optimism

December 31, 2023

Joy, Three Ways

In the Western World, many display a kind of radical positivity. They lean into thoughts of beauty, opportunity, health, friendship, and family. Prone to smiling and laughter, they carry a mindset in which all problems offer a solution. Optimism rules the day and evening, too.

Life is not always easy, but I can only applaud those who travel this path while offering two additional ways to joy less often thought of. Let me move beyond the first road mentioned to the second, possibly overlapping the previous one.

Way #2 includes the gift of living in the moment as much as possible. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the late University of Chicago psychology professor, described the occurrence as a “flow state.”

According to Csikszentmihalyi, in moments of flow, “people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.”

Flow persists undistracted, mindful only of that in which one is engaged. Time passes unnoticed, a perfect, unselfconscious episode. There is no thought of before or after. The individual is present and focused beyond the self. Others might walk by him and or say hello without his awareness.

This is not the day-to-day happiness mentioned in the first paragraph. Most of us would be pleased if we could achieve that much — a beautiful day with a companion in sync with us, laughing while viewing the future with optimism.

Way #3 is different.

Rather than being fully in the moment, this avenue to joy includes realizing the temporary nature of most everything, including you and the person you are with. Implicit is the recognition of life’s shortness. Because you and the other are mortal, the idea of losing possession of the experience of touch, tenderness, excitement, or companionship is not far away.

Tears sometimes appear, as do expressions of affection and the thought this might be the last time you and the other are together. The engagement is captured in the word bittersweet. The intensity of such an event is more complex than the first two paths to gladness but brings urgency and poignance — a different form of joy.

The depth of emotion produced on the third road allows one to behave with the knowledge of life’s impermanence. Saying “I love you” takes on more importance. Expressions of sentiment and telling the other what they mean to you hold the same necessity.

Informing loved ones and friends why they are precious fits Way #3. Some believe any word or action suggesting life’s brevity risks bringing unnecessary darkness. Still, countless individuals regret unsaid tenderness and gratitude, just as they carry unhappiness over caustic and rageful last words. 

You could argue Way #3 is not conventional joy, and I might agree. But it comprises little different from tears upon your child’s birth, the pride in her successful performance on stage, or the happiness of a reunion after wartime.

I am not here to tell you which type of joy you should prefer. No one requires you to choose. We do well to be grateful for bliss in whatever form. Yet, we have the most control over the last of the three because it involves a specific action.

I offer you a recommendation. Consider expressing your love to all those you care for before the New Year’s Day ends. Say this in the hope you embrace them many times in the years ahead while recognizing immortality is the one gift a fellow mortal cannot bestow.

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Both photos come from Wikimedia Commons. The first is called The Joy of Playing Together by Rasheedhrasheed. The second is Happy Men by  BornThisWayMedia.

November 4, 2016

“Do They Still Play the Blues in Chicago?” Cue Up the Post-World Series Blues

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I am about to rain on the victory parade, but with a smile. I offer a few thoughts on the psychology of experiencing the first Chicago Cubs World Championship since 1908. Plus a word of condolence to the Cleveland Indians and their fans.

