Sustainable Happiness

Global warming.

Cancer rates on the rise. 

Human connections becoming less real and more digital. 

Endangered species. 

Hunger on the rise (even here in Canada).

Habitat destruction.

Consumerism motivated by unsatisfied human needs. 

Riots. 

Wars.

Kidnappings. 

Unavailability of meaningful, well-paid jobs.

Excessively expensive living costs. 

It's no surprise that Generation Y is suffering from a Quarter-Life Crisis. 

It's no surprise, either, that Albert Zeyer at the University of Zurich has found that high school students are suffering from latent environmental depression.

This raises the question: How do we  nurture hope in a time of environmental and social despair and why should we?

What motivates you to get up in the morning? Perhaps you're motivated to get to a job or to get the kids off to school? Underneath these immediate motivators, what keeps you going (especially when the going gets tough)? The desire for happiness, contentment, joy, pleasure...this is  a very natural motivator. Everybody wants to be happy. Everybody wants to do things that bring them joy or that bring their loved ones joy. Happiness is a universal desire. It's something we all share. The newspaper girl, the boy bagging your groceries, the CEO of Wal-mart, the parking attendant writing you a ticket...if nothing else, you share this trait with them.

Happiness is core to who we are. You may be able to tell a lot about a person by their shoes but I'm willing to bet that you can learn even more about a person by asking them what makes them happy (try this next time you meet someone as a replacement to "What do you do?" - it can take your conversation to a surprisingly pleasant place).

In our consumer society, consumption and happiness have been woven together so tightly that it's easy to confuse the two (Goods Life = Good Life). However, research suggests that to the extent people value money, possessions, and wealth, they report lower levels of personal happiness, behave less cooperatively, and live in more ecologically destructive ways. This research goes on to suggest that "authentic happiness" is associated with positive health and well-being (research here). 


So, what's authentic happiness? Rather than relentless striving for material possessions, authentic happiness stems from relationships with family, friends, meaningful work, and engagement in our community. Tim Kasser gives a few pointers for how to nurture authentic happiness:

1) Reflect on Happiness - take time to reflect on what really makes you happy.
2) Focus on Intrinsic Values - Self-acceptance, affiliation, and community feeling.
3) Bring your Intrinsic Values into your Consumption Behaviour - buy with your intrinsic values in mind.
4) Consider Pursuing Time-Affluence - avoid time-poverty by asking for more vacation or shorter work weeks, rather than a raise.
5) Get Involved in the Community - people who use their time and money for the 'greater good' are more satisfied.
6) Toss Out the Advertisements - they only make you feel dissatisfied with your current state so that you will consume more.

An interesting field has resulted from the study of environmental psychology, positive psychology, and resiliency research: Sustainable Happiness. 

The concept of Sustainable Happiness allows us to consider the positive and negative consequences of how individuals, communities, and nations pursue happiness. In our current globalized world, everyone's actions have far-ranging impacts. Sustainable Happiness reinforces the need to consider far-reaching social, environmental and economic consequences and can guide our daily actions and choices.

Every choice you make can be made through the lense of Sustainable Happiness. Do you enjoy chocolate? Sustainable Happiness can remind you to reflect on whether the positive emotion derived from the chocolate has come at the expense of other people or the natural environment. It provides you with a lense through which you can make decisions that contribute to your own happiness, as well as the happiness and well-being of others.

"Sustainable Happiness is happiness that contributes to individual, community, and/or global well-being, without exploiting other people, the environment or future generations." 
                                                (Elin Kelsey and Catherine O'Brien)

So..don't forget to take some time to reflect on happiness and to use Sustainable Happiness as your motivator for making your daily decisions. 


What makes you happy? Who would you choose if you had to interview the happiest person you know? What makes them happy? How do they approach happiness?

I'm going to end with a list of some things that make me happy :)

- Feeling the sun on the souls of my feet.
- Hugs and cuddling.
- Smelling flowers, plants, baked cookies, frying butter.
- Children laughing.
- Realizing when I suddenly have some unexpected free time.
- Hearing the rain pouring outside my window at night when I'm cozy in bed.
- Making someone else smile.
- Biking down 10th Ave under the trees.
- Dancing!
- Singing, especially with lots of voices.
- Painting.
- Bonfires.
- Great chats with good friends.
- Connecting with strangers.
- Enjoying delicious food with my family. 

I highly recommend making a list of your own!

Striving for Perfection

My colleague, Greg, and I have recently started a sesquipedalian word swap in the hopes of improving our vocabulary. Yesterday, in my search for a word to share with him, I came across the term Arête. No, not “Stop” in French but rather the Greek term arête which literally means excellence and virtue. According to my source, Arête implies:

 “a humble and constant striving for perfection and self-improvement combined with a realistic awareness that such perfection cannot be reached. As long as an individual strives to do and be the best, that individual has arête. As soon as the individual believes he has actually achieved arête, however, he or she has lost that exalted state and fallen into hubris, unable to recognize personal limitations or the humble need to improve constantly.”

Those Ancient Greeks..they sure had a lot figured out. It must have been all that time spent in the Agora postulating with one another and perhaps their constant warring helped them get close to death and ponder ontology.

I like this idea of arête and hubris. It seems like a good idea to be constantly striving for your personal best, but most of all, I think it's great that they include a caveat - to be aware that such perfection can’t actually be reached.  I’d say this is a great way to live because as soon as you think you have it all figured out, you’re in trouble. This applies on so many scales.

Yourself 
The truth is, you're always changing and growing as an individual. Even those who do not like change and remain stuck in their ways would find that they are actually changing, but investing a lot of energy into trying to stay the same. It’s all about the stories you tell yourself and others (see previous blog). As soon as you think you’ve got yourself figured out with the stories you tell yourself, you become stagnant and unable to choose the life you want to live. You become closed off to further growth and self-development. In essence, you loose control of yourself and your life.

Relationships

Of course this applies to relationships of all kinds.  We all know it’s best not to think you have someone figured out because they’re constantly evolving and growing themselves. As soon as you think otherwise, you put them into a box and place constraints on them (and on your relationship).  You may even catch yourself making assumptions about them and how they will act that end up being proven wrong. Awesome! Because this helps to remind you that you haven't got it all figured out. Imagine, instead, constantly striving for the best relationship, but accepting that it will never be the best so you can look forward to learning how to improve it along the way. 

Science

Science is constantly pushing the boundaries of knowledge in hot pursuit of perfect understanding.  However, how many scientific 'truths' later become dis-proven by new discoveries? Science can continually strive for perfect understanding but must never be used as a tool to give evidence that any form of perfect understanding has been reached. This could apply to religion and spiritual teachings as well.

Government/Country/Politics/Issues
Don’t give up because you think things will always go as they have before – that’s when we’re all in trouble! We need to have hope that things can change and that they do change.  A perfect political system must always be the goal but no politician, country, or community must ever believe they have reached the perfect system, as this system will need to continually be adapted to represent the people who themselves are continually growing and changing.

So, good luck in your search for perfection and all the best of luck in remembering that you will never reach it..that the purpose of perfection is for it to always be a vision and not a destination. 

I think I’ll leave it there for today. After all, I know this post will never be perfect.