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Happiness in the Time of Covid 19, Part 8: Too Much Meaning,Not Enough Pleasure …

… and that’s okay right now. Indeed, it’s necessary.

Organizing thousands of postcards to voters in key states

I think it’s comfortable for many of us to embrace meaning as  a crucial element of happiness, but pleasure is not to be scoffed at. We are biological creatures with physical needs and desires, which no doubt have important evolutionary tasks. Even if they don’t, life is hard. Why not also embrace joy and pleasure? 

My primary positive psychology teacher, Tal Ben-Shahar, encouraged us to look at happiness as a blend of both pleasure and meaning. He envisioned a “Hamburger Model of Happiness,” so-called because Tal initially drew the concept on a napkin in a restaurant while pondering healthy and/or tasty burgers. It is a quadrant with four choices, with meaning and pleasure taking the place of healthy and tasty: 

  • The first quadrant, with high meaning but low pleasure, is a rat race. Sometimes we need to live that way—for example, when starting a new and very demanding job, or caring for a dying loved one. It’s grueling and not very happy to stay there permanently. 
  • The second quadrant, with high pleasure but little or no meaning, is hedonism. Though reveling in worry-free pleasure may feel good for a vacation, it can feel empty in the long run. If you doubt me, try it yourself. I just don’t think any of us can go too long without doing something helpful. 
  • The third quadrant, no pleasure or meaning, is just plain bleak.
  • Finally, the fourth quadrant is high meaning, high pleasure. That sweet spot, says Ben-Shahar, is where happiness thrives.

Ideally, we could all stake out a balance between meaning and pleasure. But, as noted above, sometimes we have to forsake pleasure for meaning. For long term well-being and happiness for self and others, choosing meaning (wearing a mask and social distancing) over pleasure (carefree hugging without the encumbrance of face coverings) is clearly the appropriate choice.

We hope we don’t have to live this way for too long, but our current reinforce the importance of meaning to well-being. Indeed, choosing meaning can be an investment in happiness. Just as tending to an infant’s needs now can result in a more thriving child (and happier parents) later, so too can our Covid prevention efforts (meaning) result lead to less grieving (unhappiness) and a faster return of pleasures like public singing and dancing (happiness).

It reminds me of something else I learned about from Ben-Shahar: the famous “Marshmallow Experiment” led by Stanford University Professor Walter Mischel in 1972. In this experiment, children were offered one marshmallow immediately, or two marshmallows if they could wait for the delayed gratification. I’m not going to get into the results here, but let’s just say, having the patience to wait for two marshmallows is preferable.

But what if that first marshmallow, that first taste of pleasure, meant not only one less treat but also added suffering?

That, my friends, is the question I believe we must all confront right now in the context of the November 2020 election. Are we willing to sacrifice pleasure in the moment not only for greater future pleasure (imagine the possible joy on election night!) but also to avoid the significant and widespread suffering which would surely be a hallmark of a second Trump presidency? 

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For me — and for many of you, too — the answer is definitely yes. A shout-it-from-the rooftops yes. With roughly eight weeks to go before an election with frightening implications, I am indeed willing to give up a variety of daily pleasures while instead finding enormous meaning in doing everything within my power to elect Democrats up and down the ticket.

Michele Obama put it this way at the Democratic National Convention, “If you think things cannot possibly get worse, trust me — they can, and they will, if we don’t make a change in this election.”

I’ve been a political junkie since my mid-teens, but I have never felt caught up in such a dire moment. My fears have been heightened by reading Isabel Wilkerson’s 2010 masterpiece, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration. I’m wondering if her reporting might also serve as a warning of how things can get worse, and how much worse they can get. She writes of the days following Reconstruction after the Civil War, when:

  • “Blacks in the South, accustomed to the liberties established after the war, were hurled back in time …One by one, each license of freedom accorded them was stripped away. The world got smaller, narrower, confined with each new court ruling and ordinance. Not unlike European Jews, who watched the world close in on them, slowly, perhaps barely perceptibly, at the start of Nazism,” Wilkerson continues, “colored people in the South would first react in denial and disbelief to the rising hysteria, then, helpless to stop it, attempt a belated resistance, not knowing and not able to imagine how far the supremacists would go … (including) nearly a century of apartheid, pogroms, and mob executions.” (p.38, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration).

Wilkerson offers a breathtaking amount of statistics and stories to illustrate just how bad it got — a deterioration, I want to emphasize, came after a period of seemingly great improvement and advancement in rights and equality. Which is to say, take no comfort in the fact that we recently had a Black president.

Here’s just one gut-wrenching measurement of the post-Reconstruction horror: “Across the South, someone was hanged or burned alive every four days from 1889 to 1929” (p. 39, Suns).

Oh, but that was then. It couldn’t possibly get that bad again, could it?? Or could it? Literally seconds after I typed the above line about lynching, I saw this post on the internet:

“CBS Boston reports:

New Hampshire State Representative James Spillane is under investigation by the State Attorney General for a comment he made on Facebook. Spillane, a Republican, wrote, ‘Public Service Announcement: If you see a BLM [Black Lives Matter] sign on a lawn it’s the same as having the porch light on for Halloween. You’re free to loot and burn that house.’”

Um, that sounds bad. Inciting arson over Black Lives Matter signs? In quaint New England? We’re in trouble, people.

You could say that Spillane is just another rogue whacko, but you cannot say the same for the Social Progress Index, which according to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof “collects 50 metrics of well-being [worldwide]— nutrition, safety, freedom, the environment, health, education and more — to measure quality of life.” In a September 10, 2020 column entitled, “We’re No. 28! And Dropping!“, Kristof reports that this Index found “that the quality of life has dropped in America over the last decade, even as it has risen almost everywhere else.”

The United States was 19th in the world in 2011. Now, our quality of life ranks 28th. Kristof quotes Michael Porter, the chair of the Social Progress Index advisory panel as observing, “The data paint an alarming picture of the state of our nation, and we hope it will be a call to action.” 

Consider me called to action. Yet, I know there is reason to hope.

Polls actually show the Biden-Harris ticket with a strong lead, and the Democrats could have major victories in the House and Senate. That is calming, but most everyone I know is hopeful and terrified at the same time. We just don’t don’t what will happen.

Paradoxically, the “not knowing” can also be a source of comfort. Because I did a recent google search for readings on the topic of being present, I recently came a “Brain Pickings” edition featuring the wisdom of a first century philosopher, Seneca. Seneca counseled:

  • “There are more things … likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality … What I advise you to do is, not to be unhappy before the crisis comes; since it may be that the dangers before which you paled as f they were threatening you, will never come upon you; they certainly have not come yet. … Even bad fortune is fickle. Perhaps it will come, perhaps not. In the meantime, it is not. So look forward to better things.”

