This is why both of us have come to the same conclusion that our best self comes from our worst self and worst circumstances …
– The Frankl Cure for the 21st Century: Why Self- Transcendence is the Key to Mental Health and Flourishing
Do the best you can do; You may fail, but you may conquer,
See it through!– See it Through
When what we want happens, we experience some happiness. This is not a stable state without some level of contentment. This means before too long, a new goal will be sought and the striving will begin again. If most of life is striving and happiness is getting what we want, most of life will be unhappy.
A friend came to Singapore when he was fifteen. He had to survive on his own for quite a while. He expressed gladness that though he was initially not confident about communicating in English here, because back where he was, he was told that to communicate meaning, wording and grammar had to be precise; he found the situation quite a bit more accommodating. He realised people form their own norms in a way which serves them best. This is an aside though.
This friend finished his course of studies at a tertiary institution and worked in an administrative capacity at different places and according to him, the salary range given the available roles for his qualifications was capped. He had a dream which he describes as being able to look at others working from above and he meant this quite literally. So, single-handedly, he went over to a neighbouring country to attain a certain qualification necessary to realise his dream. He passed and must have done so quite well because he got the career he wanted. This in itself was a great achievement which must have taken a significant amount of effort. He did well and was promoted.
Then, he decided to stake everything on a venture which was not without significant risk. This too bore fruit and once again, he got what he wanted and now, he could do what he was doing for work out of sheer passion.
He can be said to have achieved early what may have taken longer. Now, on the other side, he made a remark one day: When you close your eyes and open your eyes, it is one day; when you close your eyes and don’t open your eyes, it is a lifetime. This was rather puzzling coming from someone who got everything he wanted including what another friend also worth mentioning for his grit, described as fulfilment; career and family.
Dr. Paul T. P. Wong is a strong believer of the works of neurologist Viktor Frankl who wrote the best-seller, Man’s Search for Meaning. Dr Wong is more than twice the age of the above-mentioned friend who is himself wise and seasoned. His life’s work consists of blending the best of east and west philosophies to understand happiness and fulfilment in the face of difficulties. Actually, according to Dr Wong, the dichotomy between adversity and happiness is false and he relies on the principles of Taoism to suggest that one cannot exist without the other.
He espouses self-transcendence as the cure to all ills. Self-transcendence is to adopt a “shift in focus from the self to others”, a shift from “extrinsic motivation… to intrinsic motivation (the activity itself is the reward)”, “doing what is right” and “the emotion of awe that contributes to life transformation and which inspires others” (Wong, 2021).
He has come up with, among other things, a Self-Transcendence Model of Flourishing. The term, ‘flourishing’ according to Dr. Martin Seligman who was once President of the American Psychological Association and who is, among other things, a professor of psychology at the Department of Psychology in the University of Pennsylvania, comes about because of sufficiency in 5 areas of our lives. Eckman (2021) suggests, Flourishing is a “multi-dimensional construct” and “maximum flourishing can only happen when a person experiences a healthy level of each dimension or component”.
These five components according to Dr Seligman (2011) are Positive Emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning and Accomplishment. Importantly, these five areas are independent of each other which means achievement in one area would not impact achievements in other areas and each has to be pursued independently. Also, there are different ways to increase the satisfaction in all these areas.
In other words, positive emotions predicated on say Relationships or Accomplishment (of the end state) are on shaky ground for obvious reasons. Some like, Loh, who penned a poem titled Pursuit might disagree.
In Pursuit, the poet wonders if his teacher had given him the right advice about life when teaching him Chinese calligraphy. He writes,
My Chinese teacher once taught me that pursuit starts with a dot breaking the surface, then an upward slash to the right; the sail must be erect before the remaining strokes can appear, junk-shaped, to chase white waters.
He counters with his own observation that the Chinese character for pursuit is more like “a butterfly searching for its other wing”.
According to the Positive Psychology Centre, “Different people will derive well-being from each of these five building blocks to varying degrees” and importantly there are, “many different routes to a flourishing life”. To find out the level of Flourishing, the PERMA profiler can be attempted here: PERMA Profiler. This profiler includes questions which measure satisfaction in different areas and the overall score will be indicative of the level of flourishing.
Dr. Paul’s philosophy focuses heavily on the Meaning pillar in PERMA and he suggests that if we find meaning in what we do, we can weather adversity and grow because of it. He agrees with Dr. Frankl that “It is the process of striving that makes us fully alive” and that “Progress always involves a struggle and overcoming risks and setbacks”.
In other words, intrinsic motivation; that is, feeling good about accomplishing goals no matter how tiny or merely having turned up to fight could be the answer to feeling happy and well. A sojourner can find meaning in the fact that he is still on the journey and take heart that he is through the struggle becoming a better person not in a philosophical way but in a practical way. They say martial arts makes the practitioner feel very alive regardless of the outcome of any particular bout. Each struggle makes a person stronger and able to take on greater challenges and elevate the overall quality of life.
Yamamoto Tsunetomo who wrote the Hagakure, writes, “It is said that Master Yagyu once remarked, I do not know the way to defeat others, but the way to defeat myself. Throughout your life advance daily, becoming more skilful than yesterday, more skilful than today. This is never-ending”.
Perhaps the Chinese teacher in Pursuit was right after all and all my philosophical friend lacks is a good fight.
The Brain Dojo
