Getting it Right -
The Spiritual Implications of Positive Psychology
by Katherine Brackett
UU Lakewood Ranch
The Spiritual Implications of Positive Psychology
by Katherine Brackett
UU Lakewood Ranch
Good morning.
Once upon a time, there was a little boy, the only child of his doting parents. As he grew, he developed normally in every way but one. He didn’t speak. His worried parents took him for evaluations and consulted experts, but no one could figure out what was wrong. One morning, when he was five, the boy was having breakfast when he suddenly declared in a loud voice, “This oatmeal is lumpy!” Both his parents rushed to his side, tears of joy on their faces, “You can talk!” his father said. “Of course,” replied the little boy. “But why haven’t you said anything until now?” his confused mother asked. “Well,” replied the little boy, “Up until now, everything has been okay.”
I think I have always found this joke particularly funny because I also had a son who was slow to speak. He finally began to speak in full sentences at 31 months of age. The catalyst for his leap into language was not lumpy oatmeal, but the arrival of his younger sister. I suspect he might have agreed with the little boy in the story that, up until then, “everything had been okay.”
Dr Seligman’s insights into his own daughter, Nikki, became the founding premise for the Positive Psychology movement that began just before the turn of the millennium. I began my career in psychology much earlier, in 1985, and I was taught a very different perspective in graduate school. My course work was all about what goes wrong with the human psyche, speculations about why, and sometimes, how to fix it. Soon after graduation, I took a job as a nurse practitioner in an emergency room that was dedicated to evaluating acutely ill psychiatric patients. During my career there, I tried very hard not to get things wrong. One of my primary responsibilities was to assess patients for dangerousness. The most important question I needed to answer was, was this person at risk to hurt themselves or someone else? Locking someone up in a psychiatric hospital who does not need to be there is a terrible violation of their civil rights, and it can have a negative impact on that person’s future. At the same time, all you have to do is look at today’s headlines about mass shootings to know that getting the answer wrong can be devastating. Columbine, which occurred early in my career in the emergency room, forever changed how I and my team thought about the work we did.
During that same period, I was learning to be a parent. In that role, I remember trying very hard to get things right, trying hard to reach beyond my exhaustion to provide love, guidance and enrichment to my young children. Still, the fear of getting it wrong was always present as well. I was afraid of spoiling them, as the old expression goes, rather like milk gone bad. Parenting books always seemed to me like a confusing blend of both elements, making it hard for me to know where to focus.
This is where Seligman’s insight comes in, and I wish I had had the benefit of his ideas when my children were little. Still, I find I can apply the principles to my life today.
Think about hosting a small dinner party. I don’t know about you, but I spend a lot of my energy worried about cleaning and cooking. About not getting the party wrong. One evening, not too long ago, I had the presence of mind to spend at least some of my time thinking about our invited guests, a couple I thought I knew well. As I was thinking about them and our relationship before they arrived that evening, I realized that somehow over the years I had learned almost nothing about the wife’s childhood. Idecided to ask her about it that evening, and she was happy to answer. We could have spent the evening, as we often did when we spent time together, sharing travel stories, but I ended up feeling much closer to her because of my questions and her answers. After the evening was over, my husband expressed surprise and pleasure at the direction the conversation that evening had taken and asked why I had thought to ask the questions that I had. I told him I had just started reading more about positive psychology and I was trying, as Seligman would say, to “get it right”. Hosting a dinner party, I had decided, should not only be about avoiding mistakes in preparing the food or double checking the guest bathroom for toilet paper. It should be about deepening our relationship with our guests.
Positive psychology takes the traditional frame of reference when thinking about psychological issues and turns it upside down. Take a common mental disorder that we hear a lot about today, PTSD. Post traumatic Stress Disorder. Soldiers who go to war, people caught in natural disasters and victims of violent crime all experience a version of this disorder with similar symptoms and disability. However, only a minority of the people who are wounded in battle, survive the destruction of their home in a hurricane or are the victim of sexual assault, as examples, get PTSD.
When I was working in the Psychiatric Emergency Service, I briefly evaluated and treated two women who had discovered the body of a third woman who had been brutally murdered. It was in all the papers in Boston at the time. I saw each of the women separately. The first woman, although initially very upset and tearful, rallied quickly and returned to her life relatively unaltered, perhaps even somewhat empowered by the experience. The second woman couldn’t sleep, had nightmareswhen she did, started to have difficulty leaving her house and began to drink heavily. She required a referral to a counseling program that specialized in the treatment of PTSD.
