Genuine well being for ourselves and the planet

Archive for the ‘Environmental Concerns’ Category

So Many Ways To Give

No, this is not an early Christmas essay about handmade gifts or alternative holiday rituals.   Rather, I am moved to write about giving and happiness — specifically, my gratitude at finding a way to help survivors of Hurricane  Sandy despite my constrained finances.

In the past, when major disasters struck, my normal reaction was whipping out my American Express card and charging a donation, or several donations to organizations with complementary missions.    Of course, that was a good thing to do.  Indeed, just this morning NPR broadcast a story on the desirability of sending money rather than stuff to assist Sandy survivors.   Making a cash donation gave me a happiness boost, and, much more importantly, helped the recipients on their long road to recovery.

Right now, though, the American Express route isn’t viable.  I am not yet making enough money through my happiness work to shoulder my share of our household bills.  No complaints,  I’m sure I’ll get there — but in the meantime, I’ve put a lot of financial stress on my husband.  I’ve got to fix things on the home front before sending money elsewhere.

Still, I wanted so much to help.  I  believe the suffering families in New Jersey and New York are victims of climate change, something each and every one of us contributes to — which is to say, I feel a sense of obligation to them.  What could I do?

The answer came late last Saturday afternoon.  Through an email list serve, I learned of a truck leaving Montpelier for the Rockaways the following afternoon.  This driver had a list of requested donations, including blankets.  Blankets!  Yay, I had  several extra warm and cozy blankets which I washed, dried, folded, bagged, and delivered to the truck driver.  Small though this gesture is in light of the need, I was nonetheless grateful for this opportunity to help.

It’s a virtuous cycle.  It’s hard to feel unhappy and grateful at the same time.  And, almost every list of happiness strategies I’ve seen stresses the importance of giving to others as a way to feel better.  I’m willing to bet that Winston Churchill was no happiness expert, but this quote attributed to him does a good job of capturing the importance of generosity: “We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.”

I’m also pretty sure that Mother Theresa was not, alas, very happy, but no one could argue that she wasn’t generous.  She knew that,  “It’s not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.”

That strikes me as a valuable insight.  Is the giving heartfelt?  If we are grudging or callous, our gifts may help the recipient, but we aren’t likely to get much of a happiness boost.  Not that a happiness boost should be the goal.  While giving can bestow happy feelings on the donor, it really needs to be about the recipient first and foremost.  No strings attached, and certainly not an opportunity to offload unwanted junk for the giver’s own benefit.

A gift from the heart I was so pleased to receive — a heartfelt gift from a four year-old.

Okay, bearing that in mind, I’ve been mulling over ways to give, including cash.  In my community,  some neighbors needed extra financial help recently to pull through some daunting challenges, and many friends and neighbors donated much needed money.  But we also provided meals.  Though I’m not a great cook, I did my best to concoct tasty meals for my friends.  This is stressful for me, thanks to time and money shortages and my insecurity as a cook — yet,  always, I felt really good about having climbed on board the meal train.

Giving can be simple or elaborate.  After the Haitian earthquake, a neighbor up the street organized a fundraising “cabaret” at our community center.  She went to a lot of trouble — hanging curtains, bringing in more intimate furniture, lining up refreshments and musical acts.  The result was memorable, an evening that raised a lot of money for Haiti and strengthened our local community as well.

There was another benefit concert a few years ago for a young family whose house had burned down. Mom, dad, and two toddlers just barely escaped into the -14 degree January night.  In connection with the concert, I solicited donations for a silent auction, which raised another $1,000 or so to help them rebuild.   I am so glad I put the effort into that event; I still feel a special connection to this now happily thriving family.

Last year, when Vermonters were hammered by Tropical Storm Irene, I was especially impressed by the many, many people who pitched in to do the physically hard and unpleasant work of  mucking out nasty flood debris.  For a variety of reasons, I never did that.  I did donate money; went to fundraising concerts; gathered up books to take to help restock a flooded library; and helped my church target monthly congregational giving to both general flood relief and relief for hard-hit farmers.  But, because I didn’t do any of the physical clean up, my efforts never felt sufficient.

Okay, so I’m not a giving super hero — and maybe that’s just as well.  A few months ago, I interviewed Kathryn Blume for an article in Vermont Woman.  “We don’t serve anyone by burning ourselves out,” she told me.  “Any cause we engage in is going to be bigger than we are.  We can give everything we’ve got, and it will still be there.”  An astute observation, for sure.

