If Only...
Some Thoughts on Happiness
December 6, 2009
The Reverend Anne Felton Hines
Around noon or so on Thanksgiving day, I was driving to get gas for my car and noticed a small group of young men standing together in the parking lot of Best Buy. I thought that was odd, since the store was closed; I wondered if they were exchanging drugs or some other shady dealings. And then I noticed something even odder: tents pitched near the doors of the store. And then it hit me: These young men were camping out so they could be the first in line when the store opened for business at 4 a.m. the next morning! They wanted to be sure to get first crack at the great deals being offered on “Black Friday” – named for the day that retailers hope will be so successful as to put their balance sheets back in the “black.” If all went well, both the retailers and those young men would find some happiness by the end of the next day.
And so begins the Happy Holidays season, when almost all of the TV ads are depicting children and adults beaming with joy at the gifts they’ve received, or at the great bargains they’re finding for those perfect gifts they’re purchasing for their loved ones. And our daily newspapers are almost as fat as Sundays’ editions because of all the extra store advertising contained inside. Madison Avenue knows how desperately we Americans look to this season for happiness; how loudly that internal voice nags at this time of year, crying: “If only I had some new shoes, I’d be happy; if only I had that new Verizon Droid, I’d be happy; if only I had that new Beatles edition of Rock Band, I’d be happy. If only if only if only…!”
But we know that despite the beautiful music, the sweet foods, the stories of wondrous miracles, and the messages contained in all those ads…the happiness we are supposed to find during this season often eludes us. Instead, it can seem hollow, leading us down the path to unhappiness.
So maybe we’ve got it all wrong. Maybe we should be asking ourselves what happiness really is, and how we can create more of it in our lives – not only in December, but throughout the years.
There’s actually a group of scientists who have been studying the subject now for many years. Led by Ruut Veenhoven (known as the “godfather of happiness research!”), they work out of the World Database of Happiness, situated in the Netherlands. They’ve conducted much of their research on the human brain, trying to determine what parts of it are responsible for happiness, and what kinds of brain stimulation result in happiness or unhappiness. And what they eventually discovered, according to author Eric Weiner in his Geography of Bliss, is that most of us know when we’re happy and when we’re not. Rather than carrying on all kinds of complex experiments in laboratories, all the scientists needed to do was simply ask individuals, “How happy are you?” Part of what they found when they asked that question was:
• Optimists are happier than pessimists (probably not surprising!); Republicans are happier than Democrats (though perhaps that was during the Bush years!); people who attend religious services are happier than those who do not (aren’t you glad you’re here?!); people with college degrees are happier than those without, though people with advanced degrees are less happy than those with just a Bachelor’s; having an affair will make you happy but will not compensate for the massive loss of happiness that you will incur when your spouse finds out and leaves you (or chases after you with a golf club!); busy people are happier than those with too little to do; wealthy people are happier than poor ones, but only slightly (I’d still like to give it a try!); and tolerant people are happier than intolerant ones.
Weiner (and don’t you just love that someone with that last name is writing about happiness?!) set out to discover where in the world people tended to be the happiest – and he did this by traveling around the world and interviewing the people he met.
His first stop was the World Database of Happiness, where he learned that the United States is not the happiest nation in the world; in one study we’re ranked only 23rd in happiness. We are, as a nation, apparently three times richer than we were in 1950, yet no happier. Since 1960, divorce rates have doubled in America, teen suicide has tripled, violent crime has quadrupled, and the prison population has quintupled.
Yet our country was founded in part on the notion that all of us have the right to “the pursuit of happiness.” And perhaps that’s the problem: we weren’t guaranteed happiness, only the “pursuit” of it – and the writer Eric Hoffer has said that such a pursuit of happiness “is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.” We are always looking for something more than what we have, and may tend to mistake momentary pleasures for lasting happiness.
Karma Ura, a Bhutanese scholar and survivor of cancer, contends that there “is no such thing as personal happiness; it is 100% relational, completely intertwined with other people. Happiness isn’t a noun or verb,” he writes; “it is a conjunction – connective tissue.”
I am, as you know, one of those people who thrills at the sight of beautiful shoes, finds shopping with my sisters a mystical experience, and loves having the latest technological gadgets, even if I can’t figure out how to use them! But at the end of the day, none of these activities or acquisitions bring me true happiness – a sense of peace and well-being.
That’s much more apt to come over me when I’m spending time with my family, or after a particularly meaningful experience in my ministry, or simply enjoying some quiet time with Nature, as Anne Frank so poignantly suggested. I am most happy when I feel connected to something beyond myself.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama – spiritual leader of the Tibetan people and someone who surely knows something about suffering – teaches us that “the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness.” But he’s not speaking of the kind of happiness we see portrayed on those TV ads beckoning us to spend our money on more stuff we don’t need. Rather, he is concerned about our approach to living – about an attitude of heart and mind. He knows that real happiness isn’t discovered through things that bring only short-term pleasure, but rather through facing our suffering, and changing our perspective about that suffering.
Dr. Howard Cutler, in a book he co-wrote with the Dalai Lama titled The Art of Happiness, shares the stories of two people who chose two different approaches in life. The first was a woman who suddenly inherited a huge sum of money – enough to allow her to retire at the age of thirty-two. When the doctor met up with her a couple of years later and asked her how she was enjoying her retirement, she said that it had been great to be able to travel and do all the things she’d always wanted to do. “But it’s strange,” she acknowledged with disappointment; “after I got over the excitement of making all that money, things returned to normal….I bought a new house and stuff, but overall, I’m not much happier than I was before.” Never did she mention using her new-found wealth to help others; never did she mention feeling blessed by life.