The second woman is of interest to traditional psychologists. They want to know why she became ill and what they could do to help her recover. This is important work. However, it is the first woman who is of interest to positive psychologists. They want to know why she didn’t, apparently, suffer any lasting effects from the trauma, the exact same trauma by the way, which is what makes this situation unique, and what we can learn from her about the resilience of the human spirit. It seems odd now, but for the first 100 years in the study of psychology, beginning with Freud, there was almost no interest in what goes right in our emotional lives, only in what goes wrong.
It has only been in the last two decades that the study of positive psychology has begun in earnest. The scientists in the field have identified five key areas of study that they abbreviate as the acronym PERMA. I was taken aback to find a description of PERMA as one of the central topics in a sermon given by Brock Leach at Lakewood Ranch just five weeks ago, but I feel it is important here to include a brief review: (Slide)
P: Positive Emotions
Not just joy or happiness, but excitement, satisfaction, pride, gratitude and awe, among many others. Studies show that the more positive emotions you experience, the longer you will live.
E: Engagement
This is the study of human activities that create “Flow”, a concept popularized by Dr Csikszentmihslyi. Mike to his friends at Harvard. This is the experience of a person who is deeply involved in an activity that requires a skill level that is challenging but manageable. A person engaged at this level loses a sense of self consciousness as well as a sense of time. Engaged individuals make major contributions to our society and their own happiness.
R: Relationships
Humans receive, share and spread positive emotions through their relationships with one another. The most important things that happen in life take place in the presence of one another. Positive, intimate relationships extend both our lives and our sense of well being. Our capacity to cooperate and thrive in very large groups is an astonishing miracle. John Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind, says that this is not the greatest miracle in our world (slide of nature), this is (Slide of large city). Despite wars and crime, our peaceful existence together as a species mostly works. How do we do that? And how can we do it better? Perhaps that is a field of study for Positive Sociologists. I did a quick google search on this and the field of Positive Sociology seems in a beginning state. There have been several books written recently, however, that affirm that our world is getting better along many dimensions, so the idea is out there.
M: Meaning
This is also known as purpose. Searching for the “Why” in life puts everything else in context. It also places the focus on something greater than yourself. Traditionally
religious people place this element of positive psychology directly into the hands of the Divine. All twelve step support groups place a power greater than oneself at the heart of the program of recovery, but usually allow members to define what that Greater Power is for themselves. In Unitarian Universalism, our atheist and humanist members join in our quest for a larger, more universal sense of meaning with the same vigor as those of us who define our beliefs as spiritual or theist. We share a commitment to democracy, social justice, world peace, environmental protections and other ideals greater than our personal goals. I think it is this aspect of our UU Beliefs that allows us to bond as a religious tradition without needing to insist on a uniformity of theological beliefs.
A: Accomplishments
Accomplishment, unlike the other elements of the PERMA acronym, does not stand alone. To obtain a sense of positive well being, we need to accomplish things. But, to contribute to positive well being, our accomplishments must be compatible with the other PERMA elements. In other words, you can’t lie and cheat your way to positive accomplishment, even if you become President. Accomplishing things is important, but how you accomplish them must be congruent with the other elements identified by positive psychologists, and with the Virtues that have historically been part of religious teachings.
The study of religious history is important to positive psychologists because they have noted a profound agreement between the virtues espoused by most religions and those that are found in the resilient subjects in their studies.
These include (slide)
Wisdom and Knowledge: Included in this category are also things like: creativity, curiosity, open mindedness, love of learning, perspective and Innovation
Courage: Includes not only bravery, but persistence, integrity, vitality and zest Humanity: includes love and kindness, as you might expect, but also the elements of what we have come to label as “social intelligence”.
Justice: includes things like citizenship, fairness and true leadership, which have never felt more to me like spiritual values than they do today.
Temperance: Includes forgiveness, mercy, humility, prudence and self control
Transcendence: Which I have always associated with the Divine, also includes the appreciation of beauty and excellence, gratitude, hope and humor
Paul Thagard, a Canadian philosopher, suggests that all the studies that show a positive association between being religious and having a sense of positive well being, and there are many, many of these....most traditionally religious people do very well on measures of well being... are mistaking the effects of Faith and theology with the aspirations of religious people to embody the virtues that are central tenants of their religion as well. Think of the Sermon on the Mount.
