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Investing in the Things that Matter Most in 2020

Since my 50th birthday, I’ve been paying more attention to online advertisements that promote financial investment strategies. My wife and I are pleased that we’ve made some progress with our retirement savings this past year. We’re hoping for an even more prosperous year in 2020.

Of course a life well-lived extends far beyond financial security. Integrity, selflessness, and generosity all require investing in the things that matter most.

As we enter a new decade, I invite each of us to to strengthen our retirement portfolios with the following key investments.

  1. Invest in Relationships – In 1938, scientists began tracking the health and happiness of 268 Harvard sophomores. This longitudinal study has continued to the present day, expanding to the children and grandchildren of the original subjects. One of its most resounding conclusions is that relationships are more important than anything else, including money, fame, and personal accomplishments. Researchers found that those who enjoyed warm and satisfying relationships at age 50 were by far the happiest at age 80. They had more robust physical, mental, and emotional health. The takeaway? If you want enduring happiness well into your golden years, make your investments in family and close friendships the most important part of your retirement portfolio.
  2. Invest in Learning – Many religious traditions affirm that knowledge is the only thing we can carry with us into the eternities. Whether or not this is true, most of us understand the power of education and the value of truth. But too often we rest on our laurels and stop learning, essentially cutting ourselves off from the vast tree of knowledge that fills the earth. Confucius taught that while the wise are confident regarding what they do know, their endless quest for knowledge makes them keenly aware of what they do not In many cases, truth can only be found by examining both sides of an issue. Rigid, uncompromising positions can blind both our hearts and our minds. One of our most difficult challenges is to learn from those we disagree with, those who might oppose our worldview. But with an open mind and a little humility, we can rise above ignorance and learn something new every day of our lives.
  3. Invest in Kindness – When we invest money in financial markets, we expect to see a vigorous return at some future time. But some of life’s greatest rewards come when we give selfless gifts without expecting anything in return. Such gifts are more likely to produce gratitude, which in turn inspires generosity toward others who might be incapable of returning the favor. All the while, karma works steadily in the background, generating priceless, immaterial gifts that make their way back to the original giver. Ralph Waldo Emerson referred to this as the law of compensation: “Love and you shall be loved. All love is mathematically just, as much as the two sides of an algebraic equation.” While love and kindness are not always reciprocated immediately, the cosmic laws of nature ensure that we will be compensated in the long run. Emerson affirms that sooner or later, benevolence returns to us through the intervention of “a third silent party to all our bargains.”
  4. Invest in the Present Moment – Over the past twenty years or so, the field of positive psychology has exploded with thousands of studies on the science of happiness. Researchers often promote character strengths and attitudes that lead to more flourishing lives. For example, they maintain that one of the keys to happiness is to live more fully in the present. This doesn’t mean that we neglect our responsibility to prepare for the future. In fact, having an eye toward the future can guide and inspire our present actions. True joy can then be found in the small and simple things, as we immerse ourselves in the beauty of nature and the pleasure of family and friends. Many of us struggle to slow down and live in the moment, while others lack the patience and foresight to prepare for the future. As we cultivate the ability to do both, we’re more likely to achieve the balance that leads to lasting happiness.

As the new year approaches, may we all invest in timeless wisdom that can light our path toward the abundant life. May we find an abundance of love, an abundance of joy, and an abundance of truth. And may this abundance overflow into the lives of those we encounter every day.

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10 Tips for Cultivating Patience in an Impatient World

As an elementary school teacher, my wife finds great fulfillment in helping her sixth graders improve their math skills. But she almost always has to deal with a few students who moan about having to learn new things. They lack the patience to correct their mistakes and practice until they’ve achieved mastery. Their impatience in turn tries the patience of their teacher.

At church, at home, and in the workplace our impatience can start to feed on the impatience of others. Since none of us have the patience of Job, all of us try each other’s patience. Stopping this vicious circle requires a little more patience from all of us. This means being willing to give others – and ourselves – time to change.

Of course, patience is not always a virtue. Sometimes teachers need to send disruptive students to the principal’s office. Sometimes we need to seize the day and take immediate action. Justice, courage, and kindness often call on us to make a difference without delay.

But it goes without saying that most of life’s challenges require patience. It takes patience to accomplish worthwhile goals. It takes patience to face unexpected trials such as serious illness, financial setbacks, and failed relationships. It takes patience to deal with life’s daily problems, including backed up freeways, bad weather, and slow lines at the grocery store.

One of the obstacles to developing patience is that our modern world caters to convenience and immediate gratification. We don’t need to grow a garden when we can pick up whatever we need from a convenience store. We don’t need to spend our time with home-cooked meals when restaurants and pre-packaged meals are always available. We don’t need to save up money to buy a new car when we can get a low-interest loan and buy it now. We don’t need to wait a week for our favorite television show when we can watch the entire series over the weekend on Netflix. And we don’t need patience to travel a thousand miles when we can hop on a plane and be there in a couple of hours.

