by Jim McCarthy
“Perhaps. We’ll see,” replies the farmer once again.
A couple of weeks later, the army comes into town, to round up men to fight in the war. The farmer’s son cannot join the army, because of his broken leg.
“Ah, what wonderful fortune that your son cannot go to fight in the war, because he broke his leg!”
“Perhaps …” says the farmer, yet again.
As you can see, we can extend this story as long as we want. And even though we can view this story as funny, or silly, or absurd, I think it’s a vivid illustration of how we think about our lives: we believe we fully understand what’s going on and tend to immediately judge events as “good” or “bad.” Perhaps we have a need to feel like we’re in control of our lives. We feel more in charge when we have strong opinions on the impact of events on our health, careers, and communities.
But even our common wisdom seeks to offer comfort in the face of changing fortunes. So we have adages such as, “Every dark cloud has a silver lining,” “It’s a blessing in disguise,” and, “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”
Some people even say, “It all worked out for the better.” I find this amusing, because it presumes that the result was “better” than what it would have been. But how would you know? How much time would need to pass before you “know” how well or how badly an event turned out?
It’s good to strive for things you find meaningful — that’s a core part of my Happiness Matrix. It’s totally normal to have an opinion on events, especially when they seem to be true tragedies — be it a death in the family, the loss of employment, a mass shooting, a health crisis, financial ruin, or environmental destruction. But even in the most extreme cases, people can find a way to address the challenge and make meaning out of their suffering.
Perhaps the best word for this is “equanimity.” I like this definition: “a state of psychological stability and composure which is undisturbed by experience of or exposure to emotions, pain, or other phenomena that may cause others to lose the balance of their mind. The virtue and value of equanimity is extolled and advocated by a number of major religions and ancient philosophies.”1
Modern scientific research confirms the wisdom of equanimity. Harvard’s Daniel Gilbert describes our “impact bias”: “[People] expect positive events to make them much happier than those events actually do, and they expect negative events to make them unhappier than they actually do … A recent study showed that very few experiences affect us for more than three months.”2
I’ve tried to look back on events in my own life through the lens of equanimity. As I graduated from my Jesuit prep school in Omaha, I was accepted to Georgetown University with the promise of a full-ride scholarship. I was overjoyed to be admitted to that elite school. But in a last-minute bureaucratic reversal, the financial aid office withdrew the financial assistance. I was devastated to realize that I would not be studying political science in Washington, D.C.
After many hours of crying, I had no choice but to attend my backup school — the University of Iowa — where I ended up receiving a solid education and spending a year abroad in Vienna. That helped me win a Fulbright Scholarship to study political science in Tübingen, in what was then West Germany. Next I taught English in Frankfurt, which led me to getting a teaching job in Madrid.
But things in Madrid did not go as planned, either. The Spanish employment officials gave me the wrong kind of work visa. I remember crying on my 26th birthday, wondering how I could stay on in Spain. That anguish forced me to rethink what I was doing, and led directly to my working (illegally) as a business journalist in Madrid. Which led me to moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1991. Which led me to getting an MBA at Stanford. Which led me to Silicon Valley, just as the internet was taking off.
Would all of this have happened if I had gone to Georgetown? Impossible to say. Would I today be the United States Secretary of State if I had gone to Georgetown? Who knows? Would it have been “better” if I had gone to Georgetown instead of Iowa, and would any of these alternative realities have made me “happier”? That’s right — impossible to say. Equanimity can give us an appreciation of what we have rather than agitation about what might have been.
Another example is my cancer diagnosis. I know that I would not be writing books, giving keynote speeches, or leading happiness workshops if I had not been forced to face my mortality.
When I originally published this story as a blog post in 2014, it looked like Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp was something “really good” for the founders of WhatsApp. But by early 2018, in the wake of controversy surrounding Facebook’s handling of private user data, WhatsApp cofounder Brian Acton was supporting a “Delete Facebook” campaign.3
So, was the sale ultimately a bad thing?
Perhaps. At least for now. Time will tell …
Writing Activity 26:
You’re about to make two lists. Label one, “Really Good Things.” Label the other, “Really Bad Things.” Now, think back over the major events of your life, and list them under one heading or the other.
Below each heading, fill in with as much detail as you’d like. Feel free to think about your parents, your family, where you grew up, where you went to school. Consider who you’ve dated, married, or divorced. Think about the work and career choices you’ve made. How has your health been? How have people treated you? Make sure to include major events in the world, the environment, or your community — even things beyond your control.
Take your time filling this out. Then, compare the lists. How are they interrelated? You might find that the lists quickly become so intertwined that it’s hard to really label anything as “good” or “bad” with confidence.
