If you want to be happy – don’t seek happiness – at least not for yourself

Happiness is all the rage, and why not, we all want to be happy. I love what the brilliant German playwright and philosopher, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said in his epic poem, Faust, “Only in the present is our happiness.” If you think about it, this makes sense. After all, we only exist in the present moment. We do not live in the past or in the future, but only in the present. If we are going to be happy, then we must be happy now. Unfortunately, we often allow our regrets and guilt about the past or our worries and fears about the future to rob the present moment of happiness. When we do come back to the present it is usually to feel inadequate and dissatisfied.

I have known too many people who procrastinate the day of their happiness. They imagine to themselves that they will be happy when they finally graduate from school, or when they get that great job, or when they finally get married, or sometimes, divorced, or they will finally be happy when they own their dream home, or have a new car. The conditions for future happiness are infinite, and they will never be satisfied. Happiness is something we experience in the present moment or not at all. “Dare to be happy,” as Goethe challenged his nineteenth century compatriots. Yet, how do we “dare to be happy,” or how do we choose to be happy right now?

One problem is it is difficult to identify exactly what happiness is. Of course, there are many different conceptions of the meaning of happiness. Essentially happiness does seem to be a subjective state in which we experience wellbeing. What exactly this wellbeing might be, however, is often debated. Some identify it with pleasure (hedonists and utilitarians). Others believe it is the absence of desire (Eastern philosophies). And there are those who say it is a state of character (Aristotle). Most likely, they are all right in their own way and from their particular perspective.

Two of my favorite definitions of happiness are as follows. The first I found in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick:

But even so, amid the tornadoed Atlantic of my being, do I myself still for ever centrally disport in mute calm; and while ponderous planets of unwaning woe revolve round me, deep down and deep inland there I still bathe me in eternal mildness of joy.

It’s that last phrase that speaks to me – the eternal mildness of joy. Melville was expressing that such calm joy can be experienced deep within us, even when surrounded by turbulent adversity. That seems to me to be a perfect statement of happiness. The second is my own creation. I have come to appreciate and understand happiness as the confident expectation in the goodness of the present moment.

I should make you aware of two more key aspects of happiness. Both could be considered paradoxes. They are:                                    

The Hedonic Paradox: You can’t directly choose happiness. The British philosopher, John Stuart Mill in his autobiography said,

I never wavered in the conviction that happiness is the test of all rules of conduct and the end of life. But I now thought that this end was only to be attained by not making it the direct end. Those only are happy who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, or on the improvement of mankind…. Aiming thus on something else, they find happiness by the way.

Mm, now I’m getting closer to where I want to end up, given the title of this post, but not just yet.

The Happiness Paradox: Most people report happiness with their life as a whole (what we might call “life assessment”), but experience dissatisfaction in the present moment (what we might call “emotional wellbeing”). A famous study in 2010 by Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton discovered the above two different measures of wellbeing or happiness. The first they called life evaluation or assessment of one’s life as a whole, and the second they called an everyday emotional wellbeing, where one has more positive emotional states than negative states throughout the day. They discovered that the more money a person has increases his or her life assessment indefinitely, but after a certain income level (they pegged it at $75000) an increase in pay will show little affect on one’s daily emotional wellbeing.

I guess the key question to ask is where does a person live their life, in the daily moments of life or in the abstraction of their life assessment? If a person is wealthy then it makes sense that as they look over their life they assume it most be a good life, yet in each moment they discover money doesn’t necessarily lead to authentic relationships to self, others, community, or world. Most people, I believe, are interested in the cultivation of happiness in the present moment, or at least in addition to leading, over all, a pleasant quality of life, each of us also desires the eternal mildness of joy in our daily emotional states.

