Guy Friends and Happiness (his)

I read a recent blog in Psychology Today from one of our Advisory Board members, Prof. Todd Kashdan.  His blog, entitled Why Men Have A Harder Time Making Friends, struck a chord with me.  He states in the blog “the manly pursuit of status, power, wealth, and autonomy leads to great rewards in work and play but at the expense of loving, caring friendships.”  Layer on that the understanding that loving and caring friendships are the basis of true happiness and you get to the heart of male unhappiness.

According to studies and my own experience, guys have a hard time developing male friendships after they leave college and enter the workforce.  At that point male relationships tend to fall into two categories, (1) high school and college buddies (our closest and most enduring relationships) and (2) work colleagues.  The primary exception to this is guy-friends-we-know-because-our-wives-are-friends.  Women, on the other hand, tend to acquire friendships wherever they go and continually build those friendships throughout their lives.  It is no surprise women live longer.

Guys are funny about building relationships later in life.  For example, when I worked at GE I played basketball twice a week during lunch with a group of guys at a nearby community college gym.  I played with these same guys for over 6 years.  After 6 years I knew their first names and their various basketball skill levels (since that was important to picking teams and game strategy) but that’s about it.  We didn’t socialize outside the gym.  I didn’t know if they were married, had kids or much of anything personal about them.  We didn’t share anything intimate and never became what I would call “friends”.  But, we did share a certain bond and enjoyed our time together.  My wife found the lack of social connection remarkably odd.  Most guys, however, likely relate and have a similar story.

When I left GE in 2008 my social circle shrunk dramatically.  I realized most of my male friendships had centered on work.  Outside of work I had nurtured few lasting relationships.  As I’ve learned more about the importance of relationships to our happiness I’ve made a more conscious effort to build friendships, especially with men.  But, I’ve found it’s hard because (1) I’m dealing with guys and guys are not prone to new friendships later in life and (2) most of the men I know are busy with family, work and the general stresses of life.  Maybe that’s why research shows that middle age is the least happy period of our lives.

Despite the obstacles of developing male relationships I have been able to grow a handful of friendships I would consider close and personal.  With these guys I can be honest, open and expect sound feedback.  Only one lives nearby and I only have periodic contact with any one of them.  But as I piece together phone calls, texts, e-mails and Christmas cards I find I’m able to cobble together a small but growing support system of men who are leading me to greater happiness.

The Novelty of Nature (hers)

The smell of leaves, charcoal, and rain.  The millions of shades of yellow, orange, red, and green.  The cold whip of the wind and crisp chill in the air.  For those of us in temperate climates, these are the all too familiar signs of autumn.  With autumn comes the necessity of change, an inescapable demand of nature.

The seasons are a brilliant idea.  We are forced to adapt when our environment is dramatically altered every 3-5 months.  In understanding when, why, and how much to adapt, we're faced with a fundamental premise of how our minds work.

When humans are exposed to specific environmental stimuli for extended periods of time, we adapt.  When we adapt completely, positive associations with this stimuli decrease, and we begin to desire different stimuli.  This is the hedonic treadmill in action.  We feel like we're growing if we change these stimuli, and yet we haven't moved an inch.

Two members of the Hapacus Advisory Board -- Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky and Dr. Ken Sheldon -- tell us to adapt carefully and never completely.  Through work they've done on "Thwarting Hedonic Adaptation" and "The Architecture of Sustainable Happiness," they believe that long-term increases in happiness are possible by practicing specific cognitive, motivational, and behavioral activities that counteract total adjustment to change.

You can find examples of these behaviors on our previous blog post on hedonic adaptation.  These exercises hinder the cycle of adaptation that makes positive experiences blase and unfulfilling (see how this relates to Apple stock and Sienna Miller on our October 25th Facebook post).

The novelty of nature helps remind us to savor all of life's experiences.  Savoring increases our enjoyment of one experience instead of trying to increase the number of experiences.

Become a connoisseur of your life.  A "connoisseur" can detect and savor immensely subtle differences, characteristics, and qualities.  Billion dollar businesses have been created around products dependent on the practice of savoring, such as wine, cheese, chocolate, and tea.  Savor your life, and it will become a feast.

Thoreau called this "suck[ing] out all the marrow of life," which Robin Williams echoed in Dead Poets Society.  Economists call this "consumption skills," or the ability to pull more utility (i.e. happiness) out of the same unit of consumption.  Businessmen can think of this as focusing on profit margins instead of just revenue.

However you think of it, try to soak in as much of the new season as you can.  Take a walk in the woods, marvel at the fading peaches, erupting reds, and soothing yellows of a sky of leaves, smell the wet earth, and bask in our wonderfully novel, wonderfully natural surroundings.

(All pictures were taken in our backyard)

The Art of Happiness (his)

Those who know us or have been in our home know that Virginia and I are passionate about art.  We aren’t art collectors but we do have some pieces we absolutely love and in the case of a house fire the order would be children, art and then family photos.

This shared passion seemed especially real last weekend as Virginia visited her sister, a sculptor, who opened a permanent sculptor garden out West on Saturday.  While Virginia flew to her sister’s opening Thursday night, my son and I attended the opening of the Milwaukee Art Museum’s special exhibit Impressionism:  Masterworks on Paper.  Then Friday night  Virginia toured the home of an elderly couple who have over 400 pieces of art including multiple Picasso’s, Rembrandts and many other famous artists.  As we shared our experiences Saturday night on the phone it became clear, we are art geeks.

