Category Archives: Life

I Am Responsible

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I hopped on my bike and headed for the Star Tribune circulation office across town. I was 11 years old and delivered the Morning Tribune six days a week and had a separate route for the Sunday Tribune. I was a good paperboy: I got myself up every day and finished my route on time. I didn’t miss customers. I did my door-to-door collections and paid my bills promptly. But I had spent too much money that week, and I didn’t have enough to pay my bill in full. I wasn’t too concerned: my dad was the boss and the new guy wouldn’t say anything to me, I thought.

A line of carriers formed behind the wide counter in the small office. Behind the counter were desks for my dad and the new manager he had hired recently. Benches lined the walls in the outer area. We had sales meetings at the office and the benches would be filled with carriers—all young boys.

I got to the front of the line and emptied my money bag of bills and coins onto the counter. Don Iverson was the new manager. He was a big guy. My dad had told me that he had been a Navy frogman. He counted out my money and said, “You are short.” “I don’t have the money,” I replied.

His voice boomed and his fist slammed into the counter, “We pay our bills in full! Don’t you ever be short again!”

In the 59 years since that Saturday morning, I’ve never paid a bill late.

As I reflect back over my formative years from the vantage point of 70 years, I am grateful for those adults, like Don Iverson, who used tough love (high standards plus compassion) to guide me in the right direction.

I think of the teachers who held me accountable for my immaturity by sending me to the principal’s office, to sit in the hallway and who used a paddle and a swat on the rear end to get student’s attention.

I think of the basketball coach who kicked me off the team for breaking training rules. The juvenile court judge who threatened me with a juvenile detention facility and a few police officers who made me tell my parents of misbehavior.

I am most grateful to my parents.

As I look back over my childhood, I can see a pattern in how my parents raised me: They never rescued me from my mistakes. They didn’t swear or holler at me. I was never spanked by mom or dad. But they made me face my mistakes. And they stood with me when I faced punishment.

All of those adults in my life taught me that I was responsible and accountable for the choices in my life. I learned that the quality of my decisions would determine the kind of life I created for myself.

Like most of us, I had unexpected setbacks in my adult life. Each time life threw a difficulty my way, I overcame it and made my life and myself better than before. I was able to do that, in large part, because the adults in my life as a youngster taught me that no one would rescue me: I was responsible for my life.

 

A Voice from the Past

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With age and a bit more time and more inner awareness, I pay better attention to the voices that call me to action.

In 1965 I was a sophomore at the University of Minnesota, newly married with a child on the way. I got a 20-hour a week job in the Classified Advertising Department at the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

The art group had a supervisor and three artists and me. Terry Walker was one of the artists. I had no artistic talent but my job was mostly typing and I could type.

Terry was a terrific ad-man and an even better person: quiet, humble and caring–everyone liked him. Most of the full-time people didn’t pay much attention to the college kid who worked part-time. Not Terry. Terry was always friendly and interested in my classes. I could always go to him with a question or when I made a mistake. He always helped me and made things right. I worked for about a year and then had to quit to take some afternoon classes. When I was done, the job was open and I went back for another year and a half. I worked full-time over the summers. After I graduated in 1968, I returned for the third time for several months while I waited to become a Secret Service Agent. Terry and I were friends. I recall how proud of me he was when I became an agent. He had me over to show his young sons my badge and revolver.

In 1976 I returned to the Star Tribune as a District Manager in the Circulation Department. I went and saw Terry and we chatted and had lunch one day. The years passed. Terry retired and I left the newspaper in 1994. Suddenly it was 2007 and I no longer lived in Minneapolis. I had only seen Terry a few times since 1968. I began to wonder about him. Terry was many years older than I. Was he still alive? Where did he live? I couldn’t find him on the Internet.

I moved back to Minneapolis in 2009. I continued to think about Terry. I regretted not staying in touch with him. I wanted to thank him for befriending me as a college student. In 2011 I reached out to Human Resources at the Star Tribune and asked if they could help me contact him. A kind woman said she would call him and let him know I wanted to reach him. A couple of days later, Terry called me.

