Brother David-Steindl-Rast is without doubt one of the most outstanding advocates of gratefulness as a lifestyle. In his well-known TED discuss, he explains how gratefulness and a focus result in a happier life.
This submit is a part of a year-long experiment of living six theories of happiness within the space of one year. We began with Aristotle in January and February, moved to Erich Fromm in March and April, adopted this up with Epicurus in May and June, and now we’re inspecting gratefulness as a way of life our on a regular basis lives extra fortunately. For the remainder of the 12 months, we nonetheless wish to speak about hermit existence and in November and December we’ll discuss concerning the Stoic life.
Brother David Steindl-Rast
David Steindl-Rast was born in Vienna in 1926, and, after finding out on the Vienna Academy of Positive Arts, acquired a PhD in experimental psychology. His household moved to the USA in 1952, and he turned a monk in 1953. In 1966, he was tasked to review Zen and to discover avenues for Buddhist-Christian dialogue. In 1968, he turned one of many founders of the Heart for Non secular Research along with Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish and Sufi non secular academics.
Steindl-Rast turned well-known throughout the Web along with his 2013 TED discuss “Want to be happy? Be grateful,” through which he defined, in 14 minutes, his primary philosophy of life.
Steindl-Rast is a lot related at present with the subject of gratefulness that he even acquired to jot down a chapter within the Oxford College Press quantity “The Psychology of Gratitude.” Certainly the editors felt that no guide on gratitude may very well be full with out Brother David’s contribution.
Everybody desires to he comfortable
David Steindl-Rast begins his famous TED talk by stating that everybody desires to be comfortable. This isn’t a really shocking or authentic assertion. Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), the founding father of utilitarianism, had already had the identical perception, and the historical past of the identical primary thought goes again to historic Greek philosophy. Aristotle (384-322 BC), in his Nicomachean Ethics, confirmed that we pursue all different items like fame, training, energy and cash for the sake of happiness — however we by no means pursue happiness for the sake of energy or cash; thus, Aristotle concludes, we will see that happiness is the very best good. And Epicurus, too, emphasises in his “Letter to Menoeceus”: “We name pleasure the alpha and omega of a cheerful life. Pleasure is our first and kindred good. It’s the starting-point of each alternative and of each aversion.”
However what precisely is the connection between happiness and gratefulness? David Steindl-Rast believes that we acquired it unsuitable once we say that we’re grateful as a result of our lives are comfortable. He mentions instances the place individuals who have every thing could also be deeply sad, whereas typically those that endure misfortunes in life may be comfortable individuals. From this, Steindl-Rast concludes (considerably illogically, one should say) that it’s not happiness that causes gratefulness, however gratefulness that causes happiness.
As we said before, gratefulness is the sensation that we’ve got once we realise that we’re given a present that we would like however don’t deserve. And now Steindl-Rast asks, what is this present that all of us all the time obtain however that we’ve by no means achieved something to deserve? It’s time, he says: all of the moments that make up our lives.
Alternative
Now this alone wouldn’t be too convincing. Our lives should not crammed solely with moments of enjoyment and pleasure. In addition they include lengthy stretches of lifeless workplace work, of assembly half-forgotten relations one doesn’t care about, of being in mattress with the flu — and that’s if one is fortunate. Some individuals’s lives embody jail sentences, divorces, life-changing automobile crashes, most cancers therapies and, in some locations, even at present, concentration camps.
What’s there then to be grateful about?
It’s not the second itself, Steindl-Rast says. It’s the alternative that each second presents.
We talked about this within the final submit (“Grateful to No One”): the concept that every thing that occurs to us in life, even the worst of unhealthy luck or malice, may be re-framed as a possibility for us to train our virtues. A divorce, a automobile crash, even a jail sentence: all these present methods for us to show to ourselves in addition to to the world that we’re certainly capable of grasp our lives with braveness, to forgive, to be beneficiant, to be robust. None of those qualities are inclined to manifest themselves so long as we’re mendacity secure and lazy on the sofas of our lives. These are qualities that may be proven and lived solely in instances of adversity: their very existence is determined by the unhealthy issues that occur to us all through our lives — and for these unhealthy issues we should, due to this fact, be grateful, for they’re the required circumstances of our ethical flourishing.