There is a great story about Diogenes the Cynic and Alexander the Great that illustrates another dimension to this question of happiness. According to ancient legend, in 336 B.C.E. Alexander comes to visit Diogenes in Corinth. Alexander finds Diogenes lying naked in a discarded barrel in the street. You see, Diogenes had complete disregard for external goods such as honor, wealth, or reputation and chose instead to live according to the dictates of his own whims. It was said he was truly happy and content. Standing over him, Alexander asks Diogenes if he could do anything for him; grant him any favor he might choose. This might be like if the richest, most powerful person in the world were to come up to you and offer to give you anything you wanted. What would you ask for?

            Well Diogenes, without even looking up at Alexander, simply said, “Yes, you could move out of the way, you’re blocking the sun.” One legend states that the men around Alexander were so infuriated at Diogenes insolence towards their powerful king that they wanted to kill Diogenes, but Alexander stopped them. Then he famously said, “If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes!” When I ask my students what Alexander might have meant, they point out that Alexander recognized how truly happy Diogenes was, compared to himself. While Alexander possessed great power, wealth, and reputation, he wasn’t really happy. Alexander’s great wealth and power could not bring him the happiness and contentment of Diogenes genuine independence.

I guess one way to look at this story is to say that one way to be truly happy is to be completely, and I do mean totally, independent from others, living a solitary and self-sufficient life, without any obligations that arise from family, work, or community relationships. Do any of us desire to live such a life? For many it is too late as we find ourselves already embedded in relationships of family, or friendship, or work. We have to find happiness in ourselves, in the present moment, while embedded within these important relationships. But how?

In some sense, our lives are but a sequence of moments, of present moments. The quality of our lives will depend upon the quality of those moments – how we choose to be in those moments, and how we choose to respond to what occurs in those moments. Will we choose to determine the quality of that moment for ourselves, or will we allow the moment to determine us? Diogenes could determine the moment for himself because he could care less for anybody else, but what if we do care about others, our relationships, and how other people feel? How do we determine the moment and not be determined by it, no matter how difficult or pleasant, and experience happiness?

            I find the wisest counsel in the words of an 8^th-century Buddhist scholar, Shantideva, who said:

All those who suffer in the world do so because of their desire for their own happiness. All those happy in the world are so because of their desire for the happiness of others.

Wow, that’s cool! I have found this to be true. When I focus on my own happiness, it eludes me. The harder I concentrate on it, the more it recedes from my grasp. Yet when I focus on others, not trying to make them happy, that would be tragic and impossible, but when I concentrate on giving others what I desire for myself; namely, respect and kindness, I discover happiness and joy in the present moment. Funny, when I seek it, it is not there. When I don’t seek it, but instead focus on serving others in the present moment, it appears. So if you want to experience happiness in the present moment, to determine for yourself what the present moment will be, don’t seek happiness for yourself, but seek to help and serve others, and your own happiness will arise without effort. Of course, don’t take my word for it, or even Shantideva, instead try it for yourself. Let’s go and do it today!

Thoughts on changing the world by first becoming who we are

I love the twentieth-century architect, Louis Kahn, who brought together in his architecture both the clear lines and geometry of Modernism with the monumentality of ancient buildings. He brought the past into the future in extraordinary ways. His life has lessons for us. In the midst of incredible adversity and bad choices of his own, he continued to create. He maintained confidence in himself and resilience in the face of extreme difficulty. Kahn once said, "how accidental our lives are really, and how filled with influence by circumstance." It will only be the force of our character that will keep us from surrendering to circumstance.

We all know that life can be difficult. Our existence as human beings is fraught with unknowns, contingencies, vulnerabilities, and the absurdities of good and bad luck. Each day we experience a mixture of gain and loss, praise and blame, pleasure and pain, acceptance and rejection, but the uncertainty of it all often brings about feelings of doubt and fear. Add to these experiences, our bad habit of measuring our own success and failure by comparing ourselves to others, and the result is most of us are constantly fighting the anxiety that we are not good enough, that we are inadequate. This fear and anxiety about our own inadequacies distorts our relationships with others; makes us feel alienated from our communities; and can give us a sense of insecurity in our world.

