The Search for Happiness

  The Search for Happiness

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

We have become obsessive about finding happiness.  In the last decade, books of relevant advice have ballooned into thousands.   Across the country, innumerable life coaches have found a new career niche.   College courses about finding life’s sweet spot are multiplying fast.  

 

The inalienable right of pursuing happiness given by our Declaration of Independence is certainly being put to the test.  National trends are misleading.   The real thing is much more of an individual matter.  For example, certain people simply choose to be happy no matter what.   Somehow it lives in their genes.     

Since the majority of us are not born with sunny dispositions, we hope for a positive outlook in things we can possess.  Yet happiness is a feeling that grows within ourselves.  No one just gives it to us.  Emotional responses to very specific associations can release it, say from a shot of dopamine, or a dog or cat sleeping peacefully in your lap, a superb dessert, or even finding a bathroom when getting desperate.   My personal favorites include making photos look like paintings and  listening to music that makes me want to dance.    

 When we think beyond emotional glee, a deeper kind of happiness stems from living a personally meaningful and purposeful life.  Linked to self-perception and values, this is a journey rather than a destination.  The journey begins at an impressionable age.

 No one experiences extremes of euphoria and depression quite like adolescents.  This is why a major study finding by psychologists at the University of San Diego is so intriguing.   Looking at a sharp decline in the happiness, self-esteem, and life satisfaction of more than a million young people since 2012, the researchers discovered a potent incubator:  social media via rapidly accelerating smart phone ownership.   Teens who limited their leisure use of communications technology to an hour daily, while devoting more time to seeing their friends in person and varying their contacts and activities, were definitely happier than teens who devoted significant daily time (up to five hours) to the internet, computer games, texting, video chat or watching TV. 

 Tech tools can become addictive.  They can isolate and alienate children and adults from one another.  The visual and textual content of messages shared among teenagers can depress self-esteem and assurance.   Parental monitoring, or adult counseling can pave the way to improved conditions for happiness.

 So in what tense – past, present, or future -- can we find happiness?  According to psychologist and bestselling author Daniel Gilbert, looking for it either in the past or the future is misguided.  Yet the present is suspect too!   In his entertaining analysis of “Stumbling on Happiness”, Gilbert targets pervasive gaps in our memory of events which we then fill in with inventions based on the here and now.  Also, when we try to imagine future events, we mispredict both what will happen and our emotional response quite badly.   As any futurist will tell you, the future is pretty much now.  Gaps in the past and future are readily filled in with today’s material.  We need better sources of happiness.

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The answer for Gilbert lies in what he calls surrogation.   As much as we resist thinking we are really very much like others, Gilbert insists that we are, and therefore we can predict the future or better understand the past by comparing what others think, do or have done – in other words by relying on a substitute for ourselves.   As the professor puts it, “Surrogation is a cheap and effective way to predict one’s future emotions,” but instead we are sorely tempted to fall back on our faulty imaginations.

An affirming treasure of insights about happiness can be found in a Harvard Grant Study which tracked a range of life factors over a phenomenal 75 years in a group of 268 graduates.   Stated simply, all the luxury and material wealth in the world meant very little without love.  The roots of love were found in human relationships, in connecting with others in personally meaningful ways.  The relationship may derive from a mother’s connection to her child, or from life in a community.  Most likely that community promotes a culture that values caring, kindness, mindfulness, and direct face-to-face communication with others of like mindedness.  

By comparing the routes  in the studies I have described, we can find some commonality.  No disastrous malignancy in our national psyche is curbing happiness. The bedrock for it lies within ourselves, in our individual relationships with others, in meetings anchored in the present moment, and in finding personal meaning and purpose.  Happiness cannot be bought, or captured by the past or the future, but it can be nurtured by the empathy and love of others within a community of concern.   

JMB/2/2/2018

  

Understanding Mediocrity

Understanding Mediocrity

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

The popular slogan “failure is not an option” suggests teachers’ courageous commitment to their students’ successful learning.  Yet we know that failure often happens.  Repeated failures usually trigger interventions and special programs in our schools.  At the other extreme, high achievers are motivated and reinforced by a system whose DNA makes academic accomplishments the prize.  But what about the students whose average performance seldom earns recognition?   Would we support the idea that their “mediocrity is not an option”?     

Even the dictionary doesn’t know what to do with the term “mediocrity”.   One meaning is adequate or ordinary, but another is poor or inferior.    Being mediocre offers a devious combination of justifications.  Its circumstances change depending on the stakes, the skills or activity we are looking at, who is being compared to whom, and whether the performance is adequate, marginal, or poor.   

Management consultant Mark Friedman says there are three ways to compare our performance -- to ourselves, to others, and to standards.  Each one offers a different viewpoint.

I really enjoy swimming.  When I swim laps in a pool, I keep track of my time.  When it improves, I reward myself with something sweet.  Mediocrity means nothing until I compare myself to others.   If I were to dive off the blocks in competition with Michael Phelps, I would choke on his wake.  Chances are I would finish the race eventually, not failing, which would probably mean drowning, but as an example of mediocrity.   Millions of others would share my fate.

Standards also define performance.  As a five-year-old, my son set the 50-yard freestyle record in his age group by thrashing up and down the pool at SUNY Albany. For his parents he was outstanding, but compared to any other age group’s standards, he was mediocre.  At least in sports, the benchmarks are essentially records.

