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| Path: Main Street : Resources & Library : Research Articles : Feature Article |
Are we letting happiness pass us by?
By Louisa Jewell, WhyDidYouGo.com
July 13, 2009
It was 7:51 am on Friday, January 12, 2007 in the middle of rush hour in a crowded Washington, DC Metro Station when the musician pulled out his violin and began to play. He played six pieces by Bach over the next 43 minutes and 1,097 people passed by. Most seemed to be in a hurry to get to work and walked by without even glancing. Some dropped a few coins in the man's violin case while they hurried by. Six people stopped to listen for awhile. When he was done, there was no applause and no recognition. He had collected $32.
What those passersby did not know was that the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best violinists in the world. Two days before he had sold out a theater in Boston where seats went for $100 a piece. He played complicated pieces on a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. His performance at the metro station was coordinated by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste, and people's priorities. The question they asked: "In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?"
Why would so few people stop to admire such beauty when they are presented with it? There is beauty everywhere if we stop to look. Are many of us just passing up opportunities to bring more beauty into our lives? We are in a hurry and stressed and, well...who has time to smell those roses you spent six hours pruning on Saturday?
I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Barbara Fredrickson, Kenan Distinguished Professor of Psychology and principal investigator of the Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Laboratory at the University of North Carolina, on my radio show. In her book, Positivity: Groundbreaking Research Reveals How to Embrace the Hidden Strength of Positive Emotions, Overcome Negativity, and Thrive, she reveals how positive emotions can tip the scales toward a life of flourishing. The one thing that is most interesting about her research is that, while we often think that positive emotions are typically fleeting, just to be enjoyed in the moment, she discovered that positive emotions actually build psychological, physical and social resources. In other words, if we focus on bringing more opportunities for positive emotion into our day everyday, over time we will build resilience and be happier.
This made me think of something that happened to me that changed my life. Many years ago, when my youngest daughter Claire was about two years old, she went through a time where she was getting up every night in the middle of the night because she was scared. Now when Claire crawls into bed with you, she doesn't just nicely go to sleep...no...she kicks and punches like she's enacting some sort of warrior dance in her sleep. Tim, my husband, actually does quite an excellent dramatization of it including drop kicks and elbow stabs. For one night, it's okay because you can be sleep deprived for a day and it's not so bad. After five or six days, it was getting to be too much. Both Tim and I were exhausted and cranky due to lack of sleep and it seemed like it was never going to come to an end! We tried everything to get her to sleep in her own bed, but nothing worked.
One day, while collecting the mail on my front porch, I ran into my neighbour, Kathy. She asked me how I was doing and I told her about my problems with Claire. "I am at the end of my rope!" I said. Since she has two older boys of her own, I solicited her advice.
"Kathy, what should we do? " I asked.
She looked at me and said, "Cherish it."
At first I didn't understand. "What do you mean cherish it? I'm exhausted," I responded.
She said again,"Cherish it because you know my boys don't come into my bed anymore. They're older now and I wish so desperately that I could hold their little warm bodies close to me again."
It was like a lightening bolt hit me. She was right. To hold your beautiful baby in your arms is one of the sweetest most loving things in the world and I had an opportunity to do that every night.
So that night, when Claire came into my bed, I held her tight. I put her tiny hand in my hand and I caressed it and kissed it. I marveled at how lucky I was to have this lovely tiny person snuggled up so close to me and I whispered "thank you" for all of the wonderful things I had in my life.
Now that she's eight years old, she rarely comes into my room anymore. But when she does, I cherish her visits even more - never knowing if that will be my last. She's no concert violinist, but her presence is like a symphony to me - if I choose to stop and listen.
To hear Louisa's interview with Dr. Barbara Fredrickson, visit: www.whydidyougo.com/broadcasts.asp.
Louisa Jewell is co-founder of www.WhyDidYouGo.com, a consulting and coaching firm specializing in employee engagement and retention. Their vision is to improve happiness at work, one workplace at a time. For more information about positive psychology and how to apply it in the workplace contact Louisa at louisa@whydidyougo.com.
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