Given the existential state of our human condition, wouldn’t it be nice if we had a constant companion who was a person of great self-confidence, so he or she could help us remain calm in the face of adversity? Wouldn’t it be great if our constant companion were a person of strong emotional resilience, so he or she could help us cultivate positive feelings and thoughts regardless of the external circumstances we found ourselves in? Wouldn’t it be nice if our constant companion were a person of love, so he or she could help us be kind, forgiving, and patient both with ourselves and others we encountered each day? If our constant companion were self-confident, emotionally resilient, and loving, then I imagine he or she would also be joyful and cheerful and so could help us experience happiness each day. 

Of course, we do in fact have a constant companion. It is we, ourselves. We are that person whom we are with 24/7. We can never escape ourself. Wherever we go, there we are. We can never leave ourself, depart from ourself, but are for an entire lifetime welded to ourself. What kind of a person are we? Are we a person of great self-confidence? Of Emotional resilience? Of Love? Of happiness? Do we possess the character of the person whom we’d want to be with 24/7? Would we like to become that person – a person of confidence, resilience, love, and joy? We can’t control the character, or even the behavior of the people around us, but we can control our behavior. We can choose our character. We can determine who we will be.

The Greek philosopher, Socrates, taught that living together with others begins with living together with ourself. Only the person, who is able to live happily with him or herself, is able to live happily with others. We need to learn how to care. To care is to cultivate with love. To care is to nurture and grow what is already present in ourself, in our relationships to others, in our presence in community, and in how we dwell upon the earth. Think of a beautiful garden overrun with weeds; you cultivate it by removing what isn’t garden! Michelangelo was once asked how he could carve such a beautiful and life-like statue of David from a block of marble. He reportedly said it was easy. He simply saw the figure in the marble and then removed what wasn’t David. We already possess within ourself the confidence, emotional resilience, and love in order to experience joy in each moment of our life. We just need to cultivate it. We need to remove what isn't us. We need to recover our true identify.

There is a fable that tells of a very hungry and very pregnant tigress who pounces upon a flock of goats with such ferocity that she causes her own death and the birth of a baby tiger. When the goats see the dead tigress and the baby tiger, their maternal instincts kick in, and they adopt the baby tiger and raise it as one of their own, a goat. The tiger grows up believing it is a goat. It learns to talk like a goat, to eat like a goat, to act like a goat, but even then it doesn’t make a very good goat. One day, after the tiger has become a miserable goat, another, older tiger comes hunting the goats. The older tiger springs upon the goats, and they scatter in fear, but the young tiger just stands there and bleats like a goat.

The older tiger stares at the younger tiger in amazement and ask, “Why are you living here with these goats?” To which the young tiger just bleats, “Maaaaa.” The older tiger roars at him, but he just responds with goatish sounds and returns to his goat behavior eating grass. So the older tiger takes him and leads him to a still pond. The younger tiger looks into the pond and sees his own face. For the very first time, he sees himself for what he truly is, a tiger, not a goat. The older tiger puts his own face next to the younger tiger. “You see,” he says, “You’ve got a face like mine.” “You are not a goat.” “You are a tiger like me.” “Now go and be a tiger!”   

I love this fable. It seems that I often live like a goat; I think like a goat, I talk like a goat, eat like a goat, and behave like a goat. That is to say, I often live a life less than fully human, less than my full potential as a human being. I imagine you’re probably a lot like me. It is time we see one another and ourselves as we truly are and as we can become. It is time to become who we really are. We each need the tiger experience.

Revised Statement of Localism

Note: this is a revised statement of localism to better integrate with my presentation of the four cares: Care for the Self, Care for the Other, Care for Community, and Care for the World.

Care for the World

Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but on thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect. Continue to contaminate your own bed, and you will one night suffocate in your own waste.

-                 Chief Seattle

When all the trees have been cut down, when all the animals have been hunted, when all the waters are polluted, when all the air is unsafe to breathe, only then will you discover you cannot eat money.

-                 Cree Prophecy

All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the children of the earth.

-                 Chief Seattle

I do not think the measure of a civilization is how tall its buildings of concrete are, but rather how well its people have learned to relate to their environment and fellow humans.