I went to see Terry and Shirley—a beautiful woman with a soul as great as his. Terry had broken his back years prior and was confined to a wheelchair and needed a lot of care. But he was the same man: warm, good and gracious. We were happy to see one another. He, Shirley and I spent a couple of hours talking. I got the chance to thank Terry and tell him how much he meant to me and how often I thought about him over the years. I had a battle with alcoholism in my 20’s and I was glad Terry could see a healthy and whole me with a life of successes after my drinking years. I admired him and Shirley and felt humbled in the presence of their decency.

I wanted to get together again soon. I forced myself to wait several weeks. I called and Shirley answered. She was crying. Terry had died just hours before (4/11/11).

I am grateful for the voice within me that kept bringing Terry into my awareness. And I am thankful I got to see Terry one more time and tell him what he meant to me.

Protect Our Leaders

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Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump crossed a dangerous line when on August 9, 2016 he, I believe, suggested to a rally crowd that a way to keep a conservative Supreme Court would be to assassinate Hillary Clinton or, perhaps, judges.

I was a senior in high school when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated Nov. 22, 1963. I was finishing college at the University of Minnesota when Martin Luther King was murdered April 4, 1968, and then Robert Kennedy two months later.

These men transcended politics: they had greatness in their visions, fire in their words, and magic in their personas. So many hopes and dreams flickered when those men died – aspirations never extinguished but their energy dampened.

These tragedies inspired me to become an agent in the United States Secret Service. The image of a brave and desperate agent Clint Hill as he tried to save President Kennedy that dark day in Dallas moved this young man. Nobility resides in those willing to die to safeguard democracy.

I was trained to protect our leaders.

For half of my first year in the Secret Service, I protected former Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey. I also worked at the White House and traveled around the world in 1969 as part of President Richard Nixon’s security detail.

I know two things from these and other experiences in the Secret Service. First, courageous and determined women and men protect our leaders. Second, no one can be protected completely. If someone wants to get a shot at a leader, they probably can.

I fear for Hillary Clinton. As the first woman nominee for president with a long political history, she brings forth deep fear and hatred in extreme conservatives’–often prey to manipulation by talk radio and Fox News. We watched physically repulsive rage fueled by Republican pseudo-leaders toward Clinton at the Republican convention. We see and hear vulgar and rabid people—even young children—at Trump rallies. As Trump slides in the polls, what else might he say? Or, how might his “jokes” be interpreted by unhinged people? Aside from politics, many people in America are angry and afraid—legitimate anxieties exacerbated by Trump and other politicians. And we know that guns—even military automatic rifles—are readily available to deranged people.

Hillary Clinton faces danger. She and the Secret Service know it. I imagine her protective detail has grown since Trump’s reckless comments. I am sure hundreds of threats have been made against her life and many twisted and dangerous people are being watched and accounted for as she travels.

The agents of the Secret Service will do all they can to protect her and all our leaders. People who attend political events can keep their eyes open. And all can say a prayer for the safety and the well-being of those who want America to be her best self so our hearts will not be broken and our spirits disillusioned yet again.

Context Matters

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Tell me who you walk with, and I’ll tell you who you are. Esmeralda Santiago

Shane Bauer, senior reporter at Mother Jones, worked undercover as a correctional officer for four months in 2014-2015 at Winn Correctional Center in Winnfield, Louisiana. The Corrections Corporation of America runs the prison.

Read his story here.

Bauer wrote:

Studies have shown that personalities can change dramatically when people find themselves in prison environments. In 1971, psychologist Philip Zimbardo conducted the now-famous Stanford Prison Experiment, in which he randomly assigned college students to the roles of prisoners and guards in a makeshift basement “prison.” The experiment was intended to study how people respond to authority, but it quickly became clear that some of the most profound changes were happening to the guards. Some became sadistic, forcing the prisoners to sleep on concrete, sing and dance, defecate into buckets, and strip naked. The situation became so extreme that the two-week study was cut short after just six days. When it was over, many “guards” were ashamed at what they had done and some “prisoners” were traumatized for years. “We all want to believe in our inner power, our sense of personal agency, to resist external situational forces of the kinds operating in this Stanford Prison Experiment,” Zimbardo reflected. “For many, that belief of personal power to resist powerful situational and systemic forces is little more than a reassuring illusion of invulnerability.”

