Meaning and Purpose: Part Two

In Part I of Meaning and Purpose, we discussed turning our strengths and virtues into a calling. A number of years ago, I had pause to reflect on this back when I was on the board of a local mental health group and we were deciding on recipients for our annual Inspirational Awards Dinner. The evening before the event found me giving a talk to our organization. I talked a bit about our main awardee – Father Joe, known to everyone in San Diego - who had devoted his life to feeding and comforting the homeless. No doubt about it – Father Joe definitely had a calling.

We continue ..

How about you? I asked my audience. How many of you have a calling? A number of hands shot up. This was, after all, an audience of people involved in mental health, nearly all who lived with mental illness, whether as patients or family members. One man mentioned facilitating a support group. I pressed him on this. Can you describe a satisfying moment for you? I asked.

Yes, he said: When a new member of the group hears other people's stories and she realizes she is not alone. The look on that person's face.

I used to facilitate a support group. I could well relate. It kind of makes showing up early to turn on the lights and arrange the chairs in the room and lay out the brochures on the table worth it, I suggested.

There were a lot of nodding heads in the room.

Did Steve Jobs have a calling? His passing the day before was fresh on everyone's minds. I pulled out the script of a 1997 Apple ad. "Here's to the crazy ones," I began. "The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. ... They push the human race forward."

In the talk I gave, I included the other five individuals our local chapter would be honoring.

So, as I related to my audience, we had all these awardees, all very different. What, I wondered, did they all have have in common? What qualities did they possess that we here found so uplifting, so inspirational?

It turns out I didn’t have to think too hard. It came down to two things: Commitment and dedication to serving others. So as well as the six people we would be honoring, we would also be honoring a set of values.

Now let’s connect values to a life of meaning to happiness. I really don’t know too much about happiness. I haven’t experienced it much, and - I suspect - neither have you. We’re really not built to be happy. Happiness is not well-suited to survival. Depression is much better suited. I experience a lot of that, and - well here I am - a depressive realist, able to see the world as it is and adapt.

But yes, a bit more happiness in my life would not go unappreciated. So where can we find people who practice happiness?

As I recounted to my audience, funny thing - talk to almost any staff person or volunteer or board member in our local chapter and you will encounter an individual with personal experiences that would tear your heart out. That’s what living with mental illness does to us. Patient or family member or both, we have been through hell and through hell again.

So - by any standard, our chapter should have been the most miserable place on earth. But that was not the case. Far from it. What was going on? So, I decided to check out this thing called happiness. As it turned out, I had already written four articles on the topic, so I didn’t have far to look. My first article focused on a study that tracked the lives of a group of Harvard men over a period of six decades, the Grant Study. The man who kept this study going for four of those decades, George Vaillant, noticed that those he categorized as “happy-well” were those who adapted in healthy ways to their surroundings. One of these healthy adaptations included altruism - service. Service to others.

But wait, happiness is not as simple as all that. One of the things that Dr Vaillant also found out was that positive emotions make us more vulnerable than negative ones. We’re setting ourselves up for rejection and heartbreak. You might say this is the price we pay for being decent people.

In the “The Art of Happiness, the Dalai Lama essentially says that we're unhappy because we excel at all the stupid people tricks. We're attached to our own idiotic desires and fears and anxieties. We can't let go. The way to get over this - out of ourselves - is by paying attention to others. We signal a willingness to put their needs before ours. We cultivate loving kindness. Next thing we're establishing connections and intimacies. Next thing, we're not as absorbed in our own destructive thoughts and feelings. Next thing we're not alone. Next thing, maybe, there are periods in our life where we may be experiencing happiness.

Okay, I’m no expert on happiness, but I think you see where I’m going with this. Here I was, working on bios for our six awardees for our upcoming dinner. People we look up to. Achievements we find laudable:

• Commitment and dedication to serving others.
• Serving others - altruism, putting others first.
• Commitment - the courage to change things, to take risks and pay the price, and not just settle for good enough.

Fold our strengths and virtues into it, and suddenly we are talking about a life with meaning. Maybe that is what happiness really is. Are the people we would be honoring the next day happy? I have no idea. Did they live lives with meaning? Maybe this is why I felt myself connecting with my audience. As I mentioned before, by rights those of us connected with our organization should be the most miserable people on earth. But you know, I related, when I talk to the staff and volunteers, I hear a lot of stories in common, namely:

People tend to first come to our local chapter in a state of need. They are often desperate. They feel alone and isolated. Soon, they may find themselves in a class or support group. They get something out of the experience. And something seems to happen - they want to give back. They volunteer. Suddenly, their life has meaning. They have a calling. It doesn’t stop there - most of our staff started out as volunteers. I'm not going to pretend we are all happy and that our lives are going great, but I can tell you this much - back then, when I walked into our local chapter, I found myself with people I wanted to be around

Commitment, service to others - funny how we’re drawn to people with meaning in their lives. A life of meaning and purpose. What a difference.

John McManamy is the author of Living Well with Depression and Bipolar Disorder and is the publisher of the Bipolar Expert Series, available on Amazon.

Follow John on Twitter at @johnmcman and on Facebook.