Book Review: What Is Your Calling? An Integrated Hypothesis For Happiness

I would imagine that while perhaps there are puts and takes, net-net there is reason for us to be proabably happy with life. Perhaps even that we are explicitly conscious of what makes us happy and the conditions that cause this happiness. A good job, a functioning family, stability & security, connection to a larger community, purpose, ability to access simple pleasures, friends and perhaps even reward & recognition.

We know this. It may not all be there at once in all our lives, but we don't dispute that these are both common sense and empirically proven attributes of happiness.

I myself have been a vigorous pursuer of such a state, not only implicitly, but explicitly after reading President Jefferson. In fact in my early twenties, I defined happiness in this manner I'm my essay titled, 'An Inalienable Right':

"I find it difficult to define happiness. I am happy when I spend time with a good friend. I am happy when I read a book. There are many points in time when I instinctively realize that I am happy. It is a pleasant bodily feeling, an emotional fulfillment and an intellectual satisfaction. It is also more than that. My awareness of my happiness is acute in relation to moments when I am down or feeling low. The closest I can get to a definition of happiness is that it is a state of mental and physical well being created by a situation of completeness.


Whether or not happiness can be defined, I know what it is to be happy. And I also know if I do certain things I become happy, or happier if I am already so. If I listen to music, my body might perhaps tingle. If I concentrate on a problem, a resolution begins to form. The question then becomes, could there be a set of universal principles which if influenced will produce happiness."

Yet, we do have moments of doubt. If happiness is so understandable, why is there strife? What accounts for fundamentalism, that has gone as far as to cause physical harm to innocents? Are we 'tolerating' ancient truths? Are we skeptical of modern science's ability to cure what might ail the human condition? Are we quiet, non-fussy agnostics (not knowing what to believe, thus believe nothing, but quietly so).

Are we also doubtful of what to teach our children? The world is changing rapidly and dynamically - What do we know about right in these changing circumstances? Do we cling to ancient traditions or do we throw ourselves at the torrent of often seemingly contradictory modern research findings? Besides has not social research itself proven to be disastrous in the past (e.g. The number of child rearing books from the past that have been contradicted and discarded)?

There is no silver bullet, nor are there easy answers or prescriptions. But into this void has been placed a valuable book by Jonathan Haidt titled, 'The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth In Ancient Wisdom.'

The author is a professor of Psychology at The University Of Virginia. Perhaps unintentional, but his choice to think, research and publish about the subject of happiness at the school founded by President Jefferson is too delightful a connection not to mention.




This ambitious, yet accessible book actually takes on all the questions above, and more!  Here are a list of objectives that the author sets out to achieve, and does so with keen intellect, erudition, command of his field and deep respect for everything he explores.

- Uniting the old with the new. The author through his research and research of his colleagues tests the propositions from ancient times that we are familiar with; and explores whether they were valid to begin with, and whether they can stand up to scrutiny of Modern research.

- Cross disciplinary insights. He pulls from sociology, biology, psychology, history, cultural anthropology, literature, physical science and many more fields to present a coherent whole.

- Ask the hardest possible question, and answer it to the best of his knowledge, without resorting to any caveats, verbal trickery or general beating around the bush: The question being, 'What is the meaning of life'

- Explain the basis for morality and expose it to as many challenges that can be forced upon it. The 5 foundational principles he shares are fresh, insightful and relatable. Given the recent Wall Street scandals and the spectre of Falling Idols, the whole question of ethics and morality is very much in the fore ( much like it was in the 80s with Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken). So his work on morality is of particular significance for our times. I wish Boards of Financial Services firms invite him and listen to his thoughts in this regard.





- Provide an 'equation' that drives happiness (with a straight face) - and then proceed to explain each of it's variables with startling clarity through research, example and anecdote.

- Take on the truly greats, in utter seriousness without a whiff of sanctimony. The best example of this is his question 'Did the Buddha over-react?'. This was such a 'Koan-like' experience for me that I laughed out aloud, for a while!

- Explain in simple accessible language with memorable metaphors who we really are. I am not giving anything away by mentioning the elephant and the mahout (he uses the word rider instead of mahout). I was explaining this metaphor to my Dad on the phone, and my son overheard me, and got a chuckle and a learning, out of it.



- What role work (the word work is very broadly defined here) plays in our happiness and distinguishing between a job, a career and a calling. This was quite a profound chapter.

- Why we disagree and dispute (I called my wife since I was traveling, and read out to her the author's story of his experience with his roommates in his freshman year - we were both explicitly advantaged with his insights into 'unconscious overclaiming')

Any one of the points above merits it's own book. How the author manages to pack this much insight into an accessible, personable, witty, thoroughly modern book is a marvel.

As I ponder the implications of this book in my own life, the following occur to me:

- I am enthused and resolved to train the elephant that I am riding.

- I have been moved off my agnostic posture (the author's research in Bubhaneswar did it for me) - but only slightly!

- I believe my work is my calling, but I am going to ask myself that question very carefully (again). The key tripwire to that question being, if I were to win the lottery or get an inheritance, would I continue doing what I do (my question)

- I am resolved to be more firm in what values we espouse to our child and nieces and nephews. (but do want to ignore the provocations of 'Tiger Mom,' the Yale Professor, who appears to be theself-appointed arbiter of parental values)








- Although by instinct I am so disposed, I resolve to see how the Ying-Yang picture plays out everywhere

This is a book review after all, and would not be complete without some quibbles.

- As accessible as the book is, the language is clunky. The contrast between the soaring rhetoric in the quotes the author uses and the subsequent language he employs to explain the ideas shows the writer's writerly shortcoming. Clunky professorial language that just about manages to do its job.

- The good Professor came across a bit unseemly in how much he endorses Prozac. This was one element where I think his science and research made him lose sight of common wisdom and context. I am almost afraid to check, but I pray he does not sit on the board of Eli Lilly!








- His lens is psychology and not spirituality. To that degree, he has remained true to his task. The book explains what it sets out to do. But as a reader, I am free to set his thoughts in context. When I do so, it occurs to me that he misses the point of the great Eastern religions - which is not happiness, but to attain the perception of reality (of which happiness is a by-product).

On this last quibble above, James Gleick's new book 'The Information' does a better job.

A last point on Jonathan Haidt. There is short TED lecture on YouTube, where he talks about the difference between a Liberal and a Conservative. Good food for thought and for me it was the appetizer to the main course that the book 'The Happiness Hypothesis' turned out to be. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs41JrnGaxc&feature=related

One more to do for me, I am going to try and follow Jonathan Haidt on Twitter should he tweet!