 Not so in school, where teachers tend to set their own standards by subject, grade level, and track, although the use of descriptive rubrics and criterion-referenced exams has helped clarify matters.  Because there is no consensus on standards of mediocrity, a “C” grade can mean just about anything.  Regents exams and the SAT or ACT provide standard anchors, but they hardly predict the performance of average learners.      

Teamwork and group projects add another confounding link between accountability and mediocrity.  Either on the assembly line or in school, even when roles and goals are assigned, some individuals slough off.   If the project is completed and production targets are met, the phenomenon of mediocre engagement may frustrate the achievers, but unless separate ratings for each team member are included (wise teachers do this), the lesser performers slide by.

Statistics and social beliefs impinge on mediocrity.  Educators find the distribution of students in a classroom a natural fact of life represented by a bell-shaped curve.  Performance and talent are thought to be concentrated in the middle, while the top and bottom extremes number far fewer at the two ends of the curve.  Thereby we define ability grouping, tracking, and the like as a convenient but terribly inequitable means of organizing instruction.   

Nowhere is the impact of mediocrity more pronounced than in the use of A-F or numerical grades in our schools.  To get their work done, and to remain accountable to the system, teachers aim for the middle.  Despite efforts to differentiate instruction, and despite successful models like individual learning plans for children with disabilities, most teachers have to adjust lesson quality and rigor by giving the broadest support to the most students.  Accordingly, not only students, but teachers too, are blamed for being mediocre.  

Do we chafe against mediocrity?  Unsurprisingly, yes.  Often it carries a belittling connotation.  Our society celebrates accomplishments.  The deluge of worldwide news publicizes the extremes or the unusual.  Mediocrity is not newsworthy so it is often neglected.  

Public schools are wonderful starting points for reversing the negative effects of society’s mediocrity.  The meritocracy of schools can make middling or average performers feel lost in the crowd.  To counteract this, our teachers can use small-group instruction, cooperative learning, alternative or informal assessments, unique and progress-focused rewards and recognition, and projects that encourage individual curiosity and creativity.

 These days school districts recognize the importance of a culture of positive engagement.  Programs and activities encourage the interests and inspirations of the students.  Teachers committed to the success of all students can offer continuous, constructive feedback on academic work.  They can and should attend to diversity and social intelligence, while promoting a safe and supportive community environment.  When the groundwork is laid, mediocrity in school and in life afterward need not be an option. 

Curious Encounters Should Inspire Learning

CURIOUS ENCOUNTERS SHOULD INSPIRE LEARNING

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

Nearly every day we encounter things that just do not make sense.  We try to figure out an explanation and usually end up building our preconceptions into a rationale we can accept.  All seems to go well until a better explanation comes along, or perhaps disaster occurs, or perplexity hounds us enough to reinvestigate. 

Curious encounters can be witnessed face to face, but most often I read about them or find them jumping out of my tv or smart phone.  I enjoy these mysteries because they violate expectations, puzzle us, and lead to breakthroughs in learning.

For instance, not long ago at 36,000 feet, I found myself staring at a little screen showing the path of our jet flight from New York to Ireland.  Counterintuitively, the plane seemed to be headed directly north to Greenland via Canada. Later, as we looped back toward continental Europe, I remembered we live on a globe where the shortest distance between two points may be over the dome.   

On that same flight I was trying to make sense of Stephen Hawking’s “Briefer History of Time.”  My wife threatened to disown me if I tried to explain to her one more time why this book told me I would become much younger than she if I left earth on a spaceship traveling near the speed of light, and then returned while she had been sitting here on earth growing much older than me.  Einstein’s theories of relativity blow up many of my personal fallacies with regard to time, light, space and gravity. 

All around us are familiar beliefs that contradict the way we think the world should work.  When I asked for some illustrations from my facebook friends, they replied as follows:  If you want someone to do something, forbid them from doing it; love your enemies; the only thing to fear is fear itself; and the best way to control a skid is to turn in its direction and take your foot off the break. 

One respondent mentioned the destructive practice of planting misinformation.  Called “gaslighting,” a term derived from a 1944 film in which a man convinces his perfectly healthy wife that she is going insane by manipulating her beliefs.  Gaslighters plant doubts to make others question their own memory, perception, or sanity.

We love to construct truisms for convenience.  Often these are unproven.  For instance, we say that leaving the door unlocked will be fine because no one has ever robbed us.  Or we tell others they will catch a cold unless they bundle up.  Or we overestimate the risk of death by plane crash when compared to a drug overdose. 

Science is surprisingly ignored.  For example, the practice of injecting someone with a virus to protect against it still prompts some to reject vaccinations.  Nor do some consumers believe there is any good reason to heat up milk (pasteurization) when it is meant to be chilled for drinking.   

In his book “Science Blind”, Andrew Shtulman describes the ironies of science denial in an age when research particularly about health and climate is geometrically expanding our knowledge.  Ideological, religious, and obvious political motivations obscure reality.  A dramatic example is our current Presidential administration’s denial of climate warming which has turned the United States into an embarrassing worldwide minority of one.

Schtulman defines intuitive theories as our “untutored explanations for how the world works.”  These are best guesses which are better than no theories at all, but they frequently blind and bind us.  We refuse to give them up easily because we constantly overestimate the value of what we already own.   

Yet there is hope for stubborn doubters.  We can begin by ruthlessly deconstructing our biases. We can look beyond our senses and unproven intuitions, and then rebuild knowledge based on reasonable proof.  Today’s technology offers abundant data, opinions, and facts.  We should let our curious encounters stimulate challenging questions. Young children do this all the time, so why shouldn’t we?