-                 Sun Bear of the Chippewa Tribe

The goal in Care for the World is to enable self-sustaining communities where the basic existential needs for respect and security of present and future generations are recognized and protected – sustainability through localism, where the key virtue is stewardship.

Virtue of Stewardship

The practice of localism – the creation of self-sustaining and self-governing local communities – is the practice of implementing the virtue of stewardship. Here are five principles that could provide a framework for such twenty-first century communities. They are: responsibility, reduction, replacement, regeneration, and reconnection.

Responsibility – we should govern our local communities through equal power relationships and peer practices of town hall meetings, citizen councils, rotational stewardship positions, and mentors. We can learn the competencies of self-government and experience the happiness of public engagement at the local level by gathering with our neighbors face-to-face. We can decide how to live together and naturally generate civil cooperation and successful solutions to our local problems. We need to return to some sense of real and genuine self-government and public participation. Even if funding from more distant sources, whether public or private, will be necessary, the management of these resources must be local.

Reduction – we should reduce our dependence on distant sources, whether governmental or commercial, for the provision of the necessary goods and services we need to live our lives. Whether food, housing, clothing, entertainment, public health, health care, education, job creation and training, etc. we must, where possible, reduce our reliance on nonlocal sources for these items and encourage local public and private organizations to do the same. We should give preference to those businesses, which are locally owned and make use of local suppliers. This principle in practice would be good for the environment by decreasing our use of energy in transportation.

Replacement  - we should replace goods and services acquired from remote sources with goods and services produced and provided locally. It would require we build the capacity in local communities and with local control to be self-sufficient in providing what we need to lead lives of human flourishing. It would provide meaningful employment to our local under- and unemployed. We could find ways of using barter, local currencies, co-ops, CSA’s, urban gardens, Farmers’ Markets, and our retired community of seniors to ensure every member of our community had sufficient employment and sufficient resources to meet their needs to live a good life. It is only at the local level that we can and should ensure that none of our neighbors goes hungry, homeless, or lacks needed education, employment, or health care.

Regeneration – we can regenerate the world through the practice of local innovation and creativity in finding new ways, and improving old ways, of meeting our needs. We are creative enough to be able to provide housing, educate our children, manage public health, deliver adequate health care, and provide employment and training, information, and even public entertainment at the local level. Here also, we can best initiate energy conservation programs and even discover ways of generating local “green” energy through wind and solar technologies locally managed and maintained. Bike-share and car-share programs can even solve transportation problems locally.

Reconnecting – This is not a strategy of isolation or secession form either the national or global community, but a return to the only authentic source of political power – the people governing themselves at the local level. Upon the foundation of self-sustaining and self-governing local communities, we can reconnect community-to-community and then to our governments in the exchange of ideas, best practices, and in assisting less fortunate communities. Success in one community can be shared and modeled by other communities, where such sharing with current technologies, need not be limited by geographic proximity. Such interconnected communities will hold government and business answerable to the people. Power must rest with people at the local level, who then are empowered to hold accountable government, finance, and corporate bodies and regulate their activities at the local level through citizen councils of peers and neighbors.   

Organizing Successful Leaderless Revolutions

Every community is a complex adaptive system. A complex adaptive system is any system composed of many autonomous parts, where each part may act independently of every other part, but each part’s actions will influence the actions of the parts immediately around it setting up a self-organizing iterated feedback system within the whole.

Because human beings are hardwired to be status-seeking individuals, every human community will self-organize according to three simple rules of attraction, avoidance, and alignment.

-     Attraction:  follow the one in front of you.

-     Avoidance:  stay in front of the one behind you.

-     Alignment:  stay next to the one beside you.

How these rules get applied will depend upon the context of power relationships within the community. There are two basic types of power relationships – unequal power relationships and equal power relationships. Of course power is equated with status, so whoever possesses power possesses status. This sets up the dynamic of power relationships in a complex adaptive system, and how the rules will be applied. 

