Posts Tagged ‘good life’
Is happiness = pleasure?
Gaye Prior kindly commented on my post about poetry and positive psychology.
“Pleasure does not give life meaning and purpose and love. These are more important to me than passing enjoyment and survive even in the face of tragedy, horror, awfulness and loss.”
Do positive psychologists equate happiness with pleasure?
I’ve promised to reply in four parts describing the 4 puzzles of positive psychology. This is the first part.
Principles of positive psychology
Let’s make the 1st principle of positive psychology the study of the positive (rather than the study of the negative or gaps or deficits.)
The 2nd principle is that well-being or happiness has three parts. As Gaye says “Pleasure does not give life meaning and purpose and love.”
Martin Seligman points out that well-being is made up of
The pleasurable life
The engaged life
The meaningful life
There is a questionnaire on the Penn Uni site that anyone can do. The items on the questionnaire flesh out the concepts. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and pick “measures 3 routes to happiness” under “life satisfaction questionnaires” (2nd last on the page as I write).
Using the ideas of pleasure, engagement and meaning to enrich your life
Here is the description of the three levels of life provided by the psychologists at Penn Uni.
Higher scores on the Engaging Life (knowing what your signature strengths are, and then recrafting your work, love, friendship, leisure and parenting to use those strengths to have more flow in life) and the Meaningful Life (using your signature strengths in the service of something that you believe is larger than you are) have been shown to lead to greater satisfaction with life. Higher scores on the Pleasant Life (having as many pleasures as possible and having the savoring and mindfulness skills to amplify the pleasures) don’t add to satisfaction. To measure your satisfaction, use the Satisfaction with Life Scale.
Keeping pleasure, engagement and meaning in balance
Few of us have our lives in balance. That is the message for people who live in abundant circumstances. Seek balance (and stop complaining!).
Seeking pleasure, engagement and meaning in difficult circumstances
For those of who do not live in abundant circumstances, we have serious shortfalls in one area or another and these shortfalls are not under our control.
I am always uneasy about casual interpretations of positive psychology that dismiss reality. Life can be awful.
The point though is what can be done about it? If something is not under our control, there is little point in railing about it. It it is not under our control then it is not under our control. Focusing on what is out-of-control just makes us feel helpless. That was Seligman’s original speciality btw ~ learned helplessness. Continually focusing on what cannot be done destroys our ability to do anything.
What we can do is work with what we’ve got, and work with whomever will work with us, to leverage whatever we can. We may not be able to change reality but we can do what we can.
Taking control of what little is under our control increases our chances of surviving difficult circumstances
Doing what we can with people who are important to us also seems to increase our chances of survival. Those chances might be minimal, as they were for later psychiatrist Viktor Frankl who survived an extermination camp. But they improve.
The overriding rule
We must remember that we have to work with what is under our control. That is you, me, the people around us and what works. Those are our tools.
The importance of pleasure
We should also not neglect the pleasurable life. We should respect fine food, the sunset and the rose growing in the garden. Oddly, savoring and mindfulness, though nowhere near the whole story of positive psychology, start a positive spiral.
Gratitude diaries provoke a spiral of well being. On a really bad day, feel the earth under your feet. Look at that unexciting doorway of brick and mortar as the most magnificent invitation.
The unfairness of engagement
The engaged life is easy for professional people. We work and like to. Engagement is much more problematic for young people who generally only find ‘flow’ in sports and hobbies. One of the reasons that computer games are popular is that they provide the autonomy, social interaction, opportunity to learn, and opportunity to belong to something meaningful that is often not possible in our educational system.
People in low level jobs also have trouble finding flow in jobs which are poorly designed, micro-managed, and in which they are treated with rudeness and contempt. It is common for people in low level jobs to “recraft”. Why is it that security guards in Zimbabwe are more knowledgeable than shop assistants? Why are domestic help loyal? There is an element of Stockholm syndrome, but there is also a natural tendency to create a job that is satisfying to do.
The fragility of meaning
The meaningful level is provided by being part of something larger than ourselves.
I imagine more wars are created by violating this level than by anything more complicated. We are sensitive to exclusion and exclusion ‘crashes’ our psychological structures very quickly indeed (5 to 10 minutes does it.)
When we are victims of exclusion, we can create a temporary protective buffer with savoring, mindfulness and gratitude diaries. Some people use the pleasure principle badly, of course, and take to overeating and drink, both of which have their place in celebration but are ill-advised compensation for lack of belonging. A walk or smelling a rose allow us to avoid adding a punished body to a battered soul.