And I am looking forward to better things! I have made three different week long reservations on nearby Lake Champlain for summer 2021. I visit those websites frequently, and savor the experiences I imagine having there with my family. But, I made sure every reservation could be canceled, and I could get my money back. Because, who knows???

The life trick seems to be holding both the hope and the genuine concern at the same time. To find meaning, and maybe also happiness. Here’s what that looks like for me:

  • On behalf of organizers on the ground in key states, I have spent months overseeing dozens of volunteers, who each needs  is a lot of work. Making sure each other volunteers writing close to 10,000 postcards to Get Out the Vote and/or provide critical registration information, especially to voters of color. You’d be surprised how many details are involved in this effort! But it makes me happy to see my front porch filled with packages for friends and neighbors to pick up. One time we even provided painted rocks as a thank you. That was very happy making.
  • I also write postcards myself, to voters in Wisconsin, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Texas. The scripts are always provided, and I have to write small but legibly. I’m starting to think I need a new glasses prescription! Here, there is such a sense of accomplishment! Also happy making.
  • Textbanking — and this is the part that hurts a little bit. Again using initial messages crafted by local groups to achieve a particular goal with voters in their states, I engage in text conversations with anyone who responds. There is much enthusiasm (I’ve recruited a lot of volunteers) but also some truly nasty insults against the candidates and me, the volunteer. I think the ugliness is bad for my health; I know it has caused insomnia on more than one night. But I will keep at it because it is a valuable tool. The meaning is worth it.
  • Phonebanking — okay, I’ve only done this once so far. I don’t like to phone bank. But again, I’ll do it, because it matters so very very much.
  • Fundraising — My group has hosted some awesome fundraising concerts in years past. Now, it’s virtual, and highly successful. Thanks to the leadership of my amazing friends at Lean Left Vermont, strategic giving has never been easier. In fact, Lean Left VT has made all of these activities accessible to hundreds of us. You are welcome to join us.

Here’s something else I probably have in common with many of you: my life in these times of Covid-19 already had extra layers of meaning. Our empty next has turned into multi-generational housing. A great blessing, to be sure, but not without a lot of extra stress.

Maria Popova, the intellectual powerhouse behind Brain Pickings recently pondered the relationship between meaning and pleasure. “Who can weigh the ballast of another’s woe, or another’s love?,” she wrote. “We live — with our woes and our loves, with our tremendous capacity for beauty and our tremendous capacity for suffering — counterbalancing the weight of existence with the irrepressible force of living. The question, always, is what feeds the force and hulls the ballast.”

  • A happy grandchild

For me, some of that ballast is provided by being around an eight year old granddaughter. One recent day, she wanted an audience for her latest exploit: using cardboard to turn the stairs into a sliding board. With her bike helmet on, she sat on a cushion at the top of the stairs, afraid to start.

“Hurry up,” I pleaded, as she had interrupted my texting. “I have to save democracy.”

“Okay,” she said. “You save democracy, I’ll save happiness.”

Meaning and pleasure. Each in their own time.

Category:

Community, Racism

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Happiness in the Time of Covid, Part 6: Making Mistakes

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Masks and sanitizer on a table by the front door.

Anybody else making mistakes lately?

How could we not? We’re all being squeezed by virtue of living in an incredible moment in time, with so many pressures already bearing down on us (did someone say climate change?) even before the full-blown Covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic was still playing havoc with our social norms and expectations when the murder of George Floyd set off a massive Black Lives Matter uprising,  both close to home and worldwide. Life in the United States in 2020 is breathtaking and disorienting. Our brains are on overdrive. I assume I’m not the only one exercising poor judgment from time to time.

Fortunately, when I mess up, I’m able to call to mind and heart Tal Ben-Shahar, my number one happiness teacher. Tal has a number of wise sayings, including “permission to be human.”  This is a succinct reminder that we are all biological creatures — animals, actually — with complex brain wiring designed for evolutionary purposes that may or may not be helpful in the 21st century. We often have only a rudimentary understanding of what is going on inside us, and why. Thus, even in the best of times, we are bound to make mistakes aplenty. 2020 is clearly not the best of times — though, I am hopeful, we are transitioning to a time when we can vastly improve our systems, if not our wiring. We shall see.

In the meantime, we might as well get comfortable with the idea that we’re going to make mistakes. Permission to be human, thank you very much. That doesn’t mean it’s okay to cause harm, emotional or physical. We may in fact accidentally do that, and if we do, we must make amends in some way if possible. As one of my favorite conflict books, Difficult Conversations puts it, intent does not equal impact.  Still, understanding that we are all humans who simply cannot help but mess up with regularity might allow us to ease up on judging of self and others. We can choose compassion and kindness instead. Yes, I still want to do my best. The same is probably true for most of you. It just doesn’t always work out that way.

Which is to say, one of the keys to happiness in the time of Covid is accepting our basic humanity, our very natural tendency to goof up. As usual, this not only about happiness for self — it also encompasses others. When we can look at ourselves and others with more compassion, we put down the burden of unreasonable expectations for all of us. That can open the door to greater understanding, easier communications, and happier relationships.

We all make mistakes, whether it’s negotiating Covid-19, white supremacy, or standard life challenges. Pretty serious stuff, but it still reminds me of a song from Sesame Street: “Everyone Makes Mistakes.” 

Here’s another positive to seize on: we can learn from our mistakes, as I did recently. It was an early May evening. Vermont was still mostly shut down and those of us who could stay home did so, except for essential trips, like buying groceries. Nobody had been inside my house, except the six of us who live here, since late February. But that night a neighbor called with an urgent request. She needed a bed for the night. I was the only one she could call.

Almost reflexively, I told her to come over. Yes was the obvious answer in pre-Covid times. After I hung up, though, I wondered, should I have said that?? It went against our household rules for decision-making during Covid.  So I guess that was a mistake. But I did tell the neighbor she needed to wear a mask inside our house. She also brought her own bedding. After she got settled on the sofa bed in my office, she came downstairs to the living room to catch up. Without a mask on.

I was uncomfortable as we sat facing each other, about four feet apart, maskless. I didn’t think this was okay, but I also didn’t want to be rude to a guest in my house, and say, “please put your mask back on.” This was definitely a mistake. In retrospect, I see that a pandemic may be a good time to adjust what being polite looks like. Perhaps it is not actually polite to allow germs to spread to one’s family.