As a Unitarian Universalist, I would suggest that there is an additional advantage in our faith when comparing the Judeo Christian Ten Commandments to our Seven Principals. Our Principals are all about Getting it Right, framed in positive aspirational language, while of the ten commandments, only two: Keep Holy the Sabbath Day and Honor thy Father and thy Mother, are presented in positive terms. As I have said several times, not getting it wrong is important. I’m fine with the no killing and no stealing bit. I just believe an emphasis on the positive is a more productive way of being in the world whenever possible. It is why I believe our principals speak more clearly to our higher nature than a list of thou shalt nots. When you put the emphasis on error and sin, you encourage different emotions: guilt, shame, anger, hatred and blame. I am no stranger to these emotions, sadly, but I have come to learn that they almost never do me, or anyone around me, any good. They are certainly not doing our country any good lately. I believe these emotions engender suffering, and in addition, they are unlikely to lead to change, unless they are transformed into positive emotions and virtues. I think of all the women who ran for office in this last election, with record breaking success, as an example of the positive transformation of anger into virtues like leadership, justice and citizenship. The scientific studies conducted by positive psychologists support this perspective.
The field of positive psychology is now moving in a new direction, one that opens up incredible possibilities for study and learning about humanity, but also one that challenges one of the world’s most venerated religions: Buddhism. As you know, the practice of Buddhism uses techniques, like meditation, to focus the mind on the here and now, on being present in the moment. It makes sense, and I have had times in my life when meditation was a part of my own spiritual practice. I found it helpful in managing those negative emotions. Also, like a lot of people, I found it extremely difficult to quiet my mind. My mind was always drifting off, spinning future scenarios and reflecting on past events, what the Buddhist call “Monkey Mind”. What I finally had to admit to myself was that when my mind was full of positive anticipation, planning, weighing options, I felt I was actually at my best. My thoughts were especially rewarding when they focused on planning something positive, like a travel adventure. However,
my ability to plan and anticipate was also important during difficult times, like a health crisis. I found it impossible, and not at all helpful, to stay in the moment when I was trying to decide whether to have surgery three years ago. It is all about reviewing my past experience, collecting data and envisioning the future.
The Latin name for humans, Homo Sapiens, means “wise one”. Being wise is a great goal, but one we unfortunately don’t always live up to as a species. Instead, what the positive psychologists now assert, and are working to prove through research, is that the real advantage of our species over others on the planet may not be our upright posture, opposable thumbs, or even language, but our ability to envision and plan for the future, using our memories as a guide, but also using other human capacities such as imagination and creativity. The newest book by the top scientists in the field is called Homo Prospectus, Latin for “One who Plans.”
I think the Buddhist have it exactly right sometimes, especially when I am in a stunning natural environment and I watch those around me experiencing the event only through attempting to photograph it with their cell phones. This happened to me several times this summer when my family was on a small boat cruise to Alaska. As we watched eleven majestic Humpback Whales Bubble Feeding in a coordinated group, like the world’s most amazing dance performance, I grew frustrated with having my view blocked by people holding phones to their faces. “Just Be Here Now!” I felt like shouting. It was a very unBuddhist, Buddhist response, I admit. However, I think it is also important to acknowledge that my family did not get on that trip without a lot of planning on my part, and what I was seeing that day was an awe inspiring version of what I had imagined as I made my decisions about the trip.
I don’t think any of us who have moved to Florida from somewhere else arrived here by staying totally in the moment all the time. We planned. We imagined. We learn from our past successes and failures. Only after all that, did we arrive at a place where we could sit on a Florida beach at sunset, totally in the moment. Planning, our ability to plan, to imagine and influence the future, is a remarkable human capacity, central to our humanity. I think we often don’t appreciate this important ability. We honor some of its elements, like creativity and imagination, yet devalue the harder work of learning from experience and weighing options. If the focus is negative, we call it worrying. I think the Positive Psychologists are on to something in studying Homo Prospectus and I look forward to learning more about it in the future.
For me, “Not Getting It Wrong” fits with Freud’s conclusion that if you remove all of a person’s neurosis, the best you can hope for is a sad acceptance of the fact that life is difficult. Buddhism represents a similar message, but with the hope of transcendence through detachment. However, I believe more is possible for the human spirit. Actually, I believe that we are already more, and that the Positive Psychologists are now on track to merge what we have always known about our highest nature as humans with the religious teachings on spiritual virtues and values. I believe we can keep learning how to do better as individuals and as a species. We can thrive, not just survive. It is important not to get it wrong, but perhaps the most important thing we can do for ourselves and our world is to place more emphasis on Getting It Right.