            An unequal power relationship is one where there is a position of high power and high status related to positions of low power and low status. Only the person with high power or status possesses the privilege to speak, and those in the low power and status positions must only listen and obey. So the person in the position of high power feels entitled to monopolize information, control decision-making, and command obedience from those in low power positions. The persons in positions of low power feel obligated to obey without dissent or question those in high power positions. 

            Leadership by its very definition sets up relationships of unequal power. The essence of the relationship between leader and follower is one of high power and status to low power and status. This relationship cannot be avoided no matter how benevolent and well intentioned is the leader or follower. It is a self-organizing dynamic set up by the very nature of human beings in community. 

In leader-based communities the content of the three simple rules become:

-       Rule of Attraction:  tell the person above you what you think they want to hear.

-       Rule of Avoidance:  tell the persons beneath you only what you think they need to know.

-       Rule of Alignment:  conform to the gossip around you in either praising or blaming the leaders or followers for the community’s problems.

Because of this inevitable dynamic in leader-based communities, there will always be a corrupt culture of secrecy, inequality, and inauthentic communication resulting in abuse of power.

Equal power relationships are where there are no high or low power or status positions. Each person possesses the equal privilege to speak and shares the equal and reciprocal obligation to listen. So power must be shared and distributed. Decision-making must be collaborative and participatory. The community is characterized by openness and transparency with information. Accountability to one another replaces blind obedience to those in leadership positions above you. Shared competence of all replaces the command and control of the many by the few. 

In the absence of unequal power relationships and with the presence of equal power relationships, the content of the three simple rules of self-organizing communities will be:

-       Rule of Attraction:  seek out people with the competence and expertise you need to assist you in making your own contribution to the well being of the community.

-       Rule of Avoidance:  be open and transparent with others because you want them to be open and transparent with you. (Avoid secrecy and hidden agendas.)

-       Rule of Alignment:  cooperate with others in assisting them in satisfying their own private interests as they assist you in satisfying your own.

             This will naturally occur, you don’t have to force this behavior. Just organize without unequal power relationships and trust the dynamics of self-organizing complex adaptive systems. If you can successfully organize a community without leaders and so without the self-organizing dynamic of unequal power relationships, people will naturally cooperate with one another to achieve successfully the goals of the leaderless community with greater equity and fairness. The dignity of each person will be equally respected and the needs of each person equally met.

Of course this is difficult to do because we have for so long assumed that whenever you get a group of people together as a community or to accomplish some task, you must place someone in charge. As soon as you do this – place someone in in charge – you’ve created a leader-based community of unequal power relationships and will eventually reap the consequences of social injustice, corruption, and abuse of power. This is inevitable given the unwavering dynamic of self-organizing complex adaptive systems. It also isn’t enough just to create a context of equal power relationships and allow the trusted system dynamics to take over. 

Every community, or group of people, committed to some purpose, to be successful, must accomplish certain administrative tasks or management functions. Otherwise there will be chaos. The five basic management functions are:

·      Strategic – Vision – See it (what it is the community wants to accomplish)

·      Operational – Planning – Plan it (how the community will accomplish it)

·      Tactical – Doing – Do it

·      Resource – Funding – Energize it

·      People – Culture – Make it meaningful

So how does a community perform these essential tasks without creating a leadership hierarchy? How can these essential functions be managed without leaders in a leaderless community? No one has yet been able to figure out how to do this intentionally, so every great and noble revolution and reform movement has eventually collapsed into some leadership hierarchy and betrayed the goals that inspired the movement in the beginning and been absorbed by the corrupt rank-based system it was trying to replace. 

Each revolution starts out as an authentic voice against unequal power relationships. But failing to understand the self-organizing dynamics of communities, they create leadership positions and before you know it they have reinstituted the same old relationships of unequal power they were fighting against. Only now different people hold the positions of high power and status. This does not need to happen.

I believe a community, or revolution can succeed without leaders if they organize to perform the above functions through peer-based, or leaderless management vehicles; namely, peer councils, rotational stewardship positions, and mentors.   

