Eudaimonia
This is not the first time I’ve given the beautiful Peter Darbyshire a shoutout on TwB, and likely not the last. In his recent newsletter he mentioned a book that called to me immediately and which I read posthaste, titled The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor.
Honestly I usually avoid such books like the plague, so to speak. I don’t enjoy the simplifications that business-y self-help books about golden unicorns usually offer. So I’m not sure what called me to this book by an author famous for TedTalks and meeting Oprah. I’m on the side of the worker, for one thing, being one and all that, and most of these books are geared toward managers/leaders. Anyway, obviously, it was reading Peter’s newsletter that sold me.
I’ve written posts lately mentioning the small boat of calm I’m trying to be, I’ve talked about Bruce Springsteen’s “fighting optimism,” and I’ve talked about concentrating on my 3 meters of influence, among other things, and I’ve talked about cultivating an elegant enthusiasm. I’ve tried to consider how I want to make others feel when I’m in their presence, when they’re in mine. I’ve written about Tom Hanks and how he is an “enthusiasm enthusiast.” (Me, too! Love that). I’ve also talked about coming back to ourselves and truing ourselves. I’ve long been fond of Margaret Wheatley’s words, Ask what is possible and not What’s wrong.”
In all honesty, this blog has really turned into finding ways to keep me from losing my sh*t, after having pretty much done aforementioned. There was a point a while back now where I hardcore was saying in my head, I don’t want to go on, and probably what saved me then was Samuel Beckett’s line, “I can’t go on, I’ll go on.” So, isn’t literature grand?
Back to the book, then. Achor mentions that for him the term used by Aristotle is the one that resonates for him: eudaimonia, which translates to “human flourishing.” He likes it because, “it acknowledges that happiness is not all about yellow smiley faces and rainbows. For me, happiness is the joy we feel striving after our potential.” He cites Barbara Fredrickson who lists the “ten most common positive emotions: “joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, awe, and love.” I dare say if you scroll back through my last many posts you’ll see that I write about pretty much all of these things.
So really, what this book did was validate my ramblings here :) (As well as on my Beauty Patreon where a recent post was about flourishing).
In short, Achor convincingly demonstrates that “we become more successful when we are happier and more positive.” He shows us how “positive brains have a biological advantage over brains that are neutral or negative” and that how we experience the world “constantly changes based on our mindset.” We are given tools to help us get unstuck, to “spot patterns of possibility” and he shows us how to focus on “small manageable goals” within a small circle. (3 meters of influence has been my recent fixation).
At work, I’ve long encouraged my co-workers to do “one fun thing every day.” And hey, Achor agrees. (The book was published in 2010 so this isn’t a new thought but from experience I can say for sure that it works. It helps). He says that having fun in a work environment means “employees experience a small burst of happiness, they get primed for creativity and innovation.” Which is fine. I do it because I like to be around happy people and to selfishly just be happier myself. Does it make me a better worker? Maybe. But I don’t even really think of myself as an employee when I’m at work. (This makes me a bad employee maybe haha?)
I like what he has to say about developing good habits, and he quotes from William James (Henry’s bro) about “daily strokes of effort.” I’ve talked often enough here about Rumi’s lines on submitting to a daily practice. And a lot of the book is about how reframing a situation mentally, changing our mindset to a more positive one, really does bring about our own flourishing, a eudaimonia. A useful chapter for me was on “falling up.” He talks about our mental maps after a crisis or adversity (pandemic anyone?), and about how there are two usual choices. In one, “the negative event creates no change” — you just circle around wherever you were. The second path, “leads you toward further negative consequences.” But there is a third path, which is growth. In this path, “mindset takes centre stage.” Those who bounce back to a happier self “define themselves not by what has happened to them, but by what they can make out of what has happened.” (I mean, not wildly profound, but good solid stuff, right?)
We’re making the best out of all the stuff that has happened. We have to, right? In another post I wrote about finding new ways to think and to re-frame, and I once again quoted the lines by James Crews: “I ask for just the slightest shift / in my thinking, the kindest sifting / of my busy mind, so only wonder / and peace are left behind.”
As you know, longtime readers, I wish for you to flower. And I think we all deserve to flourish. Happiness truly is contagious, just as calm is. Small habits and an attention to our mindset help.
Let’s end with the reminder of these reassuring words by Rumi:
THINGS ARE SUCH
Things are such, that someone lifting a cup,
or watching the rain, petting a dog,
or singing, just singing — could be doing as
much for the universe as anyone.
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