UPDATE: The Justice Department announced on August 18, 2016 that they would discontinue using privately owned prisons.

The Dalai Lama wrote: “We are all capable of cruelty and hatred.”

Later in the article, Bauer wrote of his own behavior changes while a guard:

Like I do every night when I get off work, I take a breath and try to remember who I am. Miss Carter is right. It is getting in my blood. The boundary between pleasure and anger is blurring. To shout makes me feel alive. I take pleasure in saying “no” to prisoners. I like to hear them complain about my write-ups. I like to ignore them when they ask me to cut them a break. When they hang their clothes to dry in the TV room, an unauthorized area, I confiscate the laundry and get a thrill when they shout from down the tier as I take it away. During the lockdown, when Ash threatened to riot, I hoped the SORT team would come in and gas the whole unit. Everyone would be coughing and gasping, including me, and it would be good because it would be action. All that matters anymore is action.

Until I leave. When I drive home, I wonder who I am becoming. I feel ashamed of my lack of self-control, my growing thirst for punishment and vengeance. I’m getting afraid of the expanding distance between the person I am at home and the one behind the wire. My glass of wine with dinner regularly becomes three. I hear the sounds of Ash unit as I fall asleep. I dream of monsters and men behind bars.”

Dysfunctional families and workplaces can have similar anti-human impacts on us. Occasionally I observe a person who can stand true to themselves against the forces of compliance to negative norms. They are courageous people who, as my friend Eleanor Velarde wrote me “…develop a secure relationship with the best within ourselves.” How does the world we choose to live and work in affect us?

The Dalai Lama wrote in Ethics for a New Millennium: “…when we mix with those who clearly indulge in negative behavior, seeking only their own benefit and ignoring others, we risk losing our own sense of direction.” He wrote of such behavior in all areas of life, not just in the most negative of places, like a prison.

A Tibetan proverb says when we lie on a mountain of gold, some of it rubs off on us; the same happens if we lie on a mountain of dirt.

The context we choose to live in will do much to decide who we become.

Choose wisely.

Optimize or Maximize Our Lives?

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Everything in Moderation

Scoop Heuerman (my dad)

 

David Plummer used to see only one way to the top of the podium. The former Gophers swimmer believed he wouldn’t make it unless he stripped away everything but his sport, putting the pursuit of fast times above all else.

Earlier this month, with a 4-week-old son Ricky asleep on his chest, Plummer laughed at that thought. “I’m almost embarrassed at how long it took me to realize it,” he said. “But the better I try to do in every aspect of my life–as a dad, a husband, athlete, coach–the better everything goes.” (Minneapolis Star Tribune June 26, 2016)

UPDATE: PLUMMER WON AN OLYMPIC BRONZE MEDAL IN THE 100 METER BACKSTROKE ON AUGUST 8, 2016.

The mechanistic world view, mostly unconscious, has dominated how we think about life and how to live it for 300 years. When we think of people as machines, we run them until they quit, breakdown or checkout. Then we turn to medicine for a quick-fix. Then we max out again.

A living system world view replaced and encompassed the mechanistic world view a century ago. We need to change how we think about life. We need to understand—at work and at home—that managing a social system (a company; a family) means finding the optimal values for the system’s variables (or the goals of the organization and the activities of the family). If we try to maximize any single variable instead of optimizing all variables, the person, the family or the organization will decline, suffer dysfunction, breakdown or die.

We can’t avoid occasional excessive stress and all-out effort in one area of life. Moderate stress alerts and motivates us and sharpens our focus. But maximum stress for a long time in one area of life puts stress on all aspects of our life and harms and destroys living systems–including people.

