On being positive

by

One day after 9/11, I would like to depart a bit from the pri­ma­ry focus of this blog and add some per­son­al reflec­tions onBe­ing Pos­i­tive and on Appre­ci­a­tion, which is what we prob­a­bly need to sur­vive in these times.

I remem­ber a few years ago when, over brunch, my good friend Rohit pro­posed that Hap­pi­ness = Real­i­ty — Expectations. 

(Play with it. It is powerful)

A few months lat­er after this dis­cov­ery, at a pub­lic con­cert, while some friends were hav­ing a live­ly debate on this equa­tion, a near­by stranger pro­posed a nice refinement:

Hap­pi­ness = (Appre­ci­a­tion, of what we have, and can do) x ( Real­i­ty — Expectations)

Which is nice­ly phrased in the sen­tence I have read in a num­ber of places

We need Seren­i­ty to accept
the things that can­not be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and Wis­dom to distinguish
the one from the other.

Mahat­ma Gand­hi encour­aged us to “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

There is much good around us, and much more good of us can do. We prob­a­bly would ben­e­fit from hav­ing eas­i­er access to a CNN of Pos­i­tive News, of Kind Ges­tures, Unex­pect­ed Gen­eros­i­ty, Mag­ic Coin­ci­dences, Beau­ti­ful Growth.

Some con­stant sources of per­son­al inspi­ra­tion, encour­age­ment, and Appreciation:

- Ashoka: Inno­va­tors for the Pub­lic, and their con­vic­tion that “Every­one is a changemaker”

- The Schwab Foun­da­tion for Social Entre­pre­neurs, that sup­ports amaz­ing and inspir­ing agents of change worldwide.

No mat­ter our reli­gion, or lack there­of, we can ben­e­fit from what the book Daniel Gole­man’s Destruc­tive Emo­tions: How Can We over­come Them pro­pos­es as “A Gym for Emo­tion­al Skills.” Neu­ro­sci­en­tist Anto­nio Dama­sio opened new ground in his sem­i­nal Descartes Error book on the role of emo­tions in our decision-making.

How can one train this mus­cle of Appre­ci­a­tion? Well, no clin­i­cal stud­ies here, but my wife and I like to reg­u­lar­ly do an exer­cise pro­posed by Jef­frey Brant­ley in Five Good Min­utes: 100 Morn­ing Prac­tices To Help You Stay Calm & Focused All Day Long:

First, trav­el back, in your mind’s eye, to a time when you felt a healthy exhaus­tion, and let you relive that moment as vivid­ly as you can.

Then, remem­ber, re-expe­ri­ence, a lov­ing exchange that real­ly touched you. Pause. See the moment. Smell it. Hear what hap­pened around you.

Next, visu­al­ize the most car­ing ges­ture you have ever received, as full of details as pos­si­ble. Who gave you that gift of car­ing. How you felt.

Now, trav­el to the most mag­nif­i­cent place you have seen. Enjoy the views. Pause. Lis­ten. Smile. Appreciate.

Good night

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Suresh Gundappa says

    I like your thought process. Well thought over and pre­sent­ed. I have some arti­cles of mine on Hap­pi­ness. If you get some free­time please do vis­it my blog. I would love your comments.

  2. Matthew says

    Alvaro, this entry is inspir­ing, calm­ing and thought­ful. You are a true busi­ness intel­lec­tu­al. When in *your* book com­ing out?

  3. Alvaro says

    Thanks Suresh and Matthew.

    Hap­py that you are enjoy­ing the blog. How do you usu­al­ly, let’s put it this way, “train your calmness”?

  4. Chris Wu says

    Alvaro:

    I think of hap­pi­ness or Eudai­mo­nia, loose­ly the full­ness of human life, as not only a goal but a way of being. That’s why Aris­to­tle talked about a kind of excel­lence in life with respect to eudai­mo­nia. Emo­tion­al states tend to be cycli­cal and fluc­tu­at­ing. How­ev­er, eudai­mo­nia is much more con­stant because it attempts to achieve its pur­pose with­out being tied sole­ly to cir­cum­stance. That’s where your hap­pi­ness for­mu­la which incor­po­rates atti­tude and expec­ta­tion comes in. 

    Peo­ple can go through the same cir­cum­stances (such as 9/11) and respond to it in entire­ly dif­fer­ent ways. Believ­ing that we can change the world pos­i­tive­ly is the first step. The rest is the hard work of cre­at­ing eudain­om­ic com­mu­ni­ties. We now have the instan­ti­a­tion of the de Chardin’s noos­phere through the inter­net — it is lim­it­ed only by our cre­ativ­i­ty and passion.

    (PS Hav­ing a pre­view and edit­ing of com­ments would be helpful)

  5. Elona says

    “Be the change you want to see in the world”. How opti­mistic and empow­er­ing. Recent­ly, I have been doing a lot of read­ing about Bud­dhism and lis­ten­ing to Bud­dhist pod casts. This quote reminds me of some of the things I have read about Bud­dhism. Inter­est­ing how one thing rein­forces another.

  6. Alvaro says

    Hi Chris and Elona,

    I am hap­py that you enjoyed the post. 

    Elona, yes, there are prac­tices in Bud­dhism that have uni­ver­sal val­ue. The Mind and Life Insti­tute , http://www.mindandlife.org/, is spon­sor­ing research on what hap­pens in the brains of both novice and expert med­i­ta­tors, and the Dalai Lama is per­son­al­ly very involved. 

    Chris: I agree, our cre­ativ­i­ty and pas­sion can be great legs for our jour­ney. Thanks for the feed­back, too.

  7. andrey says

    The images that came back to me were from the moments when I actu­al­ly stopped for a moment and told myself to enjoy it. 

    Les­son learned: make “enjoy­ing the moment” a habit, or at least a reg­u­lar prac­tice! — you will thank your­self lat­er (many times).

  9. Alicia Perry says

    Have you heard about a new book called “Thanks! How the New Sci­ence of Grat­i­tude Can Make You Happier” by Dr. Robt. Emmons? It is based on 8 years of sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly study­ing the effects and ben­e­fits of grate­ful liv­ing, the first study of its kind. Dr. Emmons is a psy­chol­o­gy pro­fes­sor at UC Davis and expert in “positive psychology.” It touch­es on all aspects of a person’s life that can be improved by grat­i­tude: phys­i­cal (sleep habits, ener­gy lev­el), men­tal, emo­tion­al, rela­tion­al, and spir­i­tu­al. I’m doing PR for the book — help us spread the word about “Thanks!” You can find it at Ama­zon or at any book store.