the pleasant stage back to engagement and meaning sooner or later.
So it seems to me a key to happiness is to be conscious of the choice you are living - pleasant, engaged, or meaningful seeking. Of course, it’s not that you have chosen arbitrarily one or the other; it’s more like which of the three gets the most attention at any one time… a question of balance or of proportion. Maybe even a function of your stage in life.
In fact, while any one of these three approaches can give you a life of happiness; researchers say people who combine them, especially people who experience all three methods at once, have the most happiness in their lives.
You know how one thing leads to another when you start reading about something that is new to you? So you understand I had to pursue this idea of happiness and positive psychology. I had to learn more about it. As luck would have it, there is a book entitled “The Pursuit of Happiness.” Author/psychologist David Myers explains the role of positive psychology this way (emphasis added):
“Positive psychology shares with humanistic psychology an interest in advancing human fulfillment, but its origins and methodology are scientific. From these roots have grown not only the new studies of happiness and health but also the shift in emphasis from learned helplessness and depression to optimism and thriving. Taken together, satisfaction with the past, happiness with the present, and optimism about the future define the movement's first pillar: positive subjective well-being.
The second pillar, positive character, focuses on exploring and enhancing virtues such as creativity, courage, compassion, integrity, self-control, leadership, wisdom, and spirituality. Current research examines the roots and fruits of such virtues, sometimes by studying individuals who exemplify them in extraordinary ways.
The third pillar, positive groups, communities, and cultures, seeks to foster a positive social ecology, including healthy families, communal neighborhoods, effective schools, socially responsible media, and civil dialogue.”
There is even a Journal of Happiness Studies, “a peer reviewed scientific journal devoted to subjective well-being.” They publish research on subjective perceptions – how happy people think they are, and perceived affective enjoyment of life – or more simply, trends in peoples’ moods. To a lesser extent, they also occasionally look at job-satisfaction and the perceived meaning of life.
Here are some of the questions the journal seeks to answer:
Conceptualisation:
What meanings are denoted by terms like happiness and subjective well being? How do these fit in with broader conceptions of the good life?
Measurement:
In what ways can we assess how people feel about life? What are the best measures for what purposes? Can scores be compared between individuals and across time and culture?
Prevalence:
How do people feel about life? Are there systematic differences across social categories, culture and time?
Explanation:
What goes on in people when they appraise their life? Which mental and neural processes are involved? What conditions foster a positive appreciation of life? How are these effects mediated? Why do we feel good or bad? What is the use of going through life-appraisals?
Evaluation:
What are the consequences of enjoying life or not? Is happiness a worthwhile goal for therapy and social policy?
It struck me as I was reading and thinking about this that doing research to understand happiness is a little like pithing a frog to understand his essence. I’m not sure the frog is much impressed by the process. And, I imagine most of us would rather just go be happy and not beat it into the ground with analytical thought. If the unexamined life is not worth living, maybe the over-examined life is a real joy-killer too.
Although I was initially somewhat skeptical, if not cynical, about the science of positive psychology, the more I have explored it I am increasingly convinced that we should all be paying more attention. Along with this scientific approach, New Age spiritualists assert that there is a “universal law of attraction” that describes one of the fundamental principles of how life works. They say: “what you focus on expands.” In my research, I did not find an ultimate source for this assertion – no Bible or holy book – but I did find many books supporting the idea as self-evident.
Where have I heard that phrase before? Self evident…self evident…Oh, yes.
“ We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…” The Declaration of Independence
In a political sense, the pursuit of happiness is not an enforceable right ensured by the Constitution. It is part of our collective sense of expectation about why we will consent to be governed…we do not easily tolerate governance that interferes with personal happiness however we define it.
Pursuing happiness is a little bit like catching fireflies. By the time you get close enough to the last place you saw the light, the little critter has flown off.
Researchers have focused on how people define the good life and in these times, the good life – happiness – involves close supportive relationships, faith communities, positive traits, and flow. (Myers)
* Close, supportive relationships. People who are married or have close friends are much likelier to declare themselves “very happy” than less socially connected people. * Faith communities. In National Opinion Research Center surveys of 42,000 Americans since 1972, only 26 percent of those rarely or never attending religious services said they were very happy, compared with 47 percent of those attending multiple times weekly. * Positive traits. Optimism, self-esteem, and perceived control over your own life are among the traits that mark happy experiences and happy lives. Studies of prisoners, nursing home patients, and people living under totalitarian regimes— have shown people health and morale suffer. Severe poverty also erodes a sense of control over circumstances. * Flow. Myers says “Between the anxiety of being overwhelmed and stressed, and the apathy of being under-whelmed and bored, lies a zone in which people experience flow—an optimal state in which, absorbed in an activity, they lose consciousness of self and time…. people report their greatest enjoyment not when mindlessly passive, but when unselfconsciously absorbed in a mindful challenge. Most people are happier gardening than power-boating, talking to friends than watching TV. Low consumption recreations prove satisfying.”
Before we all throw away our check books and cash in our 401(k)s to take the family on an authentically happy trip to Disneyland, Suze Orman, the financial guru on Yahoo! Finance checks in with some other thoughts about happiness. In her July 31st blog, she complains that the Positive Psychology Authentic Happiness Inventory does not even address the issue of money. Says Orman “I would love to live in a world where authentic happiness was achievable solely from the richness of relationships, but I’m a realist. And the reality I see is one in which money plays into our ability to be truly happy.”