While we sat there, my husband Bob walked through the room. (BTW, I write this with his permission.) Bob rarely gets angry, especially not at me. That May evening was an exception. He was furious. After the neighbor went off to bed, I found him lacing up his shoes, preparing to head out. He was too angry at me for having potentially brought Covid into our house, without even checking with anybody else, to talk about it or even stay inside. He headed out for a walk.

It was a rough night in our relationship, but by morning were able to talk it through. I felt he made a mistake or two also (he agreed), but we were both understanding, and I was definitely contrite for not consulting him and for not insisting that the neighbor wear a mask. I learned from my mistakes, I apologized, and I didn’t beat myself up for having exercised poor judgment. I was behaving under old rules. I haven’t quite figured out the new Covid-19 rules yet.

At this point, after nearly 50 years of marriage, I’m pretty comfortable making mistakes around my husband. I am much less comfortable making mistakes as a white person eager to be a good ally in the Black Lives Matter movement. Part of this, I think, is due to identity — another really valuable concept discussed in the book Difficult Conversations. I consider myself to be a good person, a social justice activist, someone who strives to be open and loving, and definitely not racist. Difficult Conversations teaches that some of us (including me) can have an “identity quake” when one of our self-defining concepts is threatened.  Ugh. That’s definitely me. Some mistakes — like saying or doing something that seems to prove that I’m a bad white ally — leave me wanting to hide under the blankets.

But hiding under the blankets is not an option. This is the time we all need to be stepping it up in the fight for racial justice, not nursing our wounded identities in a corner somewhere. Instead, I need to take a breath and grant myself permission to be human. Though I will try my best to do my part to help dismantle systemic racism, I will inevitably say or do the wrong thing. Again, how could I not? Just as I hold onto old, pre-Covid behavior rules in my head and just as we are all governed by stone-aged wiring in our brains that we don’t even know is there, so, too, am I a product of a white supremacy system. There are surely implicit biases wired in there somewhere.

I saw a wise essay on a friend’s Facebook post, but I cannot remember who either the author or the poster was so I cannot give credit. The gist of the wisdom, from an author of color, was something like this: “White people, I know you’re confused. You’ve heard from people of color both to read more books and this moment isn’t about white people being in book club; reach out to your black friends and tell them you care and I don’t want one more of my white friends reaching out to me like this; and, you have to speak up and you have to shut up and listen.” The writer noted (again paraphrasing), “I know it’s exhausting, it’s been exhausting for us black folks for a long time. But you can figure it out.”

It’s hard to imagine figuring it out without cozying up to the idea that I’ll make mistakes. I’m not thrilled about making mistakes, but if I don’t help do the work of ending white supremacy, I will not be living my values, and that will make me unhappy with myself. Doing the work and making mistakes, and then beating myself up about making mistakes, will also make me unhappy with myself. Further, if we all ran away from the work for fear of making mistakes, that would mean enormous continued unhappiness in this country for oppressed peoples of color.

It is clear: for my happiness and yours, I must allow myself to be the human I am, and make the mistakes I will inevitably make. Maybe yours, too — maybe I can give you permission to be human, too. This being human thing isn’t all that easy. No need to make it unnecessarily harder for anybody by pretending we’re better equipped and differently wired than we actually are.

Category:

Community, Personal Happiness, Racism, Relationships

Happiness in the Time of Covid-19, Part 5: Investigating White Privilege

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Preface: The following essay, which is longer than usual, was also harder than usual to write, more painful, less happy. But I really wanted to write stories about my own growing awareness of white privilege in a way that might help other readers who identify as white investigate your own privileged experiences.  My hope is that we can use our stories to help other white folk better understand the pervasiveness of systemic racism, and to deepen our own commitment to stand up for racial justice as allies. There are so many ways to do this work; you can read a list of 75 options here.  And what does all this have to do with happiness? To me, it’s a no brainer. While my anguish at seeing killing after killing of unarmed black people in this country can hardly compare with the pain felt by people of color, the murders and other evidence of ongoing racism do, in fact, make me unhappy. And why wouldn’t they? We are interconnected and interdependent.  Most of us are empathetic. We are all sentient beings equally deserving of love, compassion — and economic, political, and cultural systems which provide maximum support for our well-being. The Dalai Lama has said, “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” Now more than ever, that means love.  “In times like these,” according to Representative Antonio Delgado, love is “justice in action … grounded in the moral observation that we are all one.” In this moment in time, love and compassion mean: Black.Lives.Matter. For everyone to have a greater opportunity for happiness, we need to see it, feel it, and make it so.

Investigating White Privilege:

When my son was 14, he had a sleepover birthday party. I remember the event so fondly. He and his friends were still ever-so-slightly little boys, innocents on the verge of full blown adolescence. There were lot of giggles, burps and farts (and jokes about burps and farts), and pancakes. By his 15th birthday, it was a whole different scene. But that year, at 14, they were still so young. One of the party guests was Ben’s friend Calvin*. Calvin was very tall. I remember looking way up at him when he came to our door. He was still a child, but because he was black, and so tall, I sometimes worried that people meeting him on the streets would be afraid of him. This was long before 17 year-old Trayvon Martin was gunned down, so I never actually worried for Calvin’s physical safety. I just felt sad to think that people would be afraid of him. This sweet innocent tall boy.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but now I see white privilege in this story.  I could and did feel bad for someone else’s son, but I never once worried that anyone would be afraid of my own child — much shorter, yes, but more to the point: white.

A couple of decades later, I had the white privilege of being only the slightest, tiniest bit worried as my pregnant daughter more-or-less breezed through both pregnancy and childbirth. She might disagree with the verb “breezed,” but there was never anything to be seriously afraid of.  I didn’t think of it as a white privilege, though, until six years later. That’s when I read an April 2018 article in The New York Times called “Why America’s Black Mothers and Babies Are in a Life-or-Death Crisis: The answer to the disparity in death rates has everything to do with the lived experience of being a black woman in America.” Oh. My. God. This article is a must read. A healthy pregnancy is a privilege.

Perhaps the phrase “white privilege” is uncomfortable to you. I’ll admit, it took me a while to accept this description of all the many many ways being white in this society makes our lives easier. Since some of the realities of racism were brought to my attention when I was 14 years old, I don’t think I ever doubted the concept of white privilege — though, it’s taken decades to realize even partially how pervasive it is. It’s just that privilege to me felt like something that belonged to the world of very rich people. It should not be a privilege to believe that your son is likely to come home alive, or that your daughter’s pregnancy is likely to be safe. Those should be more or less normal.