Exclusion is devastating.
I hasten to add, that we shouldn’t be too judgemental about people who ‘get it wrong’ because exclusion is devastating.
There is a saying
“when someone in authority like a teacher describes the world and you are not in it, it is like looking in a mirror and not being able to see your face.”
I imagine this is why migrant who “walk both sides of the street” settle better than those who try to assimilate.
Buffering oneself from the impact of exclusion
The antidotes to institutional exclusion (that go beyond a painful social slight) are to develop empathy with others, to show solidarity, and to work on healthy political structures.
We all know the do-gooder who ‘helps’ others. I mean travel the same road as others. Suffer the same risks and share the same glory.
Solidarity is a long road but it is the best road. Mindfulness matters again but not the mindfulness of concrete pleasures. This time we want mindfulness towards the dynamism of the universe.
Simple techniques like closing one’s eyes and listening for the furthest sound can break the cycle of intense stress. Paolo Coelho’s post of today tells us to look expectantly for the magic moments that arrive unannounced and are gone in a twinkle. When we think there is only one microsecond of possibility a day, we pay attention. Even David Whyte’s line of “everybody is waiting for you” suggests to us that we need to reach out.
In teaching, we often use Mary Oliver’s poem Wild Geese to show that we are part of any situation in which we find ourselves and by showing compassion to ourselves (as opposed to self-pity and indulgence), we help to feel in touch with the movement of the universe. I’ll add the poem at the bottom.
Three levels of a good life
In summary, Gaye identified the three levels of a good life:
- pleasure ~ respect for beauty and comfort
- engagement ~ enjoyment of work
- meaning ~ belonging to something bigger than ourselves
With this layout, pleasure seems as if it is the lower level. It is a level that is easily abused but so to is over-identification with achievement or subordinating ourselves to readily to others.
All three are part of the good life. When life is in a mess, try doing an audit of what is going well in each area. Sometimes the map that follows is surprising.
Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Are you like a zombie bank? Zombie life on borrowed time and money (Part Two)
Posted November 21, 2009
on:Decline, deterioration, loss & reversal are part of life
What did President Bush do the day after he left the White House? What do US Presidents do the day after they leave the White House? What does an Olympic Champion do the day after winning a gold medal? What do we do the day after climbing Mount Everest?
Coping with the sudden gap of purpose & connection is a tough task
Well, we come down the mountain again and actually the descent is more dangerous than the assent. But at least when we are coming down a mountain, we are physically busy. In normal affairs, the sudden removal of busyness, status, purpose, connections and toys, is devastating. The loss of a job, the loss of ‘pole position’, just plain getting older is a loss at so many levels – not least, our sense of identify. How do we cope with it?
Deteriorating as slowly as possible often becomes a shadow mission
John Orteg, describing church leadership in the States, used a good phrase. Deteriorating as slowly as possible is often our shadow mission. We’ve lost our purpose and we are hanging onto old ways. Stagnation makes us bitter and it is awful to watch in others. We oscillate from pity to contempt.
Sadly, some people don’t even have to lose a job or come to the end of an exciting project, to slip into “deteriorating as slowly as possible.” They sleepwalk through life in deadly early retirement, going through the motions and not even terribly aware that they are slipping away.
To fall in love with life again
Dylan Thomas wrote a poem for his father who was growing blind “rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Professor Kay Jamieson’s husband gave her this encouragement on his deathbed: “You will fall in love with life again.”
Hope has little to do with external success. It has everything to do with loving life
None of us can live without hope and a sense that growth in is possible. But sometimes we confuse hope with trappings of success.
Hope does not mean controlling outcomes. Hope does not mean having status, control and perquisites of our past life (though we may miss them dreadfully).
Hope is a growth in our spirit. It is a sense that what we are doing now is an important task that only we can do for our communities at this time and in this place. It is sense that life will blossom in new ways taking us by surprise and delighting us.
Psychologists help people fall back in love with life again
When we have suffered a hard jolt, psychologists play an important role in helping us find our life’s purpose again. So do good religious ministers, good teachers and respected mentors. Even the smallest child can help us find our way again.
Sadly, though, we have had successful lives, or just live in rich countries or work in successful countries, we can begin to drift. Before long, we are sleep walking. We are not in love with life any more. We have become zombies, without hope – without the sense that life will still surprise us.