Thank-you
Once upon a time, there was a little boy, the only child of his doting parents. As he grew, he developed normally in every way but one. He didn’t speak. His worried parents took him for evaluations and consulted experts, but no one could figure out what was wrong. One morning, when he was five, the boy was having breakfast when he suddenly declared in a loud voice, “This oatmeal is lumpy!” Both his parents rushed to his side, tears of joy on their faces, “You can talk!” his father said. “Of course,” replied the little boy. “But why haven’t you said anything until now?” his confused mother asked. “Well,” replied the little boy, “Up until now, everything has been okay.”
I think I have always found this joke particularly funny because I also had a son who was slow to speak. He finally began to speak in full sentences at 31 months of age. The catalyst for his leap into language was not lumpy oatmeal, but the arrival of his younger sister. I suspect he might have agreed with the little boy in the story that, up until then, “everything had been okay.”
Dr Seligman’s insights into his own daughter, Nikki, became the founding premise for the Positive Psychology movement that began just before the turn of the millennium. I began my career in psychology much earlier, in 1985, and I was taught a very different perspective in graduate school. My course work was all about what goes wrong with the human psyche, speculations about why, and sometimes, how to fix it. Soon after graduation, I took a job as a nurse practitioner in an emergency room that was dedicated to evaluating acutely ill psychiatric patients. During my career there, I tried very hard not to get things wrong. One of my primary responsibilities was to assess patients for dangerousness. The most important question I needed to answer was, was this person at risk to hurt themselves or someone else? Locking someone up in a psychiatric hospital who does not need to be there is a terrible violation of their civil rights, and it can have a negative impact on that person’s future. At the same time, all you have to do is look at today’s headlines about mass shootings to know that getting the answer wrong can be devastating. Columbine, which occurred early in my career in the emergency room, forever changed how I and my team thought about the work we did.
During that same period, I was learning to be a parent. In that role, I remember trying very hard to get things right, trying hard to reach beyond my exhaustion to provide love, guidance and enrichment to my young children. Still, the fear of getting it wrong was always present as well. I was afraid of spoiling them, as the old expression goes, rather like milk gone bad. Parenting books always seemed to me like a confusing blend of both elements, making it hard for me to know where to focus.
This is where Seligman’s insight comes in, and I wish I had had the benefit of his ideas when my children were little. Still, I find I can apply the principles to my life today.
Think about hosting a small dinner party. I don’t know about you, but I spend a lot of my energy worried about cleaning and cooking. About not getting the party wrong. One evening, not too long ago, I had the presence of mind to spend at least some of my time thinking about our invited guests, a couple I thought I knew well. As I was thinking about them and our relationship before they arrived that evening, I realized that somehow over the years I had learned almost nothing about the wife’s childhood. Idecided to ask her about it that evening, and she was happy to answer. We could have spent the evening, as we often did when we spent time together, sharing travel stories, but I ended up feeling much closer to her because of my questions and her answers. After the evening was over, my husband expressed surprise and pleasure at the direction the conversation that evening had taken and asked why I had thought to ask the questions that I had. I told him I had just started reading more about positive psychology and I was trying, as Seligman would say, to “get it right”. Hosting a dinner party, I had decided, should not only be about avoiding mistakes in preparing the food or double checking the guest bathroom for toilet paper. It should be about deepening our relationship with our guests.
Positive psychology takes the traditional frame of reference when thinking about psychological issues and turns it upside down. Take a common mental disorder that we hear a lot about today, PTSD. Post traumatic Stress Disorder. Soldiers who go to war, people caught in natural disasters and victims of violent crime all experience a version of this disorder with similar symptoms and disability. However, only a minority of the people who are wounded in battle, survive the destruction of their home in a hurricane or are the victim of sexual assault, as examples, get PTSD.
When I was working in the Psychiatric Emergency Service, I briefly evaluated and treated two women who had discovered the body of a third woman who had been brutally murdered. It was in all the papers in Boston at the time. I saw each of the women separately. The first woman, although initially very upset and tearful, rallied quickly and returned to her life relatively unaltered, perhaps even somewhat empowered by the experience. The second woman couldn’t sleep, had nightmareswhen she did, started to have difficulty leaving her house and began to drink heavily. She required a referral to a counseling program that specialized in the treatment of PTSD.