Last week I interviewed Paula Francis and Linda Wheatley for an article to be published in Vermont Woman  in February.  In early October, Paula and Linda completed a Pursuit of Happiness Walk from Stowe, Vermont to Washington, D.C. — a walk which was filled with giving.  Their gift to others was listening to the heart-felt reflections on happiness from hundreds of regular folks.  In return, they received the gift of witnessing individuals open up and share their hearts.  There were plenty of tangible gifts, too — like the owner of a diner where they had stopped who came running after them to make sure they had pretzels — but the intangibles were what made the walk profound.

So how many ways are there to give?  Is it infinite?  My daughter posted a super cool video on my Facebook wall of a young man performing 22 acts of random kindness to celebrate his 22nd birthday (my daughter proposes making this a new family tradition).  There are a lot of good ideas in here!

While working on this blog, I found an Arab proverb which loops back to my dilemma of what to give if not money AND addresses the “heart” of my message here:   “If you have much, give of your wealth; If you have little, give of your heart.”

How about you?  What does giving mean to you?

Category:

Environmental Concerns, Giving And Receiving, Taking Care of Ourselves, Uncategorized, Vermont

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Is Happiness Escapist?

Is happiness escapist?

This question, which came up at a happiness workshop on a lovely Sunday afternoon in Vermont a little over 24 hours before Super Storm Sandy hit the U.S.,  carried extra weight in the following days as we witnessed the storm’s massive destruction and personal tragedies.  Most painful was the news about a Staten Island woman whose two young sons were swept from her arms by powerful waves as she tried to carry them to safety.  Both little boys drowned.  I cried at her despair.

Even worse, though, is the foreboding I feel.  I know I am not alone in believing Sandy is the new “normal.”  I suspect there will be many more neighborhoods aflame, beautiful beaches and treasured covered bridges washed away, and toddlers dying.

And, we all have our normal garden variety of suffering to deal with: aging, failing bodies; money worries; heartbreak from our own and others’ failings; and, ultimately, death.  For all of us.

In fact, I’m feeling a little sad while I write this blog.  Yet, on both a micro and macro level, my answer to the title question is a resounding no.   Quite the opposite, really.  For me, cultivating happiness, positivity, and well being is a moral imperative on both the big systemic and deeply personal levels.

Some of the water jugs we had filled in case Sandy knocked out our power for an extended time.

Why?  Most urgently, because, on both a personal and societal level we are chasing the wrong goals: money and material success.  I know that is not all that many of us seek.  We are also spiritual beings, who treasure and nourish relationships and the opportunity to do good and to create.  And we are physical creatures, who dance and have sex and go to yoga class. Nonetheless, because our economy is fixated on growth, the pressure on us to buy and spend is enormous.  The resulting consumerism is trashing the environment.

To begin to ameliorate the insidious, unpredictable effects of climate change, we must reject the sacred cow of a growth economy.  Equally, we must understand that a rising Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is not a valid  indicator of a flourishing society.  This is not a new idea; Bobby Kennedy eloquently articulated the flaws of GDP way back in 1968.  I’ve watched a video of his GDP speech many, many times and it still moves me to tears.  Today, viewing it again, I want to add “the ravages of a hurricane” to RFK’s list of what contributes to a “healthy” GDP.

One other quick primer on how destructive consumerism is:  “The Story of Stuff.”  If you haven’t watched it yet, I highly recommend investing the 20+ minutes this smart, sassy video lasts.  And, BTW, happier people shop less.

But what will take the place of a growth economy, consumerism, and GDP? Something needs to fill the vacuum.  That something should be a Gross National Happiness (GNH) paradigm — or, in more politically palatable terms, the genuine well being of people and the planet.  Systemically, embracing happiness is embracing a sustainable future.

On the personal level, first of all, I have to question what good it does anybody for me, or you, to be unhappy?  How is that going to help fix anything?

But it’s not just me.  Sages from across the millenia — the Dalai Lama and Aristotle, for example — say that happiness is what all humans desire.  The Dalai Lama has also written that whenever we interact with another person, we can add either to that individual’s happiness or to their unhappiness.  Thanks to mirror neurons, we are much more likely to boost another’s spirits if we ourselves are in a happier place.

When I was at the national happiness conference in Seattle in August, I learned a simple but profound exercise from Scott Crabtree, proprietor of “Happy Brain Science.”  Scott divided the group into paired-up “A’s” and “B’s” and then instructed the “A’s” to maintain sober facial expressions while looking at the “B’s” who were instructed to smile, smile, smile at their partners.  You can guess, it is just impossible to not smile back!

Of course, I am not recommending fake cheeriness or inauthentic saccharine behavior.  What I am suggesting is, as Christine Carter puts it in Raising Happiness, that we need to “put on our own oxygen masks first” when it comes to helping others be happier.