The second person Dr. Cutler knew was a young man who had been diagnosed as HIV positive. When asked how he was coping with this, the man told the doctor that while initially he was “devastated” by his diagnosis, eventually things began to change. “I seem to get more out of each day than I ever did before,” he said, “and on a moment-to-moment basis, I feel happier than I ever have…. Even though I’d rather not be HIV positive, I have to admit that in some ways it has transformed my life....”
“In what ways?” Dr. Cutler asked. The young man explained that “coming to terms with (his) own mortality… opened up a whole new world.” He began exploring spirituality more, and re-connecting with friends. “It makes me excited about just getting up in the morning,” he said, “about seeing what the day will bring.”
My goodness! How many of us wake up every morning excited just to see “what the day will bring?!”
What’s difficult to remember during this season of heightened commercialism, is that “inner contentment” isn’t achieved by obtaining everything we want, but by wanting and appreciating what we already have – and then looking beyond ourselves, with compassion and tenderness, to help those truly in need.
“If we use our health and wealth” and other blessings “in helping others,” says the Dalai Lama, “then these things can contribute to achieving happiness for ourselves. But without the right mental attitude,” these positive components of our lives will have “very little impact on our long-term feelings of happiness.”
“Peace of mind” is what brings us true happiness, he has learned. And that “is rooted in affection and compassion.”
It occurs to me that what he’s really telling us is that when we open our hearts to others, and express our compassion in acts of kindness, we will become happier people. At the same time, when we are truly happy, we will want to reach out with compassion to others. It is a beautiful ongoing circle.
He also teaches that another source of true happiness is having a sense of our own “worth and dignity” – a phrase found in our first Unitarian Universalist Principle. But whereas most of the time we UUs talk about the need to see everyone else as having “inherent worth and dignity,” the Dalai Lama stresses the need for each of us to see “worth and dignity” residing in ourselves as well. We must know, deep down, that we are a part of the human community, and are tied to every other member of that community. When we affirm another’s “worth and dignity,” we need also to see our own.
In a workshop I led at our Cluster deBenneville weekend this past October, I asked the participants to reflect on the happiest moments in their lives, and they shared some beautiful stories of first dates with spouses, births of children, proud achievements, and more.
As I drove home the next day, I wondered what stories I would have shared had I not been the facilitator. I thought about the birth of my two children, and perhaps even more so the birth of my grandchildren – because I wasn’t carrying any worries about whether I’d be a good parent to them or not.
I thought about my Ordination into the ministry – a grand celebration of faith and love, surrounded by my family, my dearest friends and colleagues, and the congregation at Mt. Diablo UU Church in Walnut Creek, who had “companioned” and taught me during my student internship there.
And I thought about my first Sunday here as your minister in August of 2002. I remembered driving away after a joyful worship service; there was probably even a luncheon afterwards. (We do food so well!) I felt warmly welcomed, at-home in this place.
But what really struck me that afternoon as I drove down the street was that I’d finally found a congregation located in exactly the kind of neighborhood I’d always envisioned for my ministry – not hidden away in some quiet, pristine, upper-income neighborhood, but right in the middle of a working-class, multi-ethnic, somewhat noisy and messy neighborhood; and I felt a joyful inner peace.
What would be your stories of true happiness – of feeling at peace, and connected to the Holiness of life? Our Declaration of Independence grants us the right to the “pursuit of happiness.” But I would say that we have the right to actually find happiness – and that we don’t even have to go anywhere in pursuit of it; all we need do is look to our lives, and the blessings already there. And if we cannot see any blessings, then perhaps it would help to reach out to someone else and help create some blessings for them. Strangely enough, we will find in that process true happiness.
In closing, I want to share with you the old folk tale about a very poor man named Isaac who lived in such poverty that he went to bed hungry night after night.
He began having dreams every night about finding a treasure buried under the bridge by the Royal Palace in the capital city. At first he ignored the dreams because they seemed so ridiculous. But they were so persistent and so vivid that he finally decided to travel to the city and dig under the bridge for the buried treasure.
It took Isaac many days – probably even weeks – to get to the capital city, since he only had his legs for transportation. When he finally arrived, he found that there was a guard keeping watch at the entrance to the bridge; there was no way for him to dig for the treasure.
One day the captain of the guards saw Isaac hanging around and asked him what he was doing there. Isaac figured, after all this, what could he lose? So he described to the captain his recurring dream of a treasure buried beneath that bridge.
The captain burst out laughing. “Why you old fool!” he said. “If I believed in a dream I once had, I’d go right now to the city you came from, and I’d look for a treasure under the stove in the house of a fellow named Isaac!” And he continued to laugh.
With that, our friend Isaac high-tailed his way back to his house as fast as he could. It took him many days – perhaps even weeks, as he still had only his legs for transportation. But when he arrived at his home, he dug under his stove, and sure enough, there was the treasure described by the Captain of the Royal Palace guards!
In gratitude, Isaac built a house of prayer for all who might find comfort there. In one corner he inscribed: “Sometimes one must travel far to discover what is right at home.”
May we not have to travel great distances to discover the happiness that already fills our lives; may this season of Winter holidays bring the happiness that is found in the love of family and dear friends. And may this church – this community of faith – be a source of compassion and inner peace, reminding us always of the precious treasures we are.
For that, let us say Thank You and Amen.
© 2007-2011 Anne Felton Hines. All rights reserved.