I’ve been a maximizer more than an optimizer over my lifetime—especially in my work life. I value excellence. I love achievement and strive relentlessly to accomplish my goals. I feel alive as I climb the newest mountain in my life. I’ve gotten a lot done. My late friend, Clinical Psychologist Diane Olson, Ph.D. said I had the intensity gene. As I age, my emotional intensity grows stronger than ever as I know time runs out for all of us and I want to do and experience as much as possible in my life. But at the extreme, I am perfectionistic and obsessive/compulsive. I don’t have a turnoff button. I am impatient and critical of myself and others. I burn out. I figured such intensity harms to me more as I get older than when I was younger. I took up meditation in large part to help me lower my appetites. I work to find the elusive moderation.

My dad was right and David Plummer had a valuable insight as a young age. I hope more kids who maximize sports to achieve unreachable goals, more adults who focus only on career aspirations and more organizations who die far earlier than necessary due to their singular pursuit of profit will learn the lesson David Plummer realized and the wisdom of my dad learned in the school of hard knocks.

As for me, I continue to work to learn how to live in new ways.

Lies, Delusions & Ignorance

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If everyone lives roughly the same lies about the same things, there is no one to call them liars. They jointly establish their own sanity and call themselves normal. Ernest Becker

America has many intractable problems. Americans, along with people of other nations who share many of the same issues, created our difficulties, and we must fix them. Einstein wrote that we cannot solve our problems with the same level of consciousness that created the problems. We need a higher, more evolved level of awareness.

The majority of us say we want change in the country. But things get worse. Of course, other people need to change—not us. We do not take personal responsibility for change. We remain gridlocked.

Change begins with each of us. Only we can create the life we want on the planet earth from the personal to the atmospheric. We can begin by becoming aware of the lies, delusions and ignorant thoughts we tell ourselves that, while part of our human condition have, I believe, grown to dangerous levels of deception that at least threaten our way of life.

Many of us have sincere delusions. I created an alternative reality for myself to justify my addiction to alcohol. What a profound and identity-changing moment it was when reality broke through my defenses. Now 42 years later, I continue to work hard daily to be honest with myself. All of us have the Plato’s Caves of our lives. More of us need to shift our perception from the shadows of the cave to the sunlight of reality.

(Click the above link and see the inside of Learning to Live: Essays on Life and Leadership to read the entire essay on Plato’s Cave at no cost.)

Many times we come to believe deceits we crafted consciously to justify actions contrary to our values and untruths told to ourselves to excuse looking away when injustice happens in front of us. Other times we convince ourselves that magical thinking and quick-fixes will rescue us from our problems. We may scapegoat and demonize others to excuse our own bad behavior. We might blame others for our actions. We can choose to be truth-tellers (at least to ourselves) about our unflattering words and actions.

Little lies can have big consequences: I can control life. If others changed, everything would be okay. I can stop (name your addiction) any time I want. Life sucks; life’s perfect. No one else feels like I do. I’m too old to learn new things. I know what I am doing. We can notice the assumptions we live by and illuminate them and see if they remain valid (or ever were).

Many lie about our external world. Sometimes the lies come from propaganda or ignorance, and we believe them blindly. Some we propagate knowingly: My opinion supersedes science. Evolution is a fabrication. Climate change is not real. We can consume the planet’s resources without repercussions. We can continue to populate the planet without consequences. We can kill off species without harm to ourselves. We will never run out of water. We can stop spreading lies even when the truth goes counter to what we wish the truth would be (that’s called integrity). We can choose to challenge our own ignorance. We can be our own best teachers.

We lie about politics: Since the presidential campaign began on March 23, 2015, Politifact has been fact-checking the claims of the presidential candidates. To make a long, information-filled article short: 60.13% of the fact-checked claims of Donald Trump were rated False or Pants on Fire (13.33% for Hillary Clinton).

If we want to evolve as people, we see reality accurately: we peel away the untruths—whatever their origin–that often control our lives and adapt accordingly. We escape the Plato’s Caves of our inner worlds and become more aware and mature people who make better decisions about how we live.

We have much difficult inner and external work to do if we want to create a good America and a sustainable planet for future generations. We begin when we awaken.

A Moral Revolution?

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…The larger culture itself has become morally empty….

 David Brooks, NY Times June 7, 2016

 

New York Times Columnist Tom Friedman described the Republican Party as morally bankrupt.