Peer Councils  (See pages 127ff of Myth of Leadership)

Peer councils are composed from all individuals within the community. With peer councils, a greater sense of community is developed that fosters increased competency in all members of the community. Councils provide the vehicle for this development by creating a space of genuine dialogue. The goals of peer-based councils are as follows:

·      To foster a sense of equal standing and genuine communication among all persons

·      To allow everyone in the community to contribute to decision-making in the five functions of management

·      To ensure that everyone in the community begins to think and act like a valued and important contributor

·      To provide everyone in the community the opportunity to discover, develop, and increase their own unique set of competencies and abilities

Striving for and achieving these goals, the peer councils tap into the whole intelligence and talent latent within the community. Council size can vary from between 10 to 150 council members, or even include the entire community. These councils are directly related to key areas of organizational decision-making. So we have the Strategy Council; Operations Council; Tactical Council; Resource Council; and People Council. These councils, through peer-based deliberation, possess responsibility and authority for the critical decisions in their respective management function.

Membership, if it is divided up within the community, should be rotated in periods of three months, six months, nine months, and twelve months. Those who demonstrate great potential to contribute in any particular council can be made mentors or given rotational stewardship positions within the council. Selection to councils can be voluntary, random, or elected.

Rotational Stewardship Positions  (See pages 142ff of Myth of Leadership)

Obviously, not every decision can or should be brought before the entire council. Day-to-day and routine decision-making can be delegated to administrative positions within each council. The essence of rotational stewardship positions is those in administrative positions within the councils have definite term limits to fill their management assignment. These administrative positions are responsible to the council out of which they were selected. These stewardship positions are for individuals, teams, or task forces. After their time is up, other individuals will be chosen and the rotation continues. This will keep the energy flow through the community generative. Rotating who has important positions on a regular basis is a very important to prevent any sense of leadership entitlement or permanency. Rotating stewardship positions on a regular basis will give more people a greater chance at participation and contribution. Also, the fact that people share in the ownership of carrying out important tasks means that they also share in the burden of communicating knowledge and information to others. This improves teamwork and knowledge sharing in a manner that makes communities self-correcting. 

Mentoring  (See pages 107ff of Myth of Leadership)

Mentors play the crucial role of linking the various peer councils with one another. They create the network. In many ways, mentoring replaces leading, and mentors replace leaders in peer-based, leaderless communities. A leader leads followers, and the implication, given the myth of leadership, is that this leadership is “over” others. It is the command and control of others using rank-based authority. A mentor advises and counsels others. A mentor may possess greater expertise, knowledge, and experience and shares this with members of the community who are lacking in these areas. It is a relationship, not of rank, but alongside of the one being mentored. The difference in symbolism is very important. A mentor is a person committed to the improvement of self and others. The commitment is an essential part of the mentor’s body, heart, and mind. With the body, the mentor models; with the heart, the mentor counsels; and with the mind, the mentor teaches. To the true mentor, the physical and emotional needs of others become his or her spiritual need. 

The mentor teaches with the mind, not by lecturing, but by asking the right questions. Examples of mentoring questions are:

What do you care most about?

How are you being affected personally?

What do you believe is the main problem or issue?

What do you believe should be done?

What do you think others would say?

What do you hope for?

The mentor counsels with the heart through sincere, empathic listening. The mentor models with the body by being an example of the peer attitudes and values in interactions with others. Mentors counsel councils and rotational stewardship positions, but they do not vote or take an active part in the decision-making process of the community.

Some more thoughts on the principles of localism: Principle Three – Regeneration

We are pilgrims in an unfinished universe. We are co-creators of our collective future. It should be a future we accomplish, not through coercion and force, but through the subtle influence of persuasion, cooperation, and joy.

- From the Myth of Leadership: Creating Leaderless Organizations

Principle Three – Regeneration (regenerate the world at the local level through the practice of innovation and creativity in finding new ways, and improving old ways, of meeting our needs in our local communities):

I always find inspiration in E.F. Schumacher’s Small Is Beautiful. On page 35 of the new Harper-Perennial edition, we find his three suggestions to scientists and technologists of the 21^st century – suggestions to regenerate our communities at the local level. He says,

We need methods and equipment, which are:

-       Cheap enough so that they are accessible to virtually everyone;

-       Suitable for small-scale application; and

-       Compatible with man’s need for creativity.