She cites a survey by the Pew Research Center that showed just 34 percent of respondents are very happy…but closer inspection showed that the statistic varies with income levels. Who is happiest? Of the survey respondents, 49% of people with incomes above $100,000 say they are very happy; of those with income level $75,000 to $100,000, only 38% say they are very happy. And of those with incomes below $30,000 only 24% said they were very happy.
She suggests we consider these four questions in our personal happiness surveys:
On a scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree rate yourself:
- Money has absolutely nothing to do with my level of happiness - Money is a factor, though not the only factor, in my happiness - I would be happier if I didn’t have to worry about paying the bills every month - I would be happier if I could afford to save more for my long term goals (buying a home, paying for college education, retirement)
Global view We’ve been engaged in the American Way for all our lives, but sometimes it helps to get a broader perspective. There is a World Database of Happiness.
I am not making this up. You can Google it for yourself. http://www1.eur.nl/fsw/happiness/ url for world database of happiness
“The term happiness has different meanings. In current scientific language it refers to various states of being that are considered 'good' for people as well as to different pleasurable states of mind. Here the term refers to an attitude towards one's own life. Happiness is defined as the degree to which an individual's overall evaluation of his life-as-a-whole concludes positively. As such happiness is an experience which only creatures of consciousness can undergo. It is an essentially experiential phenomenon which cannot be identified with particular external conditions or with a way of life.”
So, what do you think? Are Americans the happiest people in the world? No, but we’re in the top 10, after Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, even Iceland! But we’re well ahead of Japan (by nearly 2 points on the 7-point Likert scale).
(Cite as: Veenhoven, R., Average happiness in 91 nations 1995-2005, World Database of Happiness, RankReport 2006-1, Internet: worlddatabaseofhappiness.eur.nl)
So, what if our American pursuit of happiness isn’t the only way? Is there a better way?
The tiny Asian nation of Bhutan has begun to use Gross National Happiness as a measure of its national success.
In a keynote speech delivered at the Millenium Meeting for Asia and the Pacific in 1998, the representative from Bhutan gave an address in which he talked about: “Values and Development: “Gross National Happiness” (Chairman of the Council of Ministers Royal Government of Bhutan)
Gross National Happiness best captured our distinct perception of the main purpose of development, rooted in our philosophical and political thought… …In addition to the conventional notion of development that focuses on quantifiable indicators of economic prosperity, Bhutan’s vision of development stresses non-quantifiable goals such as spiritual well being and gross national happiness. We do this through a concerted policy of cultural promotion and the provision of free education, health and other social services. Cultural promotion is one of the four key objectives that we have consistently upheld, over the last four decades. The four major goals are economic self-reliance, environmental preservation, cultural promotion and good governance. …Bhutan has followed a multi-dimensional approach to development: aimed at spiritual and material balance and harmony. The international opinion towards Bhutan’s development philosophy has always been supportive and I hope it will continue to be favourable. But, every alternative development approach is also a challenge. While we accept the reality of globalisation and cultural change, we can always endeavour to select the most beneficial aspects of it. To make the correct choice is our greatest present and future tasks; and we believe, very profoundly, that it is a challenge that every country must take up and confront the challenge of increasing human happiness boldly and creatively. We remain deeply committed to economic, political and social freedoms. A genuine experience of these freedoms and goals, however, can not be deepened without inner freedom. The nature of freedom and happiness, which all of us seek, will itself become more profound with the inner freedom we can gain.
Having spent all this time reading and thinking…and talking …about happiness, you may be thinking…so what?
Here’s my takeaway:
I am encouraged that we are beginning to focus as a nation – and maybe as a world – on the models of healthy approaches to happiness, what it takes to thrive, moreso than on the models of ourselves as inadequate, broken, people.
I have long thought that the national obsession with economic statistics has somehow usurped the prerogative of living an ordinary, happy daily life. I am weary of hearing about it, especially as I have no control over it.
I am amazed by the tiny little nation of Bhutan, standing up to say, enough with the focus on the economy as the end-all…that doesn’t fit with our idea of the good life.
I am drawn to the possibility of there being a universal law that could bring more happiness into all of our lives if we focus our attention above our present circumstances to the vision of what would be better.
What is happiness, after all? Despite all the research, authentic happiness remains very personal.
HAPPINESS IS SINGING TOGETHER WHEN DAY IS THROUGH, AND HAPPINESS IS THOSE WHO SING WITH YOU. HAPPINESS IS MORNING AND EVENING, DAYTIME AND NIGHTTIME TOO. FOR HAPPINESS IS ANYONE AND ANYTHING AT ALL THAT'S LOVED BY YOU (Happiness, from the musical “You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown.)
*Hymn # 19 The Sun that Shines
*Closing Words from Mary Oliver: If it is your nature to be happy, you will swim away along the soft trails for hours, your imagination alighting everywhere.
Extinguishing the Flame Leader: I extinguish the symbolic flame of this gathering. May we carry its light into the world. Congregation: Let us go from this place open to life, expecting to love and prepared to serve.
Closing in Song Hymn #123 Spirit of Life Go in peace, and may your imagination alight everywhere!
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