Washington Post Columnist Richard Cohen wrote that Donald Trump is “without principles.”

People roundly condemned Speaker of the House Paul Ryan for putting his policy ambitions ahead of his values in supporting Trump despite Trump’s racist comments.

And on and on I could go about the lack of values and morality in Donald Trump and much of the Republican Party.

Some call for a moral revolution in America.

We don’t need new values, a new morality or a moral revolution.

We already have national and personal values worthy of our allegiance and commitment. Many of us simply lack the awareness and audacity to live true to our values. For many our courage has become lazy. Too many of us succumb to the worst elements in the workplace, the neighborhood, the statehouse and the congress. We gladly join with the mediocre to avoid conflict. We dumb our brains and our hearts down to fit in and give up part of our selves and lives when we do so. We stay silent and look the other way. I don’t know about you but, unlike Paul Ryan, I would say no to the team, the organization and the political party before I would sacrifice my values to be accepted by disgusting people, hollow presidential candidates or a political party on a path to irrelevance.

Had Republican primary voters been more mature, aware and value-driven and had they voted from wise discernment instead of their anger, Donald Trump wouldn’t be the Republican nominee for president of the United States. But they weren’t grownups and now the rest of us are called to be the adults in our political system.

If we are to solve the problems that engulf us, we won’t do it with the version of human being that created the problems. We need a new kind of ourselves: more awake and aware, more thoughtful, more value-driven and more loving and compassionate towards our planet, other people and ourselves. To consciously evolve ourselves takes courage. We become courageous one small brave act at a time.

Each of us can do what we can to live more true to our values in our day-to-day lives. We can stand up, speak up and put the moral implications of life front and center and do what we can to be the change in morality we want to see in others and in our leaders. In doing so, we do our part to bring forth a more mature version of ourselves.

The recent mass murders in Orlando, FL call us to do something about guns in our society. Our attitudes and behaviors towards mass violence is a form of insanity. Climate change, immigration, and income inequality continue to call for change each in their own ways. We must heed these calls to action or suffer the consequences of continued avoidance of serious issues that threaten our democracy and our way of life. We cannot stay as we are. Either we go backwards in our human evolution or we move to the future and a better people, nation and world. We are responsible. Our deepest values guide us.

Has our national character deteriorated so much, have so many abandoned their values so completely that Donald Trump, brought forth from the dark side of a small group of Americans, could actually be elected president? Will we turn our future and our nation over to this twisted and deluded man? Maybe, if masses of people stay indifferent. People need to vote on November 8, 2016.

America especially needs the young, the minorities and the immigrants—who so often don’t vote–to cast ballots for those who represent their values. You see, if we want change in this country (immigration, gun laws, income disparity, climate change and more) we can’t have 51% to 49% election results that only maintain gridlock. We need Democrats—from the top to the bottom of the ballot–to win a blow-out election that evolves our acceptance of diversity, which makes us a more alive and resilient nation, our partnership and cooperation with one another that allows every person to contribute to our success and our dependence on each other: we are all in this together.

Clear thinking and our value-driven actions must decide our destiny—not passive silence or by putting political agendas before honor.

A vote against Donald Trump who offers us “xenophobia, bigotry, misogyny and a crypto-fascist approach to government [Paul Waldman, Washington Post, June 13, 2016], may be the most moral thing each of us can do in the months ahead.

Get A Life

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What would happen to our world if we said to each child: You are precious to us; you will always have our love and support; you are here to be who you are; try never to hurt another, but never stop trying to become yourself as fully as you can; when you fall and fail, you are still loved by us and welcomed to us, but you are also here to leave us, and to go onward toward your own destiny without having to worry about pleasing us.

