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Dear Brothers and Sisters:
Let’s continue with Bruce Elkin’s article, Chords of Life
We do need a basic level of food, rest, shelter, tools for effective
living, and perception of control over our lives. And most of us like to
embellish the basics with healthy pleasures that sparkle up our days.
So, well lived, this life can be rich in things that we use often and
give us pleasure. A cozy cottage that shelters our family and allows us
to live and love together in comfort. A sharp, easy-to-use knife with
which we lovingly prepare good, healthy food. A fluffy organic cotton
robe to wrap yourself in after a shower. For me it's an old Saab that I
hardly ever drive but, when I do, I appreciate its careful engineering,
its tight tolerances, and its 20 years of almost cost-free durability.
The rich life is also a sensory life. The pleasures of consuming good
food and drink, slowly and in good company have long been important
aspects of the good life. Moreover, pleasures can be appreciated without
being consumed. Think about music. Bird song. Art. Sunsets over
ocean islands. A high quality life is rich in appreciation of beauty and
usefulness and steeped in gratitude for what we have. Healthy pleasures
-- a good laugh, a hug, a walk in the sunshine, even watching your
favorite sports team play -- have even been shown to improve our health
and extend our lives. So where do we go wrong?
One standard for measuring how "good" we're doing in this life is
positive feelings. If we feel good, we think we're successful, that life
is good. However, because good feelings are so often fleeting, it is
easy to go overboard on this aspect of life. Thinking that material and
sensory pleasures provide the only route to success and happiness, we
become obsessed with things, experiences, and feelings. Instead of
deeply appreciating what we have, we focus on getting more stuff, which
also fails to provide lasting value or deep satisfaction. The good life
gives way to a superficial "feel good" life. Moreover, we measure our
lives by comparing ourselves to others. "Keeping up with the Jones" was
our parents' standard. Contemporary consumers attempt to emulate
Frazier, the Friends, Oprah, and other well to do media characters. We
lose track of our own authentic desires chasing after media manufactured
"goods."
Moreover, we act as if the
pleasure we get from stuff is inherent in the objects and experiences
themselves. We experience a momentary jolt of delight or pride when we
get something new, but such feelings fade quickly. We adapt to a new
normal. Soon, we are bored with what we have. We long for another jolt
of delight. We search for a "shot in the arm" from power shopping. Ben
Dean describes this never-ending search for more as "riding the hedonic
treadmill."
However, a good and
successfully rich life is about sufficiency. It is not about excess or
an endlessly undefined "more." It's about enough. There is more to a
quality life than pleasures and comforts. In fact, too many things and
pleasures can lead to satiety, that uncomfortable sense of being
"stuffed." What's more, it's not just good feelings we want. Research
shows that we want to earn those feelings, to feel that we deserve them.
"Positive emotions alienated
from the exercise of character," says Martin Seligman, author of
Authentic Happiness, "lead to emptiness, to inauthenticity, to
depression, and, as we age, to the gnawing realization that we are
fidgeting until we die." For many, the fidgety, "feel good" life is all
we know. Instead of being satisfied with the material basics that give
us comfort, security, and pleasure and stretching for the next level, we
get stuck on the hedonic treadmill. We think that if basic riches bring
a pleasant life, then more should bring us a good life. Many forgo a
fully engaged life in favor of the quietly desperate work and spend
cycle, the unsatisfying accumulation of stuff, and more good but
fleeting feelings.
It doesn't work. Research
shows that, beyond a simple level of sufficiency, neither more money nor
stuff brings significant increases in pleasure or happiness to those who
sacrifice large parts of their lives to obtain them. In fact, while real
income and purchasing power have doubled since 1957, the number of
people who report that they are "very happy" has declined from 35 to 30
percent. Accumulating more stuff and chasing after more experiences
often cause more stress than pleasure. Since 1957, the divorce rate has
doubled; teen suicide has become epidemic, and depression and anxiety
ravage the population. When we realize that we put more time, energy,
and money into enriching our material life than we get back in meaning
and fulfillment, many choose to simplify. So we get rid of excess, clear
away clutter, and cut back consumption. However, as useful and pleasant
as it is to clear out the junk and pay down our credit cards, this
reactive kind of simplicity too often leads to what Oliver Wendell
Holmes called "the simplicity on this side of complexity."
Simplicity that tries to avoid or eliminate complexity is a simplistic
form of simplifying. It's driven by a focus on what we don't like and
don't want. So even if it succeeds, we still do not have what we truly
do want. Too often, reactive simplicity merely results in temporary
relief from an overcrowded and complicated life. Challenge, engagement,
flow, meaning and purpose -- the complexity that makes life interesting
and worthwhile -- get tossed out along with excess. And, all too often,
the clutter comes back! This kind of simplifying rarely leads to the
real and lasting results we long for. However, it can open a space in
which we glimpse a higher form of simplicity -- a kind of good living
that is based on freedom, challenge, personal growth, and meaning.
… To be continued next
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