I strongly encourage you to sit down with a friend or significant other and do this exercise together. Even if you have an extremely long list of “Really Bad Things,” you can probably see how there was only one scenario that could have brought you to that other person. If anything on the list had been different at all, you probably would never have met them, right?
With these insights, I hope that you’re able to handle life’s daily challenges with a sense of equanimity and balance, knowing that perhaps you can’t know.
And that’s OK.
In the next section, I will share with you science-based, surprisingly simple daily practices that will help you maintain your equanimity and create your happiness, so you can truly live each day.
PART FOUR
Practices
Stories can bring insight. Scientific research is vitally important. And I’m delighted that you’re doing the writing activities to help you process and clarify your thinking and come up with specific action items.
But when you put down this book, I want to make sure you have specific, science-based activities that you can do, starting immediately, to help you create more happiness in your life.
Have you ever done meditation before?
How about affirmations?
They are two very different practices, but each can help you be happier.
Meditation is about being here now, being mindful, and accepting what is, without judgment — so you have the serenity to accept the things you cannot change.
Affirmations help you focus on how you want to be and what meaningful things you need to accomplish — so you have the courage to change the things you cannot accept.
Meditation and affirmations are science-based practices that allow you to live the Serenity Prayer, every day.
Chapter Twelve:
Meditation: How to Keep Calm
and Be at Peace
Does this sound familiar?
Just clear your head …
Don’t think about anything …
Think about nothing …
Focus so intensely you don’t think about anything …
Purge any thoughts from you
r head …
Release any grasping or longing …
Let go of any attachment …
If you’re anything like me, you probably end up with this:
No thinking
No thinking!
No thinking!!
No thinking!!!
NO thinking!!!
NO THINKING!!!
Oh my God — I’M THINKING!!!!!!
Unfortunately, for some people, their first interactions with meditation are not positive. They feel frustrated when they try, in vain, to “think about nothing.” Actually, I’m not sure if it’s even possible to “think about nothing.” Or it’s merely a semantic debate about what is “not thinking” versus “noticing without judgment.”
The good news is that there are scores of different types of meditation. You might be encouraged by some of my experiences.
“You Will Be Doing Absolutely Nothing.”
People often ask me how I started doing meditation.
In high school, I was an ambitious, high-strung overachiever. (I am still ambitious today, though I’m not so sure about the overachiever stuff.) When I started at the University of Iowa in 1982, I learned that I had to fulfill physical education requirements as part of my liberal arts degree. I figured that college would be even more stressful than high school, so I enrolled in a class called “Introduction to Relaxation Techniques.”
The course was taught by a middle-aged woman from New Zealand. I can still hear her with her broad accent, saying, “In this class, you will be doing absolutely nothing …” Really, they could have just as well called the class “Meditation 101,” but I think the word “meditation” in a course title would have scared away too many potential students back in that place and time.
I learned various visualization techniques, such as picturing a flame or imagining my breath coming up to my lungs through my toes. I explored how to use my mind to scan my body, from head to foot, tightening and then relaxing muscles. A few times in class, I fell asleep. I did not start regularly practicing meditation at that time, but I immediately started focusing on my breath when I needed to go to sleep and found that very effective.
Later, in 1996, I was going through a very tough time around the holidays. I was working at the San Jose Mercury News, where a Vietnamese colleague of mine gave me a series of cassettes from Jack Kornfield, the Buddhist monk.
I was raised strictly Catholic but had left the church in my early 20s. I had no intention to become part of any organized religion again. But as I listened to Jack Kornfield’s gentle teachings during that rainy Northern California winter, I realized that you can benefit from meditation even if you are a complete agnostic or atheist.
And you can benefit from meditation if you are very spiritual or religious, as well.
I really liked that I didn’t have to believe in anything. I just had to do the practice. Then I could judge for myself whether this was a good use of my time or not.
I also realized that every spiritual tradition that I’m familiar with — Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism — has meditation, prayer, chanting, quiet time, and contemplative practice as part of their rituals, going back thousands of years. It was easy for me to remember when I was a child in the 1970s, hearing the little old ladies at Christ the King Church in my hometown of Omaha quietly reciting their rosaries. I found the repetition hypnotic.
Meditation Gains Scientific Acceptance
What is “meditation” in the first place?
Some call it “present-focused awareness.” The Mayo Clinic, one of the leading medical and research institutions in the United States, notes that there are many different ways to meditate, with common practices that include focused attention, relaxed breathing, a quiet setting, a comfortable position, and an open attitude (letting distractions come and go).1
I’m old enough to remember when people thought jogging was weird — until scientific research confirmed the benefits of vigorous exercise. Then people thought yoga was weird — until millions gave this ancient Eastern practice a try and discovered how great they felt physically and mentally. In time, medical studies verified the benefits of yoga as well.2
Similarly, it’s taken a while for “mindfulness meditation” to become widely accepted in the West. Since I first tried meditation in 1982, there has been a growing body of scientific research on its merits. Finally, meditation seemed to cross into the mainstream with Time magazine’s cover story on February 3, 2014: “The Mindful Revolution [—] The science of finding focus in a stressed-out, multitasking culture.”