James Hollis in Find Meaning in the Second Half of Life

 

From How To Raise An Adult by Julie Lythcott-Haims:

Catharine Jacobsen, a Seattle parent and senior college counselor at Lakeside School, got an important reality check when as a young mother she called her own mother to complain about being cold, wet, and muddy on the sideline at her kid’s soccer game. Catharine’s mother was not especially sympathetic. “I have no idea why you’re standing out there,” she said. “You aren’t showing your kids anything. If you want to show them that athletics are important, you should be going on a run yourself. Or if you want to show them what is valuable to you, go home and read a book, or get together with some of your own friends, or go to a play and then come home and talk about it. Why don’t you do some stuff of your own? That’s you getting a life. Your kids will observe that and think, ‘Okay, that’s how you get a life.’ And they’ll want to go get one. But the way it is, they’re going to get to be twenty-five and think, ‘I never saw grown-ups living a life. I only saw them doing stuff for me, driving around, standing somewhere on a Saturday morning.'”

It is hard to balance our needs for personal freedom and personal kindness with the needs of others—especially for parents with young children. But everyone in a family—child, parents and nowadays grandparents who are often deeply involved with the lives of their children and grandchildren–must carve out an authentic life of their own hopefully supported by all family members–or suffer the consequences of a soul denied.

I grew up in a parent-centered family where my mom and dad set the agenda for themselves and for the family. Along the engaged-detached continuum, they were less emotionally engaged and more detached from their children. That gave me and my brothers and sister lots of freedom to “get a life” of our own. When we couldn’t handle our freedom, dad who believed in “fair but firm,” handled us without drama or violence.

Mom and dad had lives of their own. They did things together and with their friends and unlike the child-centered families of today, the children were not included. I don’t recall ever feeling excluded as I happily went outside to play with friends. I had a life of my own.

I complained of my parent’s flaws as a young adult. My complaints were mostly self-serving. As I aged, matured and saw my own shortcomings, I better understood the context of their lives and forgave them their imperfections. What can we be but compassionate toward our parents when all lives are flawed—even our own? Now they are long gone, and I realize how good they were and I love them and respect them deeply.

As a parent, I tried to model the values my parents taught me—especially accountability and responsibility. I believed my job was to raise children who could leave our home and live a life of their own. If we do enough things right with children as they grow up, they will have the grit and wherewithal to set out on their own and find their own way in life.

Melanie and I have six kids between us. They live close to our hearts every day. We talk about them and the grandchildren all the time. We love to see them and wish we had more time with them and our grandchildren. We miss them but do not cling to them. We forgive them for the suffering they cause us and hope they forgive us our mistakes. We struggle with the delicate balance of how engaged and how detached we will be and where our children want us to be on that continuum.

We take care to not intrude in their lives (we sure want to sometimes) or to obligate them to be responsible for us in any way. We support them and often hold our breaths as we wait to see how things work out for them in the day-to-day ups and downs of their lives. We remain available to cry or cheer with them or provide a bed if they need it. But they remain responsible for their lives as we are for ours. Often we muddle along unsure of how to be parents and grandparents. We do our best and reflect and adapt as we go. Melanie and I have a full life together and each of us has a life all our own. We support each others journey in life and hope we are good role models for our children and grandchildren.

Our job was to raise our fledglings to leave the nest and fly on their own; our responsibility as parents of grown children is, I believe, to model for them a full life lived after the kids are gone.

And, as Catharine Jacobsen learned from her mother: It is always our job to “get a life.”

Think, Think, Think

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No problem can be solved [Or nation renewed] from the same level of consciousness that created it.

Einstein

 

Robert Greenleaf asked in Servant Leadership:

Who is the enemy? Who is holding back more rapid movement to the better society that is reasonable and possible with available resources? Who is responsible for the mediocre performance of so many of our institutions? Who is standing in the way of a larger consensus on the definition of the better society and paths to reaching it?

The good people who look the other way–not the evil, stupid and apathetic people who have so much power and influence today–are the enemy. The good people—at all socioeconomic levels–who have been lazy, asleep or afraid for a long time need to wake-up, courage-up and get energized and engaged with the future of their country.

They can begin by making a considered decision on their choice for the next President of the United States.

Progress has been made: Millions of people awakened this presidential election cycle as pent-up anger finally surfaced. Many millions more need to rouse themselves. Some on the left call for political revolution; some on the right call for a return to a romanticized past. Many are clueless.