So how can we cultivate patience in an impatient world? Here are ten tips.

The first two are taken from a 2017 journal article published in the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality by Sarah Schnitker and her colleagues at Fuller Theological Seminary.

1. Attach meaning to suffering.

Schnitker describes how religious communities generally promote the idea that some forms of suffering can be redemptive, leading to self-mastery, empathy, and greater life-fulfillment. This is what she calls a “transcendent narrative identity.” It provides the strength to look beyond present suffering and work toward a future where our lives have changed for the better.

2. Learn to control your emotions.

Schnitker and her fellow psychologists identify emotional regulation as another core aspect of patience. It’s easy to become frustrated, annoyed, and even bitter when things don’t go our way. But acting on negative emotions almost always makes situations worse. When I start to get impatient, I try to imagine how I would respond in my present circumstances if I were patient. Every once in a while, this sort of cognitive reappraisal helps me respond more calmly with a long-term perspective.

3. Look to nature for inspiration.

Ralph Waldo Emerson offers this advice: “Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.” It takes time to develop a strong root system that can support sturdy branches and bear fruit. We’re more likely to develop patience when we understand that disappointment and heartache can make us more capable of tasting the fruit of happiness in the future.

4. View patience as a golden mean

Aristotle helpfully describes most virtues as the golden mean between two extremes. For example, true courage is found somewhere between cowardice, on one hand, and recklessness, on the other. In a similar way, possessing patience means that we avoid foolish, impetuous actions. But it also means that we avoid a passive or lazy acceptance of suffering, injustice, and mediocrity.

5. Be humble enough to take small steps

For me personally, patience implies the willingness to take small steps to improve my life and the lives of those around me. Building a business, raising a family, and getting an education are made up of little things that add up over a long period of time. This same principle applies to recovering from the emotional wounds caused by unhealthy relationships. Shakespeare’s Othello explains it best: “How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?”

6. Be consistent in taking the small steps

In working toward an ambitious goal, I find that I need to set aside non-negotiable time every day, even if it’s just a few minutes, to do something concrete. If I go more than a day or two without taking any steps toward realizing my goal, the future that I had envisioned grows dim and I begin to lose hope. This is one of the reasons why scriptural counsel often pairs patience with diligence.

7. Be a finisher

Because I’m naturally an impatient person, I tend to get discouraged and move on to something else when I don’t see results as quickly as I’d like. This brings up the importance of personal commitment. Devote yourself to worthy causes and see your projects through to the end. Knowing that you’re a finisher can help you stay the course.

8. Don’t try to control other people

Self-mastery is one of the cornerstones of a happy life. We need to control our emotions, our thoughts, and our actions. But one of the surest paths to unhappiness is trying to control other people. Persuade family members, friends, and strangers through your example. Then give the people you love room to change. Try to remain pleasant and never give up on them.

9. Remember how tough you are

Patience is more about toughness than weakness and passivity. When life gets overwhelming, remind yourself of the many challenges and difficulties you’ve overcome in the past. You’ll find hidden strength and happiness if you just keep moving forward.

10. Cultivate hope for a brighter future

Patience is much more than a willingness to endure suffering. It’s about believing in a brighter future that comes one small, imperfect step at a time.

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Magnanimity and the Call to Greatness

In an earlier post, I contrasted Aristotelian pride with Confucian humility as the crown of the virtues. I also clarified that Aristotle does not advocate unjustified pride or arrogance any more than Confucius does. In describing Aristotle’s views in Nicomachean Ethics, I used Martin Ostwald’s English translation of μεγαλοψυχία (pronounced megalopsychia). While this word is typically translated into English as “magnanimity,” Ostwald prefers “high-mindedness” because the modern connotations of magnanimity don’t capture the “pride and confident self-respect” implied by the original Greek. In today’s post, I will reconsider magnanimity in the classical sense that communicates the “greatness of soul” inferred by Aristotle.

AristotleAristotle explains that a magnanimous man believes he deserves great things such as honor and respect because he really does deserve them. He is great both in the sense that he has obtained a fullness of virtue and in the sense that he possesses wealth, power, and influence. His abundant resources allow him to do much more good for others than they could do for him. While he willingly accepts legitimate honors bestowed by noble men, he has no interest in arrogantly displaying his superiority among ordinary people. In fact, he is self-effacing and unassuming among them. It is only in the presence of distinguished, influential men that he speaks openly of his accomplishments. Nonetheless, he is always more concerned with promoting truth and virtue than he is with impressing other people.