But of course that’s not the reality. In our white supremacy culture, so much of normal life is a privilege not available to all, especially people of color. Recently, when I was writing a sermon on kindness, I was stunned to read a section of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book, Between The World and Me, that illustrated how even receiving kindness from a stranger can be a matter of white privilege. Kindness! I found that devastating. Talk about dehumanizing!

Ultimately I realized it was of zero importance whether not I like the term white privilege. Maybe my rejection of the words was a form of white fragility. I don’t know. What I do know is that is urgently important to get it, to better understand white privilege — my own and others — and then, take whatever steps I can take to help change the system.

As I reflect back, however I named it, sometimes the privilege was immediately visible. When my children were teens, they each brought a friend for a week long family beach vacation. As it happens, both friends were people of color. One night, we went out to dinner at a local seafood restaurant. I can’t remember the specifics of the incident, but both friends were upset at how the staff treated them, presumably based on the colors of their skins. I think we walked out, but I’m not sure. Later that week, though, we definitely walked out of an arcade, after our son’s friend felt unsafe due to racist threats. Lesson learned: in that particular beach town, feeling safe in a restaurant or an arcade might just rest on having white skin.

Just a couple of years ago, I got pulled over for speeding. By this time, not only had I heard the phrase “driving while black” many times, but Sandra Bland’s death was also very fresh in my mind. Throughout the incident, I was well aware of my white privilege. As the officer approached my car, I fully expected to be treated with respect, and I was. I kept wondering, what would I feel right now if I was a black woman? Would I be afraid?

There’s a stop sign on the dirt road in front of my house. For some reason, many people — white people, as far as I can tell — run that stop sign with great regularity. I have often wondered, would these drivers so blithely break the law without the protection of white privilege?

When I take the time to look, at past and present, there are so many other stories where white privilege stands out — like the time I learned taxis didn’t like to stop for black women in Washington, D.C… Or just last Saturday when I decided to check out the lake front property we’ll soon be renting for vacation. It occurred to me that I might not have felt safe walking up the empty driveway if it weren’t for my white skin. Of course, none of this makes me happy. It’s just all so wrong.

One example of white privilege that I’ve thought about over and over was a Gross National Happiness USA project, the Happiness Walk.  That Walk covered 10,000 miles over eight years, on foot, often relying on the kindness of strangers. I participated in that walk myself for about 300 miles, and was the recipient of much generosity from scores of very diverse people. Again, though, I often wondered, how many people would have stopped to help — with offers ranging from buying us bug spray to providing housing for multiple nights — if more of the walkers** had been people of color? And how safe would a black walker have felt in accepting those offers? I cannot know, but I think it’s clear that white privilege was on the Walk with us.

My final example is a biggie: voting. Voting in the 21st century should absolutely not be a white privilege. But. The GOP has been systematically gerrymandering and suppressing the vote in many other ways that land especially hard on people of color, who often vote with the Democratic party. This past winter, I saw the movie “Suppressed: The Fight to Vote” several times; one of the groups I am active with sponsored the showings as a fundraiser for Stacey Abrams’ group, Fair Fight. “Suppressed” is a documentary of how Georgia’s then-Secretary of State Brian Kemp and others systemically robbed voters of color of their fundamental right to vote in 2018, when Kemp ran for governor against Stacey Abrams. The film is horrifying. I’ll admit, I was shocked at how brazenly Republicans are stealing the right to vote! from people who fought so damned hard to get that right. In this case, there are very specific ways white allies can help fight back. My activist friends and I have not only supported Abrams’ group, Fair Fight but have also volunteered for Reclaim Our Vote and contributed to the Black Voters Matter Fund. Additionally, we have canvassed, texted, and written postcards for candidates of color — some of whom, like Antonio Delgado, have won.

I’ve been passionate about politics since the second grade, so this is an obvious arena for my involvement. That might not be your preferred way to get involved. Fine. Find something else to do. We all need to do more than post “Make it stop!” in response to yet another video capturing a sickening racist incident. Turns out, we — the big collective we, with people of color leading the way — are the ones who must make it stop. History has its eye on us. We are in a unique moment in time, when we just might be able to make a real and lasting difference. Let’s seize the opportunity to make this country a much happier place for everyone. Black lives matter.

 

* Not his real name.

** To be clear, there were only a handful of walkers the entire time. Paula Francis, who is white, walked most of the Walk alone.

Category:

Community, Compassion, Personal Happiness, Racism, Systemic Change

Kindness, Resilience and Post Traumatic Growth

 

Flowers were among the much appreciated gifts of kindness I recently received.

Flowers were among the much appreciated gifts of kindness I recently received.

I began writing this piece as a reflection on rebounding from some personal trauma, but I am a slow writer and events overtake me.  My challenges actually coincided with the Orlando shootings.  Of course, trouble and pleasure are both constant visitors on the micro level (stubbed toes and flowers) and the macro (an awesome Pope and drowning refugees).  And, they’re inter-connected: our personal happiness or lack thereof dramatically affects our ability to contribute to the greater good, while the greater good or seeming lack thereof similarly impacts our own capacity for joyful living.  That is why I advocate as strongly as possible for both personal happiness and a Gross National Happiness paradigm.  Both matter. A lot.

Still, following the killings of black Americans Alton Sterling and Philando Castile — as you all probably know, two seemingly unjustified executions by police officers — and then the targeted executions by a sniper of five police officers keeping the peace at a Dallas Black Lives Matter protest, my personal musings just seem so damned trivial. Yet, where else can we start but in our own hearts and souls?

So I continue with my story on kindness, resilience and post traumatic growth, wishing that the same factors writ large may help our deeply troubled nation evolve.  (Please dear god may our country also experience post traumatic growth!)

To transition, I offer this wisdom from one of my go-to authors, Italian psychotherapist Piero Ferruci, author of The Power of Kindness:The Unexpected Benefits of Leading a Compassionate Life: “Kindness? It may strike us as absurd to even approach the subject: Our world is full of violence, war, terrorism, devastation.  And yet life goes on precisely because we are kind to one another. No newspaper tomorrow will tell of a mother who read a bedtime story to her child, or a father who prepared breakfast for his children, of someone who listened with attention, of a friend who cheered us up, of a stranger who helped us carry a suitcase. Many of us are kind without even knowing it. We do what we do simply because it is right.”

My story starts with a winter memory of kindness, a day several passing motorists stopped to help get my car unstuck from an ice-coated driveway.  When I thanked them, one of the strangers thanked me right back, for giving him the opportunity to be helpful.