For the newly awakened, now and in the months ahead, furious worship and hooting and hollering fall short of what is required. The roused have additional responsibilities: They must see the reality of America today through clear eyes so they can understand her needs—not just their wants and needs. Many suffer, I believe, fuzzy thinking. All of us must use discernment as we go deeper than our first emotional reactions to evaluate the candidates and their visions for America.

In Ethics For The New Millennium, The Dalai Lama wrote of wise discernment: “…involves constantly checking our outlook and asking ourselves whether we are being broad-minded or narrow-minded. Have we taken into account the overall situation or are we considering only specifics? Is our view short-term or long-term? Are we being short-sighted or clear-eyed, we need to think, think, think.”

Be aware of self-righteousness: “Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one [Friedrich Nietzsche].” Observe those who demonize, scapegoat and marginalize others to justify bad behavior contrary to American values. We die for our values. If we cast them aside for personal gain, we are lost.

Political rallies are not rock concerts to thrill or entertain us, or manipulate us and energize our more sordid sides. Going to a rally and supporting a candidate because he or she made you feel good or is the hot topic trending on Twitter today is not thinking straight. Rallies are but one element of a long, exhaustive and rigorous process. Keep the twists and turns of the daily campaign grind in perspective. Not every big deal is a big deal.

We need to listen, observe and learn the positions of the candidates and how they differ with one another—it doesn’t take long. Then we need to “think, think, think” about the character, experience and temperament of each aspirant along with the practicality of their visions and the specificity of how they would make their aspirations for America real. We should check out our assumptions about candidates: are they based on fact, fiction or opinion? How do our values line up with those of the contenders?

On November 8, 2016, the United States will get the president and the future of America that the majority of voters deserve. Will the voters choose to move forward or backward?

If America ever needed divine intervention it might be now.

Eudaimonic Happiness

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So we are coming to a conception of happiness that differs fundamentally from the storybook version. The storybook conception tells of desires fulfilled; the truer version involves striving toward meaningful goals. Storybook happiness involves a bland idleness; the truer conception involves seeking and purposeful effort. Storybook happiness involves every form of pleasant thumb-twiddling; true happiness involves the full use of one’s powers and talents. John W. Gardner in Self-Renewal

 

From: Life Reimagined: The Science, Art and Opportunity of Midlife by Barbara Bradley Hagerty:

The highest of all human good is the realization of our own true potential.

Thus was born eudaimonic happiness. It is about striving, working hard, purposeful engagement, the kind of effort that may be stressful or even painful in the short run but over the long run brings meaning and a wildly profitable return on investment.

A life of meaning can be kind of a drag: It involves sacrifice, stress, sleepless nights to feed the baby, working long hours to put your child through college, sitting by your wife’s side through the last stages of cancer, visiting your father even though Alzheimer’s has stolen his capacity for a shared memory, a joke, and gentle word.

So what’s the point of meaning, of eudaimonia, anyway? As it turns out, both our minds and our bodies prefer it. Researchers at the University of Rochester tracked some 150 recent graduates, dividing them into those who were seeking intrinsic goals (valuing “deep, lasting relationships” or “helping others improve their lives”) or extrinsic goals, such as wealth, looks, fame. The researchers checked back two years later and found that the young people who achieved their extrinsic, image-related goals fared poorly: They reported more negative emotions like shame and anger, and more physical symptoms like headaches, stomachaches, and loss of energy. The intrinsic set, which valued relationships and personal growth, reported more positive feelings toward themselves and others, and fewer physical signs of stress.

Let’s drill down a little further, into our biology. Our bodies prefer selfless happiness to self-centeredness, and will reward eudaimonia with a longer life. Scientists have discovered that people who pursue eudaimonic well-being also have lower particular biomarkers for inflammation that have been linked to a number of health problems, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, and Alzheimer’s disease. These purposeful people even had lower cholesterol.

Drill down deeper still, and we find that even our DNA rewards eudaimonic meaning and punishes hedonism…. Those who pursued pleasure more than meaning had the bad genomic fingerprint profile, the one with the dangerous immune response. But those whose dispositions tipped toward eudaimonic well-being had the opposite response to stress: they were protected at a cellular level.

It is better to be good than happy.