Thanks to positive psychology research and multiple other studies on human behavior, we now know that nurturing happiness builds our own ability to respond to crises and to serving others in their moments of need.  Positivity breeds greater resilience, and the ability to see and appreciate silver linings.  Happier people are kinder — and kinder people are happier.  Happiness is also good for our health, and, damn, sometimes we need to be strong and healthy to fight the good fight!

Another powerful argument for strengthening our happiness muscles is the value of mindfulness.  Taking time to meditate and build personal awareness is one of the most important happiness strategies any of us can adopt.  With mindfulness comes greater compassion (for ourselves and others), more inner peace, less stress — and, the ability to make better decisions.  “To lead a happy life, we need to make good choices,” write father and son happiness mavens Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener, “and this involves the recognition that problems arise, even in good circumstances”  (Understanding True Wealth, p. 18).

The circumstances in North Central Vermont were very good indeed — a sunny, warm, late autumn day — as Sandy was headed our way.  Even way up here, we were warned of very high winds and the likelihood of losing power.  It was time for mindfulness and good decisions: after watching Tropical Storm Irene devastate much of Vermont last year, we knew that if the power went out, it could stay out for a long, long time.  Our wood stove and gas range meant we could stay warm and cook hot meals.  But our well needs electricity to work, so we stockpiled pitchers, jars, trash cans, and bottles of water to drink, clean, take care of the baby, and flush the toilets.

The storm wobbled a bit to the west and we never needed all that extra water.  But the threat was — and is — quite real.  My sister Peggy in New Jersey is now in Day 8 of no power, no heat, no water.  It is, she says, “the pits.” I can’t regret for a moment my choices to stockpile water; I am grateful for mindfulness and the awareness to “be prepared.”  (After all, I was once a Girl Scout!)

Diener and Biswas-Diener also observe, “challenges look easier when you are happy.”   I’ll tell you something else that makes my challenges look easier: coffee!   I don’t drink a lot, but, oh, that first cup in the morning is a savoring experience every single day.  During our preparations for Sandy, I became very mindful that I had wholly inadequate coffee preparations.  Next time, I will make even better choices, stocking up on coffee (ground!) as well as water.

That’s not a moral imperative, of course — but, it will help me keep smiling!

Category:

Environmental Concerns, Personal Happiness, The Happiness Movement, Vermont

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The Urgency Of Sharing Happiness

In early July, I spent hours and hours painting 170 glittery hearts on small rocks I pick up while walking on Vermont’s dirt roads.

170 heart stones ready to hand out at the parade

I normally give heart stones to people who come to the Happiness Paradigm Store and Experience as a tangible reminder of how important generosity is to happiness.  This batch of stones was specifically painted to hand out to spectators at Montpelier‘s Fourth of July parade.  A group of friends and family joined me in a Happiness Paradigm contingent, including my husband Bob playing happy songs on the ukulele with a miscellaneous group of back-up singers.

Two children — 3 year-old Edwin and 5 year-old Avery — were the primary stone givers.  Edwin was low key in his baseball cap, but Avery was sporting an amazing face painting, a cape, a wizard hat, and bells strapped to her shoes so she made music when she ran — which she did, quite earnestly, to put the stones in welcoming hands.  Anyone fortunate enough to get a stone from either child had to have experienced a surge of happiness.

Edwin and Avery, getting ready for the parade to start.

It was a delightful and lighthearted experience — and, very, very serious.

Working in the happiness field has a multitude of rewards, but what truly motivates me is my concern for the environment — more precisely, climate change.  I am a strong believer in the urgent to need to shift our personal and societal definitions of success toward genuine well being and away from money and material goods.  The latter not only fails to take happiness into consideration but also feeds our runaway consumerism.  This, among other evils, trashes the environment to such an extent that our very survival as a species is in peril. Whereas, following the happiness path is a map toward a compassionate and sustainable future.

You may think this is hyperbole, but I don’t mean it as such.  Many brilliant, sober, knowledgeable individuals have connected the dots between our obsession with a growth economy and the destruction of the earth, our home.  For just one quick example, check out Annie Leonard and “The Story of Stuff.”  It is no accident that everything for sale at The Happiness Paradigm is re-cycled or re-purposed.

But back to the parade … our weather that evening was heavenly, an absolutely perfect summer blessing.  The same could not be said for Washington, D.C. where we lived for several decades before moving to Vermont.

The weather there was dreadful.  The unprecedented derecho that clobbered D.C. residents — along with millions of others from Chicago through West Virginia and out to the Atlantic Ocean — was enormously destructive.  At least 22 people died, and nearly 4 million customers were without electricity for nearly a week — a period of “unrelenting, stifling heat,” according to an AccuWeather.com report.

