Happiness

That’s the cover story this week in The Economist magazine. That article, of course, reflects on happiness relative to economic well-being, but (and) it has some interesting reflections. At one point it observes that some people work just to pay the rent, while “some fortunate people also found deep satisfaction from losing themselves in their work, ‘forgetting themselves in a function,’ as W.H. Auden put it.”

It is easier to forget yourself in some functions than in others, of course. In Auden’s poem, surgeons manage it “making a primary incision”, as do cooks, mixing their sauce, and clerks “completing a bill of lading”. This happy state, which Mr Csikszentmihalyi calls “flow”, arises most often in work that stretches a person without defeating him; work that provides “clear goals”, “unambiguous feedback” and a “sense of control”.

That’s well put, “work that stretches a person without defeating him.”

Which leads to another look at happiness catching attention right now. In fact, it’s the title – though with a spelling twist – of a new film released today about the true story of Chris Gardner and his rise from futility to fortune.

Though knocked “flat on his back,” Chris persevered with a determination to protect and provide for his son that took him from rags to riches as a top stockbroker and eventually a millionaire owner of his own Chicago-based brokerage firm.

Gardner’s success came from something deeper and greater than social status seeking, and it attracted the writer of that Fox News piece to seek him out in person.

I called Chris’ office and he graciously agreed to meet with me. Indeed, we struck a quick and easy friendship, no doubt, because we had much in common. We were two black men who grew up without our fathers and who were determined to be the kind of fathers for our sons that we wished we had.

And we were two fathers who could have easily “cut and run.” I was a (nearly) teen dad who resisted temptation and chose to stay and make my “baby mamma” my wife; Chris was a father who was down but never out of hope for better days for him and his young son. These flat on our backs experiences steeled us and taught us both that the truest measure of a father was not what he did for himself but rather what he did for his children.

And that’s the triumph of true happiness.