These last few weeks I’ve been remembering that normal, “simply because it is right” interaction because it left me focused on the “helper’s high” the kindness giver may feel, rather than the profound gratitude that may flood the recipient. For that learning, I apparently needed more than the minor annoyance of a stuck car.  A threat to my left eye created a mile-wide vulnerability ability to receive kindness.  I am sure the loving kindness that enveloped me hastened my emotional recovery.  Indeed, accepting and appreciating that kindness is a definite benefit of my frightening encounter with (limited) vision loss.

Since the incident is still fresh, I don’t yet have perspective. I don’t know for sure if the treatments will work, though the doctor assures me the odds are “heavily stacked” in my favor.  I don’t know if the sight in my left eye will ever improve.  Meanwhile, the possibility of the same problem arising in my right eye is very real, although here again the doctor is reassuring.  That’s a lot of unknowns.  Rather important unknowns.

However, I do know some things.

First, I know that it was a traumatizing shock to hear that I was in danger of losing all vision in my left eye without immediate, frightening treatments.  My response to be quiet, turn inward, and focus on my own feelings and healing was apparently both appropriate and effective, as my spirits rebounded substantially within a week of the first treatment.  Whatever the reality of my vision, I feel like myself again. Research shows that happier people may be more resilient.  Perhaps I had the science of happiness on my side.

Second, the treatment wasn’t as bad as I expected.  Obviously no one wants a shot in the eye.  For some reason, I assumed the injection would be in the pupil, a particularly distressing prospect. But it wasn’t the pupil, it wasn’t that painful, the eye wasn’t even especially sore afterwords.  A little freaky, but I can let go of ruminating over an unfounded fear.

Third, I know I am lucky to have insurance coverage for this doctor and these treatments. This was almost financially disastrous.  The first retina specialist my optometrist connected me with is outside my insurance coverage region, which would have meant an $1800 deductible followed by an ongoing 30% co-pay.  Both a retina specialist and the vision-saving drug are likely exceedingly expensive.  If the current doctor had not been available, I would obviously have gone to the first recommended specialist.  There would have been no real choice, even if saving my vision led to bankruptcy.  I am simultaneously grateful for my own good fortune and horrified that the minefield I dodged exists at all!

Fourth, Facebook and other social media were a godsend. While I am an extrovert who generally gets a lot of energy from face-to-face relationships, for about a week, I needed to cocoon.  Social media provided a way for me to reach out, and for others to respond. The morning of my first treatment, when I read the outpouring of caring responses to the blog I published the night before, I wept with appreciation.  The love I needed was there for me, thanks to the oft-maligned internet.

Fifth, I know that both the duration and intensity of my trauma were minimal compared with what many people endure. My thoughts on Post Traumatic Growth (PTG) refer only to my own experience.  Actually, as a non-therapist, I don’t know that much about Post Traumatic Growth, though it is a topic we touched on during the Certificate in Positive Psychology training.  Wikipedia says PTG, or “benefit finding”:  “refers to positive psychological change experienced as a result of adversity and other challenges in order to rise to a higher level of functioning. … Post traumatic growth is …. undergoing significant ‘life-changing’ psychological shifts in thinking and relating to the world, that contribute to a personal process of change, that is deeply meaningful.”

Though only time will tell how life-changing this episode will be in my life, I can certainly say it contributed to “a personal process of change that is deeply meaningful.”  I believe I will look back at this time with a sense of peace, love, gratitude, and even joy. I foresee no reason why this trauma should be triggered in a negative way in the future, thanks to an awareness of the many gifts that supported me, including:

Gift of time.  My husband, friends, and the nature of my work and responsibilities at this stage of life allowed me to back off from everything that did not serve my needs. Again, I know I am fortunate.  And grateful.

Gift of writing. Sometimes writing feels like a burden to me.  In this case, writing allowed me to articulate the experience as I saw and felt it, giving me some sense of control over my own story.  I was so grateful to be a writer, especially when others told me that my story somehow inspired or helped them.  Amazing!  To be able to help others in my own time of pain, it blows me away.

Gift of reduced negativity. My initial diagnosis happened the day before the Orlando massacre.  While I normally follow the news pretty closely and cry with much of the world’s heartbreaks, this time, I limited my exposure.  Being a good citizen is important to me, but I had to take care of myself first.  This, by the way, is a gift each of us can give to ourselves when we need it.

Gift of modern medicine. Big pharma gets a bad rap for greed and money-fueled lobbying, but today I am very thankful for the drug industry.  Until recently, doctors had no way to help patients who developed the same condition I have.  My doctor told me, “We could only watch helplessly as they went blind.” The drug that is saving my eyesight has been in use for just 10 years.  Wow. So grateful. So lucky.

Gift of Good Luck.  Ferruci notes in his kindness book, that luck is largely a result of mindfulness, of noticing the goodness in life.  In addition to the medicine and the insurance, here’s another piece of luck I noticed: the flashing symptoms that sent me to the optometrist in the first place. Those symptoms were unrelated to the condition that exam discovered, yet without them,  don’t know when I would have noticed that the vision in my left eye was deteriorating.  Since my right eye was working overtime to compensate for the left, what luck to have flashing! Again, I am grateful.

Above all, gifts of love.  My husband, who spent many hours waiting in doctors’ offices with me; my friend Ulrike who told me to go ahead and cry at her birthday brunch if that’s what I needed (I did); the flowers, gift certificate, offers of whatever help I needed; even my son’s compliment on my writing skills — the gifts came in many forms.  I savor them all.  Each alone and all together, they mean so much.

So now I know.  Receiving kindness can be just as sweet as giving it.  May we all embrace both, wholeheartedly.

Category:

Community, Coping, Gratitude, Personal Happiness, Taking Care of Ourselves

Oh the Food! The Happiness Walk Lands in the Happiest City

Beignets for breakfast in Lafayette, Louisiana.

Beignets for breakfast in Lafayette, Louisiana.

It was Mardi Gras season, and I was excited to rejoin The Happiness Walk in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  We were headed west toward Houston, right through Lafayette, Louisiana — the Happiest City in America.  Since the Happiness Walk is all about gaining a deeper understanding of individual happiness, we made Lafayette our headquarters for a week.

Let’s just say I didn’t lose any weight.

Clearly, food is a big part of the happiness recipe here. One woman told me, “If we’re not eating, we’re planning our next meal.”  From beignets to etoufee, shrimp gumbo (did you know you can put potato salad in gumbo instead of sour cream??) to boiled crawfish and white chocolate bread pudding, and other delectables I enjoyed tremendously but don’t remember how to pronounce or spell, Louisiana food is heavenly.

