To Be Joyfully Determined

By the Reverend Joshua Pawelek

Can you recall a time when things weren’t going well for you?  When you didn’t feel quite right, didn’t feel quite like yourself—a time when there was some emotional or mental dissonance in your life; when you felt disconnected, depressed, anxious, weak, subdued, out-of-whack, broken; a time when your sense of purpose and meaning waned, and you sought help.  You sought help from a therapist—a psychologist or a psychiatrist or some other mental health professional; or you talked to a social worker or school guidance counselor.  Maybe you attended a twelve-step group, or an affinity group for bereavement, divorce, cancer.  Maybe you talked to a minister, priest or rabbi; maybe your doctor.  Maybe you turned to a friend you could trust to give good advice.  I assume most of you have been in this situation at some point: you’ve sought help when something didn’t feel quite right. 
            Put that memory aside and recall a time when things were going great, when you felt exactly like yourself—a time when you felt emotionally and mentally healthy; a time when you felt joyful, happy, inspired, powerful, whole; a time when you had a potent sense of purpose and meaning, and you sought help.  You said to yourself, “Wow, I feel so good I need help immediately!  I need help to figure out what I’m doing right so I can keep doing it; so I can do it more, do it better.”
My guess is there are few people to whom that thought occurs.  We don’t typically approach our lives this way.  At least in the United States, it’s fair to say we spend an awful lot of time and energy looking at what’s wrong with us, what our diseases are, what our weaknesses are, how to overcome them.  We don’t spend as much time and energy looking at what’s already right with us, what gives us joy and fulfillment, what our gifts are and how to use them well. 
            Happier is the title of the bestselling book by Tal Ben-Shahar.  With its bright yellow cover and vivid red lettering, with its seductive new-age style messaging (“Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment”) it has all the trappings of a cheesy self-help book at which I automatically snub my jaded, pious, Generation X, Masters of Divinity nose.  However, this past January, in search of continuing education credits, my wife Stephany enrolled in Positive Psychology 1504 at the Harvard University Extension School.  Positive Psychology 1504 is the most popular class at Harvard these days with an enrollment of over 1400.  The professor is Tal Ben-Shahar, author of Happier, the bright yellow book with the vivid red lettering. 
Steph and I share an office.  Since January, every night as I’ve been catching up on email and preparing sermons, she has been listening to Ben-Shahar’s lectures over the internet three feet away.  Thus, I have been listening to Ben-Shahar’s lectures and realizing this isn’t your standard new-age, snake-oil, self-help, happiness class for overstressed Harvard students in search of an easy A.  This is a very well-integrated survey of an increasing body of scientific studies of the nature of happiness and well-being.  The more I listen, the more I sense we could all benefit from a dose of Positive Psychology.  Ben-Shahar makes an important, if obvious-sounding point: So often we focus on what is wrong, and we let that focus determine the course of our lives.  What if we choose instead to focus on what is right, on what makes us happy, on what fulfills us? What if we choose instead to be joyfully determined?
            For more background on Positive Psychology I read a few articles on Stephany’s syllabus.  In the Review of General Psychology, Shelly Gable and Jonathan Haidt write that “in the second half of the 20th century, psychology learned much about depression, racism, violence, self-esteem management, irrationality, and growing up under adversity but had much less to say about character strengths, virtues, and the conditions that lead to high levels of happiness or civic engagement.”  They note that a majority of psychological studies focus on how to diagnose and treat mental illness and dysfunctional behavior, while almost never asking how to diagnose and enhance well-being. 
            Martin Seligman, considered by many to be the father of Positive Psychology, says the aim of Positive Psychology is to catalyze a change in the field of psychology from a preoccupation only with repairing the worst things in life to also building the best qualities in life.  “Psychology is not just the study of disease, weakness, and damage; it is also the study of strength and virtue. Treatment is not just fixing what is wrong; it is also building what is right.”  To be fair, in my experience there are many psychologists who already approach therapy this way.  And to be clear, no one in the Positive Psychology movement is suggesting that psychologists ought to stop studying and treating mental illness, dysfunctional families, alcohol and drug abuse, etc.  The Positive Psychology movement is simply appealing for balance—not only a focus on how we reduce the negative, but how we enhance the positive. 
Ben-Shahar says what we choose to see determines our reality.  When we look for certain things, we miss others.  If we look for evil and brokenness we will find it.  If we look for goodness, dignity, human worth and wholeness, we will find these things too.  If we see our mistakes as embarrassments or signs of weakness, we will feel embarrassed and weak.  If we look at our mistakes as opportunities for growth, we will grow.  Happiness and fulfillment, says Ben-Shahar, come from what we choose to see and seek, what we choose to focus our attention on.             
These days it’s difficult to see goodness, dignity, worth and wholeness, let alone bring it into our lives.  In a world facing potentially catastrophic climate change; in the midst of two tragic land wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a more amorphous and supposedly unending war on terror; in the midst of an economic recession with increasing housing and job insecurity, food and energy inflation; in the midst of a first world culture focused on material consumption and addicted to corporate media—in the midst of all these negatives, all this brokenness, all these generators of fear, anxiety and numbness in us, all these demonstrations of human shortsightedness, arrogance, selfishness, and sinfulness—how do we, without denying or minimizing any of these things, because they are very real and profoundly impact our lives, how do we focus on what is working well, on what brings joy, on what brings happiness and fulfillment? Tal Ben-Shahar says, “Practice.” Yes, all these things may be going wrong in the world; and things may be difficult in our lives, and none of it may be going away, but I contend, even so, that none of it has to determine our lives for us.  Let us practice determining our lives the way we want to determine our lives—let us practice seeing and seeking what we long to see and seek—let us practice hearing the call of our own inner voice.  Let us practice in this way and thereby cultivate in ourselves a greater capacity to confront the things which challenge, frustrate, sadden and overwhelm us.  
What do we practice? Start with joy.  Ask yourself: What brings me joy? Ask this every single day.  Notice the answers.  Remember the answers.  And be joyful.
Practice asking yourself this same set of questions for gratitude, then praise.  Then strength—don’t shy away from strength—don’t shy away from being strong and powerful.  Then meaning and purpose.  Ask yourself: What gives my life meaning and purpose? What makes me come alive? Ask this every single day.  Notice the answers.  Remember the answers.  And come alive!
Then, because our memories fade, because our lives are full and hectic, because the pressures of life in this often toxic culture will compete ruthlessly with our ability to hold onto the answers to these questions, turn them into rituals.  The things that give you joy, the things that fill you with gratitude, the things that are meaningful, the things that make you come alive: turn them into rituals so they become anchored in your life.  Ben Shahar points to a range of studies that show in a variety of ways how, as we create and maintain an intentional practice of asking ourselves these questions, remembering our answers, and anchoring them in our lives through ritual, a new identity begins to emerge in us—a happier, more fulfilled identity; one more willing to trust and honor itself; one more aware of its worthiness, more healthy, more self-determined, more able to deal effectively and creatively with life’s challenges, from the personal to the global.   A life joyfully determined.

Reverend Pawelek  is the parish minister at the Unitarian Universalist Society: East, in Manchester, Connecticut.