The Pursuit of Happiness

I've had time to write this weekend, and I really wanted to do so.  To my consternation, nothing would come, and that almost never happens. On Friday, I'd been taking medication for pain associated with a toothache, and I couldn't focus. I watched a couple of movies, attempted to read, and had lunch with someone with whom I'd been "matched."  (It wasn't.)

This morning I went to church a little early.  Often when I sit and reflect, something will come.  It didn't.  When I got on the train to come home, a religious leaflet from the Church of Scientology was on the seat beside me.  In large letters with a blue background was a quote from the Church's founder, L. Ron Hubbard, "No man is happy without a goal, and no man can be happy without faith in his own ability to reach that goal."

In that instant, I knew what I'd write.  One of the movies I'd watched was "Hector and His Search for Happiness." The movie is based on a book by the same name  by Francois Lelord, about a man who's pretty much achieved his goals, but knows he isn't happy.  British psychiatrist Hector takes off on a months-long journey of Asia, Africa, and America to find out what makes people happy.

During the course of his journey, he comes up with 23 rules or principles for happiness.  However, the line that sticks in my mind comes from a lecture Hector attends on the Pursuit of Happiness. The happiness lecturer says something like, "It is not the pursuit of happiness that counts but the happiness you find in pursuit." Although Hector finds 23 guidelines for happiness, it is clear that most boil down to being present and finding happiness in the possibility of the moment, whatever is occurring.  At the end of the movie, we see Hector back with the same home, office, and partner just being delighted at the same life through which he used to move mindlessly.

In the 1990s when I coached primarily physicians and C-Suite executives, most of whom had achieved all their goals, I found that neither the goals nor the pursuit of them brought happiness, peace, or joy.  In fact, one said to me, "As soon as I set a goal, I know I will achieve it.  Even the pursuit has lost it's joy."

With all due respect to any Scientologist readers, I am pretty confident that Hubbard was wrong.  Hector, the lecturer in the film, my clients, and my own life bring me back to a common theme in this blog: being present and finding joy in whatever is occurring is the path to happiness.

The Work That Is Mine To Do

I remember writing in Leading from the Heart that while most of us see things in black or white, the Truth more often lays in countless shades of gray in between them.  Even then, I knew that the world was much more complex than the simplicity of black and white would suggest.  In the years since, I have become more and more convinced of that Truth.

While I was sure of the Truth in the shades of gray the more than 20 years ago when I wrote Leading from the Heart, I thought I was certain about some things.  I knew that God is Love. My work in the world is to connect with everyone who comes onto my path from that Truth.  Somehow, if I could find love in my heart for everyone, I would be doing what God wanted me to do.

This morning at the very end of our church service, just as I have countless times before, I said the prayer for me to go into the world to do the work that was mine to do.  "What?" I thought, "is that?" Robbed of the innocence that I held even just a few years ago that, if I would just love those on my path, I would be doing my work.  I can't believe that any more.  At least, I can't believe it in the way I once did.

Difficult people have come before me, and I have tried to love them...repeatedly...for years. At least one has made me wonder if there are evil people in the world--those who delight in causing pain.  I grew up with a mother like that.  I often think that this person is in my life to give me the opportunity to learn how to deal with my long-deceased mother in a loving way. God knows I have tried.  Usually I just get beat up again...and again.

Scary-weird people have come onto my path, and I have tried to see them in peace and love.  A homeless mentally ill woman sells Street Sense, a newspaper written by and for the homeless.  I used to be afraid of her.  I used to think she qualifies as "scary-weird," but as I've come to know her, she is a really kind woman.  I call her by name now.  She remembers me.  Now I think, "There, but by the grace of God, go I."  Other scary-weird people just get scarier and weirder.

While in New York a few weeks ago, I saw the musical "Beautiful," based on the early career of singer-songwriter Carole King.  King married her lyricist Gerry Goffin when they were teenagers, had two children with him, and then, as often happens in show business, watched him fall prey to drugs and womanizing.  In the play, about 10 years into the marriage, King says to Goffin, "The girls deserve better than this, and so do I."  The words penetrated me, which is when I can usually tell there is a lesson to be learned here.

So this morning as I thought about going into the world to do the work that is mine to do, I found myself sinking into the shades of gray.  Maybe my spiritual work isn't to love everyone.  Maybe it isn't to learn how to love my mother differently.  Maybe it isn't even to not be frightened by scary-weird people.  Maybe it is to say, "I deserve better than this."

Right now, I am stuck in the "how to know."  I truly do believe that it is our work to love those who come onto our paths--to raise the level of love on the planet.  How else can we make the world a better place?  Yet, I am also sure that God wants us to love ourselves. Yet  to allow someone to continue bringing misery into my life isn't raising the level of love.

Some would say that we should just let the meanness roll over us and to not allow it to make me miserable. I may even have said that a few dozen times myself.  Now I have learned that isn't so easily done.  When someone pummels me, day in and day out for years,  I do feel the pain.  Maybe my work is to say, "I deserve better."

Today, I sit with what my work is. Once it was very clear that I am to love.  When I was much younger, my work was just to survive.  Both very black and white.  Today, I sink into the shades of gray and listen for a new Truth.

Friendship

I am taking a course in the Psychology of Happiness, and as homework I've just spent several hours reading about and reflecting on "friendship."  It seems that having one good friend with whom we can share confidences or inner feelings is essential to happiness.  The value of friendship is in quality and not quantity, so if we have 20 friends but none with whom we can share our innermost thoughts, they are of less value than one with whom we can share.  And, that one: will not only make us happier, but healthier as well.

While reading Aristotle on the nature of friendship is not exactly the light reading I might prefer for a Saturday afternoon, the ancient philosopher does raise a lot of questions about the true nature of friendship.  Are we friends because of something we get from a person?  Aristotle calls that "utility," and he professes that is not friendship but "profit."  He also describes friendship of "duty," and friendship that is really love to gain love in return.

What has interested me most in his intellectual/philosophical meanderings is the description of a friendship of pure delight in each other's company, where we love without concern of being loved in return.  Now, that's what I call friendship.  In my experience such friendships are rare to be preciously tended.

Forty years ago, give or take, I walked into a room in an aging dormitory building to meet a new roommate.  In less than 30 minutes time, I was certain we would be friends for life, and so far, I have been correct. We have gone long periods without seeing each other face to face, but usually talking at least once or twice a year.  Always, we seem to pick up just where we left off.

It never occurred to me to be concerned that I would get anything from the relationship but pure delight.  Each time we are together that is exactly what I feel--pure delight.

Last weekend she and I met for the weekend in New York City.  We tromped all over Manhattan, taking on the mysteries of the New York subway system and seeing as many sites as we could take in during two days.  I even walked 12 blocks once, just to end up almost from where I departed. Despite bitter cold and an unexpectedly early snowstorm, we embraced the city with gusto, talking for hours on end into the night.  The years peeled away, and we were 20 again. Well, except for some gray hair and a few lines.

I still have lots of Aristotle to plow through, but so far I've read nothing to suggest that he really got that instant relationship that "clicks" for a lifetime.  Having had such a friendship is a gift of my lifetime.  What a blessing that such a miracle crossed through my life, and I had the wisdom and dexterity to grab it.