That article explained, “Though meditation is considered an essential means to achieving mindfulness, the ultimate goal is simply to give your attention fully to what you’re doing. One can work mindfully, parent mindfully and learn mindfully. One can exercise and even eat mindfully.”3
Meditation can help you reduce your stress. Dr. Elizabeth Hoge is a professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University Medical Center. She led a rigorously designed study, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, that “found objective physiological evidence that mindfulness meditation combats anxiety.”4
A few years earlier, while still at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Hoge told the Harvard Health Letter that people can learn how to revise their approach to “‘unproductive worries’: You might think ‘I’m late, I might lose my job if I don’t get there on time, and it will be a disaster!’ Mindfulness teaches you to recognize, ‘Oh, there’s that thought again. I’ve been here before. But it’s just that — a thought, and not a part of my core self.’”5
Among other benefits: University of Washington scientists found that meditation “can boost memory and improve brain connections in people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and early stage dementia,” such as Alzheimer’s Disease.6
Even more broadly, the Mayo Clinic notes that “the emotional benefits of meditation can include:
•Gaining a new perspective on stressful situations
•Building skills to manage your stress
•Increasing self-awareness
•Focusing on the present
•Reducing negative emotions
•Increasing imagination and creativity
•Increasing patience and tolerance.”7
Other research at the University of California, San Diego found mindfulness practices helped both Olympic athletes and Navy Seals boost their confidence and achieve peak performance.8
Massachusetts General Hospital examined the brain scans of participants in an eight-week mindfulness meditation course. As ABC News’ Dan Harris and Erin Brady have reported, at the end of the training, the study found that “parts of the participants’ brains associated with compassion and self-awareness grew, and parts associated with stress shrank.”9
If you happen to be a stress junkie who thinks chronic intense pressure is wonderful for you, consider this conclusion from Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert: “I know of no data showing that anxious, fearful employees are more creative or productive.”10
I don’t know of a single businessperson in Silicon Valley — or the world — who would not love to have reduced anxiety, less depression, greater calm, improved focus, better imagination, or more creativity. In fact, at business school, we could call this a definite “competitive advantage” over your rivals.
But wait! Meditation has physical benefits as well.
A National Institutes of Health study found that mindfulness meditation reduced serum cortisol, the main hormone involved in stress and the “fight-or-flight” response. The researchers concluded that meditation can “lower stress and may decrease the risk of diseases that arise from stress such as psychiatric disorder, peptic ulcer and migraine.”11
Scientists have also found that meditation can boost one’s immune system.12 In one exercise, workers at a technology company meditated
just a few minutes per day, over the course of several weeks. Neuroscientist Richard Davidson, the University of Wisconsin researcher who conducted the study, told NPR that “Just two months’ practice among rank amateurs led to a systematic change in both the brain as well as the immune system in more positive directions.” For example, the meditation group had developed more flu antibodies than the non-meditation group.13
According to the Mayo Clinic, “research suggests that meditation may help people manage symptoms of conditions such as:
•Anxiety
•Asthma
•Cancer
•Chronic pain
•Depression
•Heart disease
•High blood pressure
•Irritable bowel syndrome
•Sleep problems
•Tension headaches.”14
I’m pretty sure that if people could take just one pill to get all these benefits, then people would be taking a lot of these pills. Best of all, mindfulness does not cost anything to practice. You don’t need health care insurance. You don’t need a prescription.
Many of the top performers in our society — those facing some of the greatest physical and mental challenges — have embraced meditation. Famous executives who meditate regularly include Oprah Winfrey, Jerry Seinfeld, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio, former Monsanto CEO Bob Shapiro, and Ariana Huffington.15
Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, and Derek Jeter are all star athletes who meditate. The NBA’s Golden State Warriors, who won championships in 2015, 2017, and 2018 and set records for most wins in a season and most wins over a four-year period, have attributed their success to “four core values: joy, mindfulness, compassion, and competition.”16
Closer to home, I have a dear friend who labored for months under an incompetent manager in a dysfunctional work environment. Let’s call him Chris. Chris recently showed up at work, but could hardly breathe. He called his health care provider, who urged Chris to go to an emergency room immediately. Upon arrival, Chris was diagnosed with shortness of breath and heart palpitations. After additional tests, the doctors concluded that his symptoms were the result of ongoing stress.