As begin to practice the five principles of localism (reduction, replacement, regeneration, responsibility, and reconnection), these three objectives should guide our job creation in local industry in a manner that is environmentally healthy and economically sustainable.

There are today innovative companies around the world seeking to do this. One great example of this effort is PlantLab, a Dutch agricultural engineering company focused on developing the technology to make possible indoor local food production. (See http://www.plantlab.nl/4.0/) They are developing the technology for local communities to grow all the food they need locally. Local communities should become active in partnering with innovative companies, like Plantlab, and seeking to solve our human problems at the human scale of localism.

As local communities become both more self-sustaining and self-governing, they can begin to export best practices and ideas to assist other communities in meeting the needs of community members at the local level (Principle Five – Reconnecting).   

We possess the wisdom, the competence, and the resources to create a world where each human might flourish and satisfy his or her deep existential needs for respect and security. Such potential, however, will only become the reality when we focus and work at the local level.

Some Thoughts on Principle One of Localism - Reductionism

The Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not for every man’s greed.

                                                                                    - Gandhi

Principle One – Reductionism (decrease our dependence on distant and external sources for the provision of necessary goods and services):  I have often thought that we live in a world of incredible abundance and beauty when measured by our basic human needs to live good lives, but we live in a world of great violence and scarcity as measured against our actual practice of driving economic growth with our limitless desires. The ancient philosopher, Epicurus, suggested that nature easily supplies what is required to simply satisfy our real needs, while our desires for unnecessary things will constantly upset our happiness.

Epicurus taught that only three things were required for human happiness.

1.              Friends

2.              Freedom or self-sufficiency

3.              A reflective life

He believed many fail to meet these three simple requirements, and so fail to be happy, in large part because they fail to distinguish the different types of wants they experience. (He realized long ago what happiness psychologists are now empirically confirming; namely, we are terrible at knowing what will truly make us happy.) Epicurus said the first type of want is natural and necessary. This is a desire for those things that are both harmonious with a good life and required for it as well. These were wants that had to be satisfied in order to live a good life, and yet nature had made these things easy to acquire – things like enough food and shelter to be neither hungry nor homeless. The second type of wants were natural but unnecessary. So these are things that are harmonious with a good life but not required. These might be things like cell phones, TV’s, many electronic devices, etc. The third type of want was for things that were both unnatural and unnecessary. These were things that were not only not required to live a good life but would also jeopardize your ability to live a good life. Any of our needs taken to an extreme become unnatural and unnecessary – large homes, big cars, designer clothes, over eating, etc. His basic idea was that if we could simplify our wants to be congruent with our natural and necessary wants, then we’d have more time to pursue those activities that actually increase our sense of living a good life – more time with family and friends, and more time to engage in self-reflection. Yet our world seems to incite people to chase after unnatural and unnecessary wants and so to lose their freedom to indebtedness and have no time for friends or self-examination.

I had a student, not too long ago, decide to take yellow post-it notes and go around her apartment and label all her possessions as natural and necessary, natural but unnecessary, or unnatural and unnecessary. Her goal was to get rid of all the unnatural and unnecessary items, to find ways to minimize all the natural but unnecessary items, and then from that point on before any purchase she would ask, “Is this item natural and necessary?” If it wasn’t, she wouldn’t buy it. She told me this exercise was fantastically liberating and freed her mind from financial anxiety and envy. She discovered surplus time to spend with family and friends, and more opportunities to enjoy community. All experiences that have a greater and more long lasting affect on our sense of wellbeing than the acquisition of more and more material goods and services.

Localism, in part through the principle of reductionism, leads us to simplify our wants to those that can be satisfied locally and aids us in achieving the three objectives Epicurus claimed essential for our own happiness.