It appears that evidently we should always solely be pleased about one thing good achieved to us, a “profit” acquired. However already the Stoics had seen that typically, advantages come disguised as burdens. Alternatively, Greeks bearing items should not all the time to be trusted, even when one wish to get one’s fingers on the present.
And Steindl-Rast goes one step additional with this thought. If each second is a chance, he says, then the subsequent second is one other alternative. Seen on this means, there are not any irretrievably “missed” alternatives. Sure, proper now I may need missed the chance to jot down a viral weblog submit that will have made me wealthy and well-known (maybe). However the subsequent second is already upon me and on this second I’ve the identical alternative over again. So long as I breathe, one might say, I’m by no means going to expire of alternatives to dwell my life, to make one thing out of it, to train my virtues, and even to develop by my very own struggling.
Cease and go
However fairly often, we lose sight of this easy reality. Steindl-Rast:
So his proposal is to try to create conditions through which we give ourselves the chance to understand that we should always be pleased about the issues we obtain with out having deserved them. He recollects how he returned from Africa, from a spot with out operating water and electrical energy. How he was shocked and grateful each time he turned on the sunshine or used the water faucet:
Can we deserve our lives?
In fact, it’s not solely that we’re lacking the stickers. Our issues with acknowledging our indebtedness to the world go deeper. We count on the water to come back out of the faucet. We now have paid for it, and if the water firm messes with my faucet, I’ll sue them and demand my funds again. I’ve made a contract with an organization to ensure that these gentle switches truly swap the lights on. And in the event that they do, I simply get what I paid for. So I by no means get a sense of gratitude from these items as a result of, as we mentioned earlier, gratitude (or gratefulness) are solely applicable responses to a present that’s not deserved. An trade, cash for water or cash for electrical energy, doesn’t set off any emotions of gratitude: solely resentment if the stuff in my home doesn’t work.
What is Gratefulness?
One might additionally say that gratitude is all the time gratitude to somebody, whereas gratefulness emphasises what we’re grateful for, even when there’s no person to be grateful to for that factor.
However this doesn’t make Steindl-Rast’s level invalid, simply tougher to see. Sure, I’m paying for the sunshine, however what am I paying with? Cash that I acquired from… the place? My job. And do I deserve that job? I’m doing it properly, let’s assume — however what concerning the 5 others who additionally utilized for that job and didn’t get it? What about those that are unemployed? What about all those that don’t have my training, whose mother and father weren’t capable of ship them to larger colleges, who dwell in locations on this planet the place no colleges exist? Can I actually say that they “don’t deserve” to have the lights go on once they press a swap?
Ultimately, if we observe the causal chains of our privilege to their ends, we all the time discover the purpose at which we got these preliminary items: the present of getting been born in a rich nation. The present of being born right into a rich household. The present of being supplied an training. The present of not having died in an accident as a toddler. The present of having the ability to sit someplace secure and quiet proper now and skim these strains, reasonably than, say, dwelling in one of many many locations ravaged by civil wars at this very second. None of that is actually deserved.
This week…
So allow us to within the coming week try to be extra observant, extra acutely aware of the numerous items we acquired in our lives — and people we proceed to obtain each day. Like Steindl-Rast did, let’s attempt to put a sticker on a lightweight swap or a water faucet, simply to remind ourselves that there are billions of individuals on this planet who should not given these items; and this is because of no fault of their very own. None of us “deserved” being born right into a European or US upper- or middle-class, as none of those that dwell out their lives begging within the streets for meals “deserve” to be there.
Attempting actually laborious to all the time maintain this in thoughts will finally make us conscious of how a lot we’ve got to be pleased about. And that is, in keeping with Brother David, the surest strategy to true happiness.
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Cowl picture: Brother David Steindl-Rast (TEDGlobal Speak in June 2013). Picture from TED, YouTube screen-grab.
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