That means, many millions of folks were truly suffering.

I knew heat when I lived in D.C.  One summer weekend, when our kids were away at summer camp in Vermont, the temperature crept into the low 100’s.  My husband and I got cold salads from the grocery store and camped out in our bedroom, where we had a window air conditioning unit.  It was just too hot to be anywhere else in the house.  We did go to a movie that night, and I remember standing in line outside the theater in the early evening when it was still hot and humid enough for sweat to roll down my back.

One weekend of that in the 1980’s was kinda fun.  It’s not fun anymore — especially when you factor in the fires, floods, tornadoes, and a drought being compared to the dust bowl, all in our country in the last year.  Scary.

And scarier: read Bill McKibben’s new article in Rolling Stone magazine: “Global Warming’s Terrifying Math.”  McKibben, who strikes me as more of a straight-shooter than a fear monger, says he is almost without hope that future humans will be able to survive on this planet.

It just doesn’t get any bleaker.

Fortunately for me, I’ve also been reading Barbara Frederickson’s seminal book, Positivity.   Frederickson’s words are helping me keep my own spirits buoyed, which is absolutely a good thing.  Her years of research have proven that negativity shrinks our ability to see options.  Positivity demonstrably leads to greater resilience and increased creativity in problem solving.

Frederickson calls this broadening, and I saw this principle at work yesterday after a session of laughter yoga at the Happiness Paradigm.  We were discussing why happiness matters in light of climate change, and one participant observed that when we’re happier, we have much broader vision and greater appreciation for the beauty of the natural world around us.  Thus, we will be much more motivated to take better care of the environment.

Another giant in the positive psychology field, Martin Seligman, stresses that working from strengths makes us individually happier — and his website has a free test anyone can take to learn more about what our personal strengths are.  It also seems extraordinarily practical to know how to make our best contributions to tackle the challenges ahead.

Happier people are also more optimistic, a precious trait in tough times.  As Seligman, puts it:

“Optimism is invaluable for the meaningful life.  With a firm belief in a positive future, you can throw yourself into the service of that which is larger than you are.”

There is an awful lot right now that is larger than we are, tribulations that will severely test our resilience, and tremendous problems that will demand widespread creativity to solve.  Frederickson and Seligman both remind me of the urgency in spreading happiness.  So does this Albert Einstein quote recently making its way through social media:  “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

The “same thinking” has been the growth economy.  We need a new paradigm to solve the problems.  A happiness paradigm.  ASAP.

Category:

Environmental Concerns

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Love, Not Blame

A few weeks back, I sat on the sunny and warm front porch of my daughter’s Alabama home.  I’d come to visit during her pregnancy — a very happy development.  While she worked on lesson plans for her theater students, I read Paul Gilding’s amazing book, The Great Disruption: Why the Climate Crisis Will Bring On the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World.  

Gilding uses a ream of scientific evidence to demonstrate that there is simply no escaping a devastating environmental and economic crisis.  It is on the way, maybe even here already.  Some countries will end up underwater.  Many species will die out.  Millions of lives will be lost.

But then … and this is the part I really like … we humans will discard the growth economy, and create instead “the happiness economy.”  His words, I’m pleased to say!   Indeed, Gilding says millions and millions of people all across the planet are already creating new systems and new ways of being for the post-growth economy.  Since that’s what I’m trying to do with The Happiness Paradigm, I felt a great sense of belonging.

Somehow, I managed to slide right past the “millions of lives lost” to the “happiness economy.”  Well, why not?  I can’t at this point save those lives.  My energy can be better spent on helping to inflate the life raft of hope.

On my way home, I went straight from the airport to the Unitarian Church of Montpelier for a workshop on “Climate Change and What You Can Do About It.” One of the speakers was Kathy Blume, a particularly bubbly environmental activist who ended her presentation by displaying a green heart decal.  The decal, she explained, symbolized a commitment to adopting an approach of love as we face a future with enormous environmental, economic and social challenges.

Gilding’s and Blume’s optimism definitely spoke to me — on some deep level, it seems.  I woke up the next morning determined to make green heart pins from recycled paper and leftover glitter, beads and other fun items folks have been donating to me.  Wearing these pins can be a very visible declaration of love — love for our beautiful planet, for the plants and animals and for all the wonderful  humans who make us happy and also drive us crazy.

So I got to work and created these pins.  Whenever I sell one, I also explain what they symbolize.  Maybe they’ll even catch on, like pink ribbons for breast cancer research.  Maybe the pins will just result in a few smiles.  Either result will be a good one.

Category:

Environmental Concerns