Are you living a zombie life : I’ve put John Orteg’s Symptoms of Deterioating as Slowly as Possible in Part Three.
- Image by Reith Lectures 2009 via Flickr
I think Michael Sandel’s Reith lectures may be relevant to management
Have you been listening to Michael Sandel’s Reith lectures? These are my favourite quotations from Lecture 2 on morality & politics that seem to have an intuitive bearing on the task of management.
Sandel’s thesis
“A politics of moral engagement is also a more inspiring ideal than a politics of avoidance . . . that our debates about justice are inescapably arguments about the good life then a politics of moral engagement is also a more promising basis for a just society.”
Core idea
To determine rights we need to determine the essential nature of the activity – and “virtues worth honouring.”
Aristole
Artistotle: Justice means giving people what they deserve.
“The best flutes should go to the best flute players because that’s what flutes are for.”
Refereeing contemporary disputes
Can we reason about social practices in the face of disagreement?
What was the conflict really about? The reasons given in a dispute may not be the real reasons.
“Debates about the rights . . . are about the purpose of social institutions, the goods they allocate, and the virtues they honor and reward.”
We cannot make decisions on neutral grounds. . . we have to look at the version of morality that we advocate. When we referee, we are clarifying the moral purpose of an institution.
What is the sine qua non of the institution? Which interpretation of the purpose or essence “celebrates virtues worth honoring”?
“Contested moral terrain” . . . “we cannot remain neutral toward competing conceptions of the good life”.
[How do we clarify the various arguments about the ‘good life’ that are being put forward? Do we aid the organization by clarifying the alternative arguments and the agreement that we will enact?]
Revitalizing our pubic discourse in democratic life
Is it possible to conduct our politics on the basis of mutual respect?
Does respect mean ignoring the opinions of others? [e.g., what most people call PC]
Robust public engagement with more moral disagreements could provide a stronger not weaker. . . basis for mutual respect.
Attend to the views of others – sometimes contesting and sometimes listening & learning.
A politics of moral engagement is also a more inspiring ideal than a politics of avoidance . . . that our debates about justice are inescapably arguments about the good life then a politics of moral engagement is also a more promising basis for a just society.
Notes from the questions
Offer reasons and listen to the reasons given in reply [Isan answer invited? Do we expect to learn?]
There are dogmatic secularists just as there are dogmatic others
Re: Barack Obama. Hunger for spiritual discourse and bring it to bear on public life. [Is it so repulsive to bring spirituality into discussions of work? Presumably only if no answer is invited – which is why CCTV cameras are offensive and why it is so satisifying when the security apparatus is filmed committing misdeeds.]
We don’t know in advance what the moral argument will be. Hence we need to open the discussion to all sectors of the community. [Diversity = talking to people who are unfamiliar and scary.]
Change takes place when people are persuaded by circumstances and the debates taking place around them . . . ambitious engagement with what the good life is . . .
[Can we ask people at work about the good life? I think David Cooperrider does in Appreciative Inquiry. But the answers may change our strategy as we clarify the essential activity of our institution, as we resolve tensions about the ‘goods we allocate’, and under stand the ‘virtues we celebrate honor and reward.’ And this discussion is ongoing because we don’t know what the next discussion will reveal. So we need an organizational design – itself subject to debate – which allows us to clarify and act – clarify and act. That is consistent with Weick’s work, is it not?]
My own questions
Does the general argument apply to workplaces? Why does Sandel think this is soooo important? There may be issues to resolve but a high level change to politics is separate argument that might require a large problem to justify engagement. Phrased alternatively – who might argue against Sandel and what would their argument be?
Where do we debate the ‘essential activity’ of work, the ‘goods we allocate’ and the virtues we celebrate, honour and reward? Are the virtues we honor and reward still worth celebrating? I think many authors would say not and that many if not most of us feel a deep weariness about the social institution of work. We would dearly love to have the notion of work revitalised.
So then how does Sandel’s work fit in with the work of David Whyte, Otto Scharmer? I suspect they would like it. Do they quote each other?
Are you listening to the Reith lectures?
I’d love to hear your thoughts if you have any. Sandel’s Reith lectures are available on BBC as podcasts – about 45 minutes each with question time. The next one is on Tuesday 30 June 2009 at 9am BST. That’s around midday in Washington, DC where he will be speaking.
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