The second woman is of interest to traditional psychologists. They want to know why she became ill and what they could do to help her recover. This is important work. However, it is the first woman who is of interest to positive psychologists. They want to know why she didn’t, apparently, suffer any lasting effects from the trauma, the exact same trauma by the way, which is what makes this situation unique, and what we can learn from her about the resilience of the human spirit. It seems odd now, but for the first 100 years in the study of psychology, beginning with Freud, there was almost no interest in what goes right in our emotional lives, only in what goes wrong.
It has only been in the last two decades that the study of positive psychology has begun in earnest. The scientists in the field have identified five key areas of study that they abbreviate as the acronym PERMA. I was taken aback to find a description of PERMA as one of the central topics in a sermon given by Brock Leach at Lakewood Ranch just five weeks ago, but I feel it is important here to include a brief review: (Slide)
P: Positive Emotions
Not just joy or happiness, but excitement, satisfaction, pride, gratitude and awe, among many others. Studies show that the more positive emotions you experience, the longer you will live.
E: Engagement
This is the study of human activities that create “Flow”, a concept popularized by Dr Csikszentmihslyi. Mike to his friends at Harvard. This is the experience of a person who is deeply involved in an activity that requires a skill level that is challenging but manageable. A person engaged at this level loses a sense of self consciousness as well as a sense of time. Engaged individuals make major contributions to our society and their own happiness.
R: Relationships
Humans receive, share and spread positive emotions through their relationships with one another. The most important things that happen in life take place in the presence of one another. Positive, intimate relationships extend both our lives and our sense of well being. Our capacity to cooperate and thrive in very large groups is an astonishing miracle. John Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind, says that this is not the greatest miracle in our world (slide of nature), this is (Slide of large city). Despite wars and crime, our peaceful existence together as a species mostly works. How do we do that? And how can we do it better? Perhaps that is a field of study for Positive Sociologists. I did a quick google search on this and the field of Positive Sociology seems in a beginning state. There have been several books written recently, however, that affirm that our world is getting better along many dimensions, so the idea is out there.
M: Meaning
This is also known as purpose. Searching for the “Why” in life puts everything else in context. It also places the focus on something greater than yourself. Traditionally
religious people place this element of positive psychology directly into the hands of the Divine. All twelve step support groups place a power greater than oneself at the heart of the program of recovery, but usually allow members to define what that Greater Power is for themselves. In Unitarian Universalism, our atheist and humanist members join in our quest for a larger, more universal sense of meaning with the same vigor as those of us who define our beliefs as spiritual or theist. We share a commitment to democracy, social justice, world peace, environmental protections and other ideals greater than our personal goals. I think it is this aspect of our UU Beliefs that allows us to bond as a religious tradition without needing to insist on a uniformity of theological beliefs.
A: Accomplishments
Accomplishment, unlike the other elements of the PERMA acronym, does not stand alone. To obtain a sense of positive well being, we need to accomplish things. But, to contribute to positive well being, our accomplishments must be compatible with the other PERMA elements. In other words, you can’t lie and cheat your way to positive accomplishment, even if you become President. Accomplishing things is important, but how you accomplish them must be congruent with the other elements identified by positive psychologists, and with the Virtues that have historically been part of religious teachings.
The study of religious history is important to positive psychologists because they have noted a profound agreement between the virtues espoused by most religions and those that are found in the resilient subjects in their studies.
These include (slide)
Wisdom and Knowledge: Included in this category are also things like: creativity, curiosity, open mindedness, love of learning, perspective and Innovation
Courage: Includes not only bravery, but persistence, integrity, vitality and zest Humanity: includes love and kindness, as you might expect, but also the elements of what we have come to label as “social intelligence”.
Justice: includes things like citizenship, fairness and true leadership, which have never felt more to me like spiritual values than they do today.
Temperance: Includes forgiveness, mercy, humility, prudence and self control
Transcendence: Which I have always associated with the Divine, also includes the appreciation of beauty and excellence, gratitude, hope and humor
Paul Thagard, a Canadian philosopher, suggests that all the studies that show a positive association between being religious and having a sense of positive well being, and there are many, many of these....most traditionally religious people do very well on measures of well being... are mistaking the effects of Faith and theology with the aspirations of religious people to embody the virtues that are central tenants of their religion as well. Think of the Sermon on the Mount.