Aristotle’s magnanimous man spends his life doing extraordinary things, even risking his life when courage calls. One reason he’s capable of achieving greatness is that he does not squander his time or energy on trivial things. He never holds grudges, spreads gossip, or pays attention to small annoyances. Since he focuses his attention on the rare actions that are worthy of great honor, the magnanimous man is not in a hurry to fill his life with lesser accomplishments. He is never overly anxious or distracted by petty concerns. He is slow to act and deliberate in his choice of words.

Of course Aristotle’s ideal of magnanimity clashes a bit with our modern sensibilities. He sounds like someone who’s out of touch with reality, like a guy who has never done the dishes or mowed his front lawn. But before we reject such an ideal altogether, let’s consider how we might adapt at least some aspects of magnanimity today.

Aristotle emphasizes that magnanimity (or high-mindedness) is the golden mean between vanity and small-mindedness. While the vain man desires greater praise and recognition than he deserves, the small-minded man turns away from honors that he genuinely merits. Even worse, however, is the tendency of the small-minded man to shun wealth and power and to avoid performing noble deeds because he doesn’t consider himself worthy.

Surprisingly, Aristotle suggests that small-mindedness is a worse vice than vanity and that it’s much more common. When I examine my own character flaws, I’m usually more aware of my vanity. I care too much about what other people think of me. But as I reflect more honestly, I recognize that one of my biggest concerns is that I don’t want to come across as vain and prideful. If I’m honest with myself, this tendency to appear less than what I am (in order to impress others with my modesty), is often displayed as false humility or small-mindedness.

It seems evident that small-mindedness can prevent us from responding to the call to greatness. Each one of us possesses unique gifts that we’re capable of developing in the service of others. These gifts constitute our personal call to greatness or to magnanimity. We ought to strive for nothing more and nothing less. If I pretend that I am called to someone else’s greatness, to someone else’s honor, I’m vain. But if I for any reason refuse to accept my personal call to greatness (and the honors associated with this call), I’m suffering from a debilitating form of small-mindedness.

One of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s favorite themes is that each individual must discover and embrace his or her personal calling in life. Each person “has faculties silently inviting him thither to endless exertion…. He inclines to do something which is easy to him, and good when it is done, but which no other man can do. He has no rival. For the more truly he consults his own powers, the more difference will his work exhibit from the work of any other. His ambition is exactly proportioned to his powers.…Every man has this call of the power to do some[thing] unique, and no man has any other call….”

When we find the courage to respond to our personal call to greatness, we’re capable of achieving magnanimity. Because we’re no longer competing with someone else’s greatness or for someone else’s honor, we’re free to pursue our own path with less anxiety, less vanity, and well-deserved praise.

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Commitment: Freedom and Responsibility

It recently occurred to my wife and I that we will have four children attending college this coming fall. Setting aside our concerns over how they will afford tuition, books, and housing, our greatest hope is that they will each make wise choices regarding their future.

A free, democratic society offers citizens great latitude in choosing educational and career paths. My children are extremely fortunate to have been raised in a stable, middle-class family within strong communities. They’ve attended exceptional secondary schools in Massachusetts, California, and Utah. Each of these schools has given them opportunities to develop their talents and to pursue a wide ranges of interests inside and outside the classroom.

Upon entering college, students discover the freedom and responsibility to become whoever they want to become. This freedom can be both exhilarating and overwhelming at the same time.  Should they choose a stable, well-defined profession such as teaching, medicine, business, or the law? Or should they simply pursue a broad liberal arts education with more definite career choices to follow? How will the prospects of marriage and family responsibilities impact educational and career paths?

I firmly believe that every person possesses unique gifts that can only be developed through strenuous effort and refined through adversity. William James, the father of modern psychology, speaks of the challenge each of us face in realizing our potential: “Every one knows on any given day that there are energies slumbering in him which the incitements of that day do not call forth, but which he might display if these were greater. Most of us feel as if we lived habitually with a sort of cloud weighing on us, below our highest notch of clearness in discernment, sureness in reasoning, or firmness in deciding. Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half-awake. Our fires are damped, our drafts are checked. We are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources.”

So what is the cure for slumbering energies and indecisiveness? The answer lies in our ability to make firm commitments. Regardless of the educational path they choose, successful college students know that realizing their potential requires both short- and long-term commitments. The freedom to choose one path implies the need to abandon other paths. After exploring their options, mature students make a decision and then commit themselves to the long and arduous path toward self-mastery. In addition to completing degree programs and mastering skills, vital commitments include securing the happiness of a spouse and fulfilling parental responsibilities.

Ralph Waldo Emerson compares the power of personal commitment to the well-established order of nature: “And so I think that the last lesson of life, the choral song which rises from all elements and all angels, is a voluntary obedience, a necessitated freedom. Man is made of the same atoms as the world is; he shares the same impressions, predispositions, and destiny. When his mind is illuminated, when his heart is kind, he throws himself joyfully into the sublime order, and does, with knowledge, what the stones do by structure.”