The question I thought about this morning was why good art creates so many positive emotions in me.  I didn’t grow up with this art appreciation but it has definitely grown over the last decade.  So why does good art make me happy?

I love good art because it inspires me on many levels.

On the most obvious level good art reaches into me and triggers deep emotions that go beyond words and explanation.  When asked what I love about my favorite pieces I can give general answers but I am not gifted enough with words to explain their impact.  When that happens I know I’m experiencing good art.

I’m also inspired by the artists who have the vision, dedication and talent to produce such art.  Those who pursue the creation of good art typically spend years, sometimes lifetimes, in obscurity pursuing what they believe in despite the hardships.  That’s true courage and always an inspiration to my own pursuits.  And that’s where good art crosses over to more than what I’m viewing.  Art at that level becomes the model for what I believe all of us are here to achieve.

Art is the goal for all of us in whatever we do.  Art is not limited to what we can hang, sculpt or sell at auction.  In fact the best art has no price.  Art is when what we do breaks free from the confines of the techniques we’ve been taught and becomes something more, something we cannot articulate, but something that inspires others.  I know teachers, parents, athletes, business owners, landscapers, sales clerks, baristas and many others who are artists because they are passionate about what they do, they do it well over time and that inspires me.

Happiness is a craft that, if practiced properly and long enough, can become art.  I know people who practice happiness as an art.  They have figured out the basic principles of happiness and they have dedicated themselves to practicing those principles over and over again until their practice becomes art.  That doesn’t mean they’re always ecstatic or that they have no problems.  But rather, they approach life with a sound understanding of what it takes to be truly happy and they pursue it in a way that’s inspiring.

I’m hopeful Hapacus will encourage more of these types of artists in the world.

A prison, a person, and a path to teaching (hers)

Let's take a mental trip.  Imagine you're in Zimbabwe.  Imagine that your daily meal is half a cup of rice and cabbage leaves.  Imagine that you're beaten daily and tortured frequently.  Imagine that all of this is happening in the infamously brutal Chikurubi prison.  Imagine going through this for 13 years, only to be released because doctors expect the cancer you were diagnosed with while in prison will soon kill you.

The only man that can truly imagine that is the one that lived it, and whose journey led him to a seat next to us on a friend's boat this past weekend.  Inspirational Speaker Reon Schutte, a South African Special Forces veteran and ex-POW in Zimbabwe, endured seven grueling surgeries to survive his cancer, and is now a world-touring symbol of acceptance, forgiveness, and mental strength.  Once Bob and I learned who we were sitting next to, we launched into an hour-long discussion on his story, our story, and his experience of what psychologists call "posttraumatic growth".

(See our previous blog post on post-traumatic growth here.)

While posttraumatic stress disorder may be talked about more often in the media, most people undergo some form of posttraumatic growth after devastating life experiences.  "People think that when something terrible happens, they're going to be devastated for a very long time.  In fact, they are devastated, for a very short time," says Daniel Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, in the Happy movie.  After this period of devastation, human beings have the capacity to rebound and grow from these experiences, often to the point that they feel even happier than before.

To say that Reon "rebounded" from his experience would be an understatement.  He soared.  During his time in prison, he cultivated an acceptance for his conditions, a forgiveness towards his torturers, and a sense of peace to which few of us can lay claim.  He experienced posttraumatic growth to a degree most of us can't imagine.

During our conversation, he explained how, even after experiencing tremendous pain on a continual basis while laying naked in a window-less cell for over a decade, he would still choose that prison over the prison of materialism we build for ourselves .  His experiences, like the experiences of Buddhist and Daoist monks, confirmed recent Positive Psychology research on hedonic adaptation and extrinsic goals.

(See our previous blog post on hedonic adaption here.)

We quickly adapt to the technology, fashion, homes, and cars we work so desperately to possess, and they leave us wanting more.  Like food that never fills, we are caught in an endless treadmill of desire as we wonder why our efforts aren't making us happier.  As Reon learned, and as researchers are discovering, intrinsic goals directed at personal growth, relationships, and one's greater purpose are often the core components of both feelings of short-term and long-term happiness.

(See our previous blog post on intrinsic vs. extrinsic goals here.)

We thought back to each of these three previous blog posts while listening to Reon, reminding us of the extraordinary universality of Positive Psychology principles.  Positive Psychology isn't tied to one religion, one culture, or one belief system, and yet it connects with them all.  It is concerned with fundamental human truths that can be experienced, discussed, practiced, and taught anywhere on earth.  We believe that it is only once you teach these truths that you can live a life guided by them.  After 13 years of imprisonment, pain, and suffering, Reon has dedicated the rest of his life to teaching these universal truths.

And that may be the greatest lesson of all.

Teaching Character in Schools (his)

If you have time to read this blog I have a favor.  Instead of reading this blog click the article "What If The Secret To Success Is Failure" in the New York Times Magazine, September 18, 2011 and read that.

If you're still reading this blog then I'll give you a brief overview of the article to whet your appetite.

The article is about how two schools (Riverdale, an elite NYC private school and the KIPP charter schools) implemented programs to teach character as well as the normal subjects.  The leaders of these schools became interested in character after coming across the findings of Dr. Martin Seligman, the author of "Learned Optimism" and "Character Strengths and Virtues:  A Handbook and Classification", where Seligman points out that success is a factor of much more than classroom learning.   One of the schools went so far as to grade character and share those grades with parents.

It's worth the read.