Happiness: Sixth Choice, Options

I do not usually pick up self-help books, but the title was so intriguing (and I was so unhappy) that I decided to take a chance on it. Twenty years later, I am still living into the lessons I learned from this unusual research, written by Rick Foster and Greg Hicks. The book itself does not come from a Christian perspective, so as I read it, I modified their counsel somewhat to include God.

There are nine choices Foster and Hicks discovered that consistently happy people make. Each choice leads to the next in a circular helix very like the chambers of a conch. I intend to be happy, I am accountable to my own choices, and I identify what makes me joyful in Christ. That is why I make blessing central to my way of life, and therefore recast unhappy stories, choosing to see all people and circumstances through the prism of love, joy, hope, and faith.

Options

I do not need to cling to my own dreams and plans. I am instead willing to recognize options by being “open to new possibilities, and of taking a flexible approach to life’s journey” (Happy, 17).  I am not afraid to take risks. Instead, I am “flexible enough to jump into the unknown for the experience of trying something important or new” (Happy, 17).

Sow Your Seed

The authors begin this chapter with a wisdom saying from the book of Ecclesiastes.

Sow your seed in the morning,
    and at evening let your hands not be idle,
for you do not know which will succeed,
    whether this or that,
    or whether both will do equally well.

Ecclesiastes 11:6 NRSVUE

In other words, we are to keep on sowing our seeds, morning and evening, because you and I do not know which seeds will take root and become full-grown, ripening into a rich harvest. Maybe all the seeds will eventually bear fruit, maybe only some will. Let us keep our options open.

Happy people thrive in an ever-changing world by opening up their lives to a daily bounty of possibilities. Rather than sticking to the straight and narrow, they are inspired by a multiplicity of paths regardless of how unusual those paths maybe.

Pushing beyond the obvious, they do not settle for doing things in the most accepted way but strive to uncover any and all approaches

… For happy people, every experience offers a new chance for adventure.

Rick Foster and Greg Hicks, How We Choose To Be Happy, 132

For some, mapping out a plan makes sense. They may not stick to the plan, but having a plan makes the journey more purposeful. Others like to meander a bit more, and respond spontaneously to whatever life may hold. Either way, the key is in welcoming opportunity and being willing to weigh all the possibilities.

Convergent or Divergent Thinking

According to the authors, how you and I make decisions falls generally into two categories. The first is convergent, eliminating all the possibilities as quickly as we can until we converge on the only one left. Making snap judgments, for example, is convergent decision-making. Our culture actually encourages this behavior, we make hundreds, maybe thousands of decisions each day, so martialing through them seems the most productive.

But happy people choose differently. Without having one, sole outcome in mind, happy people give serious consideration to the array of options before them. They keep an open mind, diverging onto a number of paths, exploring where those paths might lead. Foster and Hicks use the metaphor of a fishing trip to describe the difference.

• A convergent decision-maker will go to the proper spot with the proper bait and tackle, and cast their one hook, waiting for the fish they have in mind.
• The divergent decision-maker will toss their net wide just to see what kind of fish they end up with.

A happy person tells themself a happy story, not allowing obstacles to get in the way—especially imagined ones, based upon assumptions—“it will never work,” “They will probably say no,” “I am not [fill-in-the-blank] enough,” “I do not have enough [resources, wherewithal, time, and so on] to make it happen.”

Resilience

There are certainly times when, like Jesus, we know what we must do, we converge on the One Thing, and we set our faces like flint as we move toward it. Though Jesus asked if the cup prepared for him might be taken from him, he also knew that it could not be. The cross was the only way to bring redemption to humankind.

Even so, think about the many times Jesus responded to situations and to people in unexpected ways.

Syrophoenician Woman

Jesus’s conversation with the Syrophoenician woman did not go at all in the direction his disciples expected. Rather than send her, a gentile, away, Jesus healed her daughter and even commended her faith (Mark 7:24–30).

Water to Wine

Or the time Jesus was intending on keeping a low profile at the wedding in Cana, yet allowed himself to be persuaded into turning water into wine (John 2:1–12).

Widow’s Son

Or when Jesus was passing through Nain and saw a funeral, so raised a widow’s only son from the dead (Luke 7:11-17).

Hemorrhaging Woman

Or when Jesus was headed towards the home of a synagogue ruler to heal his daughter, and a woman hidden in the crowd milling about them grabbed hold of Jesus’s garment and she was healed (Matthew 9:18–26). Jesus stopped right there, and took time to speak tenderly to her before continuing on his urgent business.

In all of these examples, Jesus allowed his options to remain open so that he could respond to the moment, in the moment.

Humility in Christ

Our humility is revealed in how resilient, flexible, and teachable we are. The American Psychological Association describes resilience as “the process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences, especially through mental, emotional, and behavioral flexibility and adjustment to external and internal demands.” This is what the Lord was teaching the Israelites during their forty years of wandering in the wilderness—to become ready to pack up camp when the column of God’s Shekinah (glory) moved, and to establish their camp wherever God’s Shekinah settled.

Today, as believers, we practice this resiliency, and divergent decision-making, through the process of prayer, seeking God’s guidance through outward circumstances, the counsel of scripture, and our own subjective experience of God’s peace.

Limitations

Sometimes it seems as though we really do not have options, that our circumstances and/or resources are sincerely limited.

To happy people, limitations are challenges. And how do they rise to the challenge? Creativity.

 Rick Foster and Greg Hicks, How We Choose To Be Happy, 144

Most of the time, you and I have a lot more options than we realize. The key, as the authors point out, is to explore possibilities with awareness.

• What options or possibilities could you create yourself?
• What seemingly insurmountable roadblock has been tackled by others, and how could you modify what they did?
• What is holding you back from exploring?

The authors end this chapter with a saying from Lao Tzu, an ancient Chinese philosopher whose wisdom was copied down 2,600 years ago.

Whatever is flexible and loving will tend to grow;

Whatever is rigid and blocked will wither and die.

It is a truism we can see happening all around us among living things. If crustaceans could not shed their outer shells, they would suffocate and die. Seedlings must burst from their seed pods. And institutions that refuse to respond to the changing seasons and eras of time become calcified and eventually left behind.

[Cover Image: Photo by Patrice Bouchard on Unsplash]