  1. Enjoy this now, Cubs Nation. Unless you are all immortal witch doctors, you will not be present at the first rainfall after another 108-year drought. The rain delay in Cleveland was a reminder.
  2. The faithful who gathered near Wrigley Field while the game was played elsewhere are a dedicated bunch. They paid attention to the score, drank, worried, talked, stood, cheered, and chafed their hands from overuse in prayer. They thought about the dead relatives who wore out their bottoms waiting in the station for the victory train that never came. They wept when the contest ended. To paraphrase what someone on Facebook wrote, “I guess now we have to start dating again.”
  3. My last post suggested rabid fans get to attach to something bigger by saying “we’re number #1” and holding up giant foam-rubber hands with the index finger extended. Well, who am I to take their joy away? I do realize, however, much as I’m pleased the Cubs won, “we” watchers didn’t achieve the victory: “they” (the players) did. Don’t believe me? Ask the boss for a 15-million-dollar annual salary, guaranteed for the next seven years, because of your contribution to the championship season.
  4. What is possible after the impossible? Red Smith, famous baseball writer, wrote about a different game in 1951: “Now it is done. Now the story ends. And there is no way to tell it. The art of fiction is dead. Reality has strangled invention. Only the utterly impossible, the inexpressibly fantastic, can ever be plausible again.”
  5. If the Cubs are more than a pastime for you, if you were resurrected from a miserable existence by the 2016 team, your life might just have peaked. Yes, the glow will only fade slowly, perhaps not disappearing until Thanksgiving or Christmas. Or maybe it will vanish on November 8, Election Day, and the inescapable reality of US political problems.
  6. Even if the Cubs win more championships, the experience of last evening was like lots of other “firsts:” first kiss, first child, first wedding. Magic isn’t easily duplicated.
  7. Rooting for the Chicago National League Ball Club, LLC guaranteed you a like-minded group of people who all shared the belief that no matter how fresh the carton appeared in the refrigerator, the milk would curdle as soon as you tried to pour a glass. To the good, however, you had millions of other humans for commiseration. You will now need either different things to lament or a personal surrender to optimism and a change in your philosophy of life. Yes, being positive is a tough job, but someone has to do it.
  8. You thought tickets to Cubs Park were expensive before?
  9. Listen to the old Peggy Lee song, Is That All There Is? Cubs fans are now like the dog which chased the fire truck its whole life and finally caught the big red machine, looked around, and thought “now what?”
  10. Hell just froze over, but was bumped from the front page by the Cubs victory.
  11. Everything happens for a reason. I thought I’d throw in this quotidian thought, since no matter the life event you are describing you can always utter the phrase. You could also say everything happens for a raisin, the wrinkly kind. If God didn’t have something better to do than decide it was finally time for the Cubs to become winners, he wasn’t paying attention. Can you receive an ADHD diagnosis and still be the deity? A rhetorical question.
  12. Here is another consideration on the subject of gods and reasons: atheist Cubs fans now own one less of the latter to justify their belief an all-powerful and all-good being can’t possibly be in charge. Cleveland Indian rooters who were religiously faithful until today will be seen fleeing the house of worship of their choice. Or going back in to pray harder. They now claim 68-years without a baseball crown.
  13. Don’t take any of the above too seriously. Except the part about enjoying the moment. Cheers, in every sense.

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The photo of the 2016 Cubs World Series celebration is the work of Arturo Pardavila III as sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

January 1, 2011

Courage For the New Year

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Many of you, I suspect, have had a tough time over the holidays. Perhaps lonely, perhaps worried about what the future will bring. Many all over the world are yet unemployed or underemployed. Things have been difficult.

I offer you, therefore, an audio excerpt linked below, from a late 1941 speech given by Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister during most of World War II.

I hope that it will provide some solice and some reason to believe that a better future is possible.

Things were particularly dark for England in 1940. All of continental Europe had been conquered by the Nazis and night after night, the great cities of that island nation were bombed by the Luftwaffe, Hitler’s air force. The British Empire stood alone against the Third Reich and expected a land invasion. The United States had not yet entered the War and there was no certainty that it would.

Virtually no one thought England would survive.

But Churchill did and the Nazis were defeated.

In October of 1941, still prior to the USA’s entry into the war, Churchill was asked to speak to the students of Harrow School, an independent boarding school that was his alma mater.

What he had to say applies quite well to those, even today, who might fear that worse is to come in their lives, as well as those who despair over their current condition.

Listen to the first three minutes and ten seconds and take heart.

The entire excerpt is just over four minutes long.

Once you click on the blue link just below this paragraph, look at the upper  right corner of the page. Then scroll down and click on the Speech #33 (incorrectly identified as having been given in November 1941):

BBC Winston Churchill Speech to Harrow School

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The image above is Winston Churchill on Downing Street Giving His Famous ‘V’ (For Victory) Sign, June 5, 1943. Sourced from Wikimedia Commons.