Savoring is a highly recommended happiness strategy, and lots of savoring goes on in the Lafayette environs — even a seemingly ordinary convenience store was filled with enticing aromas, emanating in part from the tastiest onion rings I’ve ever eaten.  Additionally, food here seems often to be created and dished out lovingingly, as well as received gratefully.  Pleasure and kindness combined.  All good.

Is it really coincidence that five other Louisiana cities made the top 10 list in a 2014 academic report?  The researchers used data from the highly respected Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. In contrast, my food assertion is founded largely on non-scientific, non-rigorous personal experience — which also tells me there’s more to the story than food.  The full Louisiana happiness recipe contains many other ingredients.

A Listening Tour: Let me back up and explain a bit about The Happiness Walk, which is part of GNHUSA. Essentially, this step-by-step enterprise is one big qualitative research project. From Stowe, Vermont in August 2012 to Washington, D.C., down the eastern seaboard to Jacksonville, Florida before turning west, The Happiness Walk records thousands of interviews with “regular” people all along the way.  By the time we hit Los Angeles, then Seattle, and finally arrive home in Vermont in late 2018, we will have listened to many, many thousands of people share what matters most to them in life.  The interviews will be transcribed, and the data analyzed by academics.

Our listening is heartfelt, and the interviews are voluntary.  Here as elsewhere, not everyone wanted anything to talk with us.  Wherever we listen, it’s not a quantitative scientific sampling.  Still, we did find Lafayette to be especially happy.

I even have some data to back up our personal observations: in Lafayette, we had more offers of hosts, meals, and drivers than we could actually use.  That has never happened before.  Though individuals are amazingly generous to us wherever we go, the collective and varied Louisiana generosity reached a new level.  In addition to food, rides, and housing, we received:

  • Gifts of time, as groups of locals joined us on the Walk and evening gatherings;
  • Gifts of knowledge, with arranged walks to NUNU (which is pioneering a shared arts economy and reviving the area’s French heritage) and to Avery Island, where Tabasco Sauce is made (and where we sampled jalapeno ice cream);
  • Unsolicited cash donations; and
  • A surprise trip to a Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans, topped off with a souvenir gold lame pantsuit!

Beyond the data, there was an intangible joie-de-vivre (joy of life) on this trip.  Everywhere, the motto seemed to be laissez les bons temps roulez (let the good times roll) — no matter life’s very real challenges. 

That spirit was on full display when we arrived at our host Jeannette’s house just in time for a party with gumbo, etoufee, and King Cake.  Many of the guests that night belong to the “Bluebirds,” a cancer survivor’s group.  They were celebrating one Bluebird’s birthday — but they were also celebrating and grieving Cecile, another Bluebird who had died of breast cancer just a month earlier.

This is not fake, pasted-on-smiles happiness.  These folks are not in denial of the bad stuff life dishes out.  Since Lafayette is an oil town, and that industry is struggling, the area is facing serious economic turmoil with foreclosures and lay-offs.  We heard all too many cancer stories.  And we were told of widespread poverty in the region. There’s plenty to cope with.  Letting the good times roll seems to be a well-tuned coping mechanism.

I’m not an anthropologist, and we were only there for a week.  That said, here are other factors that seem to be at the core of Louisiana happiness:

  1. Heritage.  The whole trip, we were in the thick of French Acadian, or Cajun, culture.  At Jeannette’s party, I asked one of the guests how other people could be as happy as they all seemed to be.  “You have to be born here,” was the reply.
  2. Families. Everywhere we go, we hear how important families are, but there was a different flavor here.  Seemingly, Acadian families stay close together — all the better to let the good times roll.  We met a man in nearby Krotz Springs who was paralyzed from the chest down in an automobile accident.  Yet he told us he is a very happy man, in part because he’s built a wheelchair accessible party room and deck, with space for boiling crawfish with all the grandchildren.
  3. Fun. Then there was Andrew in Arnaudville.  He showed us his newly-renovated family homestead, complete with a huge deck and covered cooking area, and camper hook-ups, so his whole family can come have fun together.  And let us not forget the distinctive Cajun music and dance, which we enjoyed very much on a night out with Jeannette.
  4. Faith.  We hear this a lot, too, especially in the South.  Here, though, people didn’t seem to wear their faith on their sleeves as much as other places, perhaps because Roman Catholicism is the dominant religion.  It all felt much more laissez-faire.

My biggest takeaway? I’m not Catholic, I don’t speak French, and, sadly, I don’t think there’s much hope for me in the food department.  Instead, I want to lift up the joy.  I want to celebrate more!  Last Saturday, I donned the gold lame and Mardi Gras beads.  I just might wear them this coming Saturday, too.  It’s not a natural fit, but you know what they say: laissez les bons temps roulez!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Category:

Community, Coping, Food, Relationships

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The Christmas Blog I Don’t Have Time to Write

Me and my Yankee Gift Exchange prize a few years ago.

Me and my Yankee Gift Exchange prize a few years ago.

Back in the 1980’s, before my plunge into working as a full time watercolor artist ate up every ounce of my creative time and energy, I used to make our annual Christmas cards.  I spent months playing around with ideas as part of my endeavor to make every card clever and quirky, especially after feedback from friends about how much they anticipated the yearly Sassaman Christmas card.

One year, the pressure was just too much.  Instead of making cards, I photocopied Edvard Munch’s haunting painting “The Scream,” and typed a little message of apology, noting that I was just too busy to make cards that year.  Word to the wise: “The Scream” is a poor choice for a holiday card!  I tried to soften it up by putting foil stars on the eyeballs, but it was still pretty horrifying.  Nonetheless, that non-card card was one of my favorites.

Over the decades, I’ve shed a lot of the Christmas season “shoulds.”  No more cards, for example.  No Christmas cookies.  No wreath on the door.  No careful arranging of the Santa Claus collection, and stocking up on candles. Fewer and less grand presents.  I like to give and receive presents, and I don’t want to be a Scrooge but a) out of control consumerism is wrecking the planet, so that’s a poor way to celebrate peace and love and b) research has shown that we get a much bigger bang for our happiness buck by buying experiences rather than things.  My family and I are happy to honor that research with a Christmas-at-the-beach vacation.

Still, I’m feeling pressure!  Once again, the pressure is self-created, stemming from my drive to create.  Maybe because I’ve been newly accepted into The Huffington Post’s blogging community, my brain is on fire!  There is so much I want to write.  The blogs and the book outline are piling up in my grey matter.