Ideally, students discover an educational and career path that coincides with a clear life purpose, a sense of their personal calling. Emerson suggests that our true vocation is one that maximizes our freedom and empowers us to do what only we are capable of doing. He describes how such a calling invites us “to endless exertion,” where “all obstruction is taken away” as we “sweep serenely over a deepening channel into an infinite sea.”

How can we know that we’ve discovered our personal calling? Emerson claims that each of us has “one direction in which all space is open” to us. Some people possess a clear sense of this direction from a very young age. Others need more time to consider their options. And some are forced to reconsider after becoming frustrated with unfulfilling vocations.

Winding career paths don’t necessarily mean people are indecisive or aimless. It may simply mean that they have been willing to take advantage of new opportunities to learn and grow, to pursue their personal calling wherever it may lead. As long as their lives are grounded in firm commitments, they will discover unexpected success along the way. I have a friend who has struggled to begin a side business with a full-time job and heavy family responsibilities. To accomplish his goal, he made and fulfilled a commitment to wake up every morning at 4:30 a.m. 

Purposeful commitment means that we embrace both freedom and  responsibility. Rather than being driven by the need for constant entertainment, we find fulfillment through service to others. Rather than being controlled by negative emotion, we find pleasure in disciplined habits. And rather than escaping responsibility through mind-altering drugs or digital dependence, we use our freedom to make the world a better place to live and learn.

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Benevolence: Catalyst for Change

In one of my recent podcasts, I pointed out that virtues such as love and benevolence are not always the best foundation for moral behavior in society. One reason is that these virtues tend to be grounded in clan-based loyalties, where our compassion extends only to family, friends, and sometimes fellow citizens. Good will and compassion typically do not guide our behavior toward political enemies and others who may oppose our way of life. But human history has proven time and again that one’s enemies are frequently vulnerable and deserving of sympathy. In such contexts, just laws are needed to illuminate our blind spots. True justice can provide a code of ethical obligations to protect otherwise defenseless people from their would-be oppressors.

This is not to say, however, that benevolence and compassion are less potent or less needed virtues. In fact, benevolence may be the most important virtue for propelling personal and societal change.

As the disposition to do good to others, benevolence is the foundation for generosity and kindness. It cultivates compassion and responds wisely to the genuine needs of others. Benevolence taps into the light of conscience that can only be dimmed by responding to the darker side of human nature.

In Confucianism,  the Chinese character ren is often translated as benevolence. It’s a general virtue that governs human relationships through the principle of love. In ancient Chinese texts, a more accurate translation of ren might be “humanity,” which implies a more comprehensive virtue that encompasses benevolence, wisdom, and other characteristics needed for human flourishing. As our sense of humanity, benevolence can impact the way we treat both friends and foes.

Confucius

Confucius affirms that benevolence or a sense of humanity is one of the core values that allows for true self cultivation. And he reminds us of the tremendous power that can be wielded by benevolence. As the recipient of kindness, my psyche is naturally indebted to my benefactor and inclined to repay their kindness by acting benevolently toward others. The laws of karma dictate that kindness begets kindness. Compassion leads to more compassion.

Ralph Waldo Emerson refers to this principle as the law of compensation: “Love and you shall be loved. All love is mathematically just, as much as the two sides of an algebraic equation.” While kindness will not always be reciprocated immediately, the cosmic laws of nature ensure that we will not be cheated in the long run. Sooner or later, benevolence returns to us through the intervention of “a third silent party to all our bargains.”

The preeminence of benevolence is expressed profoundly in the Christian doctrine that God is love. As conveyed in 1 John 4:8, “whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” The most reliable indicator of personal redemption and conversion is the expression of love and kindness in our daily actions.

While benevolence appears to occupy a less prominent place in Aristotle’s philosophy, we see its expression in other virtues, such as generosity, friendship, and magnanimity. As the essence of human virtue, benevolence promotes healthy personal relationships, compassion and fairness in society, and peace between sovereign nations.

As the virtue that most impacts human relationships, benevolence is an indispensable catalyst for change. In Strength to Love, Martin Luther King states, “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” Dr. King’s call for change through nonviolent resistance is grounded in the principle of love, which has the power to destroy the forces of evil and establish justice.

When we are consciously aware of the laws of karma or compensation in our personal lives, our benevolence can be expressed as a form of enlightened self-interest. The desire to reap benevolence for ourselves provides ample motivation to treat others benevolently. However, such an approach usually requires patience as well. While kindness and compassion can be reciprocated immediately, change often takes time. This is one of the reasons Confucius counsels his disciples to maintain high expectations of themselves and low expectations of others.

The call to love our enemies provides a particular challenge to the self-interest model. As a full expression of virtue, benevolence does not expect anything in return. We treat others with kindness and respect whether they deserve it or not. And while such a selfless expression of the higher law might not be reciprocated by our enemies, it will always transform us.