As a Unitarian Universalist, I would suggest that there is an additional advantage in our faith when comparing the Judeo Christian Ten Commandments to our Seven Principals. Our Principals are all about Getting it Right, framed in positive aspirational language, while of the ten commandments, only two: Keep Holy the Sabbath Day and Honor thy Father and thy Mother, are presented in positive terms. As I have said several times, not getting it wrong is important. I’m fine with the no killing and no stealing bit. I just believe an emphasis on the positive is a more productive way of being in the world whenever possible. It is why I believe our principals speak more clearly to our higher nature than a list of thou shalt nots. When you put the emphasis on error and sin, you encourage different emotions: guilt, shame, anger, hatred and blame. I am no stranger to these emotions, sadly, but I have come to learn that they almost never do me, or anyone around me, any good. They are certainly not doing our country any good lately. I believe these emotions engender suffering, and in addition, they are unlikely to lead to change, unless they are transformed into positive emotions and virtues. I think of all the women who ran for office in this last election, with record breaking success, as an example of the positive transformation of anger into virtues like leadership, justice and citizenship. The scientific studies conducted by positive psychologists support this perspective.
The field of positive psychology is now moving in a new direction, one that opens up incredible possibilities for study and learning about humanity, but also one that challenges one of the world’s most venerated religions: Buddhism. As you know, the practice of Buddhism uses techniques, like meditation, to focus the mind on the here and now, on being present in the moment. It makes sense, and I have had times in my life when meditation was a part of my own spiritual practice. I found it helpful in managing those negative emotions. Also, like a lot of people, I found it extremely difficult to quiet my mind. My mind was always drifting off, spinning future scenarios and reflecting on past events, what the Buddhist call “Monkey Mind”. What I finally had to admit to myself was that when my mind was full of positive anticipation, planning, weighing options, I felt I was actually at my best. My thoughts were especially rewarding when they focused on planning something positive, like a travel adventure. However,
my ability to plan and anticipate was also important during difficult times, like a health crisis. I found it impossible, and not at all helpful, to stay in the moment when I was trying to decide whether to have surgery three years ago. It is all about reviewing my past experience, collecting data and envisioning the future.
The Latin name for humans, Homo Sapiens, means “wise one”. Being wise is a great goal, but one we unfortunately don’t always live up to as a species. Instead, what the positive psychologists now assert, and are working to prove through research, is that the real advantage of our species over others on the planet may not be our upright posture, opposable thumbs, or even language, but our ability to envision and plan for the future, using our memories as a guide, but also using other human capacities such as imagination and creativity. The newest book by the top scientists in the field is called Homo Prospectus, Latin for “One who Plans.”
I think the Buddhist have it exactly right sometimes, especially when I am in a stunning natural environment and I watch those around me experiencing the event only through attempting to photograph it with their cell phones. This happened to me several times this summer when my family was on a small boat cruise to Alaska. As we watched eleven majestic Humpback Whales Bubble Feeding in a coordinated group, like the world’s most amazing dance performance, I grew frustrated with having my view blocked by people holding phones to their faces. “Just Be Here Now!” I felt like shouting. It was a very unBuddhist, Buddhist response, I admit. However, I think it is also important to acknowledge that my family did not get on that trip without a lot of planning on my part, and what I was seeing that day was an awe inspiring version of what I had imagined as I made my decisions about the trip.
I don’t think any of us who have moved to Florida from somewhere else arrived here by staying totally in the moment all the time. We planned. We imagined. We learn from our past successes and failures. Only after all that, did we arrive at a place where we could sit on a Florida beach at sunset, totally in the moment. Planning, our ability to plan, to imagine and influence the future, is a remarkable human capacity, central to our humanity. I think we often don’t appreciate this important ability. We honor some of its elements, like creativity and imagination, yet devalue the harder work of learning from experience and weighing options. If the focus is negative, we call it worrying. I think the Positive Psychologists are on to something in studying Homo Prospectus and I look forward to learning more about it in the future.
For me, “Not Getting It Wrong” fits with Freud’s conclusion that if you remove all of a person’s neurosis, the best you can hope for is a sad acceptance of the fact that life is difficult. Buddhism represents a similar message, but with the hope of transcendence through detachment. However, I believe more is possible for the human spirit. Actually, I believe that we are already more, and that the Positive Psychologists are now on track to merge what we have always known about our highest nature as humans with the religious teachings on spiritual virtues and values. I believe we can keep learning how to do better as individuals and as a species. We can thrive, not just survive. It is important not to get it wrong, but perhaps the most important thing we can do for ourselves and our world is to place more emphasis on Getting It Right.
Thank-you