For example, I really wanted to write a blog about the importance of receiving.  I was going to question, when there’s so much emphasis on generosity as key to our personal happiness, don’t we need folks on the other end to do the receiving?  I would have written that receiving is also giving.  I would have suggested reviewing what has been giving to you recently — compliments, wisdom, household help, meals, hugs, cards, invitations, hosts.  I would have urged you to be gracious and grateful receivers, to smile and say thank you (rather than, “oh, it’s nothing”) — though, not all the time. I would have explained why “no” sometimes makes common and moral sense, referring to Sonja Lyubomirsky’s precautions in The How of Happiness chapter on kindness.

Oh, it would have been sublime! I’m sure of it — heartfelt and inspiring.  Sigh. I just don’t have time to write it.

One reason I am out of time is that I spent the last two days cleaning my house.  I’m not that interested in the minutia of life, including housecleaning, but last night I hosted the 10th annual “Women of Maple Corner Yankee Gift Exchange.” I live on a dirt road, and we heat with a wood stove.  Believe me, I had to clean. I mean, we can take “permission to be human” just so far.

As the cleaning ate up all my writing time, I began to get resentful.  I knew I’d appreciate a clean house and that I’d enjoy the annual holiday gathering, but without the party, I could have been writing.  Instead, I had lists of things to do — including writing, which never got crossed off.

Though to-do lists get a bad name, to a certain extent, they bring me comfort.  I love crossing items off; it gives me a sense of achievement. I even add items after the fact just so I can cross them off, ideally, with a thick dark marker.  Martin Seligman’s P.E.R.M.A. research is fun to consider once again, since the “A” stands for accomplishment.  Of course I like crossing off completed tasks.  It’s science!

Still, on my hands and knees washing the far corners of the kitchen floor, I had plenty of time to think about what I was not accomplishing.  Thankfully, with still more time, on my hands and knees scrubbing the living room carpet, I flipped that thinking around.  Rather than perseverate over what I haven’t accomplished, I thought it might be a good idea to appreciate what an awesome year of accomplishments and adventures I have had.  You may be familiar with this Mark Twain quote, or others like it: “Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more.  If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.”  This seems just as applicable to what we do.  If we look only at what we haven’t done, we will never, ever be satisfied.

Which brings me to hedonic adaptation.  Humans are amazingly adaptable.  Good fortune, misfortune — whatever hits us, we adapt.  In many ways, this is a wonderful healing trait, as it enables us to find our footing and our smiles once again when life has slammed us into a wall.  The flipside is also the downside: what once excited us, what once brought us pleasure, over time becomes ordinary — which leaves us pursuing new excitement and pleasure elsewhere, often at great expense.

However, with an awareness of this process — that is, with mindfulness — we can take steps to maximize our pleasure and minimize the hedonic greying of what brings us joy.  Taking time to savor what I’ve already done, rather than pining for what is not going to happen in this moment, is a way to reclaim some excitement from the hedonic dustbin.

Yesterday I realized that my relationship with the yankee swap had also fallen victim to hedonic adaptation.  When my friend Nel and I started this party 10 years ago, I was thrilled to have found a place in the Maple Corner calendar of annual traditional events — right up there with Heidi and Lewis’s Martin Luther King Day commemoration, Nancy and Artie’s Mardis Gras (not to mention Barnstock!), Julie’s Channukah pot luck, Maria’s caroling, and JC’s New Year’s Eve blow out.  From the first, the Yankee Swap was a huge success — crowded, funny, and even environmental sound.  Everyone brought a wrapped present that was something she already owned — no new shopping allowed.  Redistributing those presents is where the fun comes in.  All of these parties are also a critical element in building community, the kind of community we need when the not-fun times come along.

Fortunately — maybe thanks to my ongoing meditation practice — I realized yesterday that I had adapted to the excitement of hosting this great event.  To reclaim some of my previous joy, I turned to gratitude.  Yay gratitude!  It so often can pull us out of an unnecessary slump.  Coming from a stance of gratitude, it is easy to appreciate how incredibly blessed I am to not only live in such a fun and supportive community but also to have my own ways of contributing. Really, I am lucky to host this party, together with my new co-host Roni.  Plus my kitchen floor hasn’t been this clean in years.

Last night’s party was the biggest, most boisterous one yet.  It was an evening filled with special moments, like welcoming brand new neighbors to the sisterhood of Maple Corner women; the dancing penguin Christmas ornament that made me laugh to the point of tears; an unexpectedly funny exchange about dyeing hair; a wrapped present that looked like a Dr. Seuss book; and a poignant moment, when one woman’s integrity demanded she “steal” back a present which had broken, a present which she had anonymously given in the first place.  Her generosity in reclaiming the broken gift resulted in a flood of presents to her at the end.

I am deeply grateful to provide the physical and emotional space for these magical happenings.

One final note about hedonic adaptation.  For years and years, the only thing I wanted in this world was beyond my grasp: I ached to become a grandmother. In 2012, that miracle happened with boatloads of joy, love, excitement, etc.  But time moves on relentlessly.  Our little newborn is now three years old, an accepted fact in our lives.  Sure, she’s not the exciting new infant she once was — but when I take the time to step back, to be mindful, to be grateful — my heart nearly explodes with happiness.

Soon, I will be with my granddaughter and other family members for two weeks.  No more to-do lists, no pressure (I hope) — but lots of savoring and gratitude.  We are all likely to be awash in holiday happiness.

May you as well find your way to a peaceful and joyous holiday.

 

 

 

Category:

Community, Giving And Receiving, Gratitude, Meditation, Personal Happiness, Savoring

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Funerals: An Important Piece of the Happiness Puzzle

Deviled eggs for the reception following my friend Melanie's memorial service.

Deviled eggs for the reception following my friend Melanie’s memorial service.

My friend Melanie passed away about a month ago.  Though she died of natural causes, it still seemed sudden. Certainly she was much too young — only 56.

Her memorial service was sad.  Her widower and young adult children put on brave faces, but we could all feel their heartache, along with our own sorrow.  Yet, paradoxically, funerals like Melanie’s can be an important piece of the happiness puzzle.  This may not be true for all funerals.  When my friend Kathy was murdered by her husband (who then committed suicide), her service was a wrenching river of sobs.  Also, for the immediate family and closest of friends, the weight of grief and shock may be overwhelming for some time to come — though even for them, in the midst of pain, there is ample room for gratitude.  For the rest of us, when people who are not children die because their bodies give out, funerals and memorial services can strengthen our individual and collective happiness muscles.

Not that I was happy at the end of the day. I wasn’t.  I was weary, and wanted to do nothing other than take a hot bath and drink a glass of wine.  Spending my day making a couple dozen deviled eggs for the post-memorial service reception, then attending the service and reception, before collapsing sadly at home is not my idea of a good time.  However, to live a meaningful life (without which true happiness may well be impossible), we have to do a lot of things we’d rather not.  Just look at the other end of the life spectrum, and ask parents of newborns how much they enjoy sleep deprivation and all the other sacrifices they are making to raise flourishing children. Love, relationships, integrity — all come with a price tag.

It is easy to be happy in happy circumstances.  It is much harder to find the joy and beauty in life under difficult circumstances.  I am beginning to believe this ability is a key distinction between happier people and less happy people. During times of normal sadness (not extreme circumstances) two strategies may be particularly helpful:

  1. Benefit finding — more popularly known as looking for the silver linings; and
  2. The power of “and” — that is, the capacity to hold onto more than one concept at the same time, even if they seem contradictory (for example, both sweetness and sorrow).  Indeed, maybe the “and” is necessary.  As Francis Bacon said, “In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.”

Also, I write this with all due respect to Melanie, who was a writer herself.  Not only that, Melanie studied happiness with me and even taught it to her high school English students.  Melanie loved learning, and inquiry into human affairs.  She had two Master’s degrees, one in English Literature from Oxford.  I’m pretty sure she would appreciate the Francis Bacon quote, and my introspection.  So, allowing for the sorrow and the benefits, here are some silver linings from her memorial service and reception:

1. Funerals allow us to feel our feelings.  When I learned that Melanie had died, I sort of went numb.  I was entertaining out-of-town visitors for several days, and had to focus on their needs and welfare.  All I could think about Melanie was, “this makes no sense.”  She was supposed to have joined me for a meditation class the evening before she died.  I just could not wrap my head around the fact that she was dead. I knew I should be crying, but the tears wouldn’t come.  Finally, finally, as I sat in a pew waiting for the service to begin, I could feel my tears begin, too.

The crying was important. As Tal Ben-Shahar points out in his book Being Happy:

  • “All our feelings flow along the same emotional pipeline, so when we block painful emotions, we are also indirectly blocking pleasurable ones. … Painful emotions are an inevitable part of the experience of being human, and therefore rejecting them is ultimately rejecting part of our humanity.  To lead a fulfilling life — a happy life — we need to allow ourselves the range of human emotions.  In other words, we need to give ourselves the permission to be human.”

2. Funerals help us be good.  Back in 2005, a woman named Deidre Sullivan shared her “This I Believe” essay on NPR, an essay entitled “Always Go to the Funeral.” Though I love the “This I Believe” series, Sullivan’s essay is the only one I can remember — not the words, just the profound importance of showing up in these critical moments.  A few years ago, my son gave me a book of “This I Believe” essays, including Sullivan’s.  Here’s part of what she wrote:

  • “‘Always Go to the Funeral’ means that I have to do the right thing when I really, really don’t feel like it.  I have to remind myself of it when I could make some small gesture, but I don’t really have to and I definitely don’t want to.  I’m talking about those things that represent only inconvenience to me, but the world to the other guy.  You know, the painfully unattended birthday party.  The hospital visit during happy hour.  The shiva call for one of my ex’s uncles.  In my humdrum life, the daily battle hasn’t been between good versus evil.  It’s hardly so epic.  Most days, my real battle is doing good versus doing nothing.”

I wouldn’t say I definitely didn’t want want to attend the service, exactly.  I knew that would be a time to learn more about Melanie’s life, and to give and receive love with fellow mourners. What I didn’t want to do was make the deviled eggs.  Yet that too is love, and necessary.  Nor did I want to make dinner to take to the grieving family.  I’m not much of a cook, so these were the inconveniences for me.  In my humdrum battle of “doing good versus doing nothing,” both heart and conscience dictated that I choose good.

3. Funerals build community. The deviled eggs and meal train obligations weren’t just for Melanie and her family — I was also upholding my community obligations. In 2001, we moved to this corner of Vermont because we wanted to live in a strong community, and boy, do we!  When word of Melanie’s death spread, so did the phone calls and emails: who will sing in the pick-up choir?  What meals does the family need, and who is organizing? How about the reception — how do we sign up for that?  How about setting up, and cleaning up? What else does the family need?

Our ability to come together is no accident.  We work — and play — at building community, all year long, year after year, probably for several centuries now.  We all do our part, in ways large and small, from helping to organize the winter Mardis Gras, marching in the Fourth of July parade, setting up tables for the Corn Roast — and, showing up for the funerals. Melanie’s service both displayed the strength of our community, and further strengthened it.

Perhaps appropriately, a toddler’s birthday party took place in our community center just a few hours before the post-memorial service reception.  The full panoply of life, made better by community.

During the service itself, I marveled at and felt grateful for everyone in attendance.  Melanie’s community.  My community.  We can all count on it, because we all show up.  I was overwhelmed by the love and also the awareness that each of us is here only temporarily.  At the reception, I hugged two (of many) cherished community members and friends, told each that I loved her and was grateful for her, and received similar warmth in return.  I also spent a lot of time in the kitchen doing the dishes, because this is what community is all about.

For Melanie, here’s another Francis Bacon quote: “There is no man that imparteth his joy to his friends, but he joyeth the more; and no man that imparteth his grief to his friends but he grieveth the less.”

We share the joy, we share the grief, we share the cooking and cleaning up.  We build community.

4. Funerals open the door to valuable introspection. A few winters back, I took a week long online happiness course from the Pursuit of Happiness folks. One of the assignments was to consider what we wanted the speakers at our own funerals to say.  I think this is an incredibly valuable exercise, and one that naturally arises while attending a memorial service.  What will be said about me?

Maybe that sounds narcissistic, but I actually find it a helpful touchstone.  As we go through our ordinary days, adding up to our lifetimes — what do we want that final tally to look like?

That’s one aspect of introspection.  The other is, what do you not want to regret at death’s door?  You, me — who wants to be dying and say, but wait!!  I always meant to (fill in the blank).  Too late, then.

In 2012, a palliative care nurse named Bonnie Ware published the results of her inquiry into the regrets of hospice care patients.  Her study, “Top Five Regrets of the Dying” found these five common themes: “1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. 2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.  3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings. 4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. 5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.”

When I die, I want to say, I am satisfied, not “I wish.”  I want to be comfortable with having led a full, rich life.  One that included funerals and deviled eggs.  A life of love, service, fun, and courage.  One that was as happy as possible.  That’s what I’m working on.  How about you?

 

 

 

 

Category:

Community, Coping, Personal Happiness, Relationships, Uncategorized

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