To Flourish in the New Year, Start Within
Every January, almost every targeted ad that comes my way is geared toward making improvements. Lose weight! Dress better! Make more money! Get more love! The tactic is clear: the promise of flourishing in the new year.
But what exactly does it mean to flourish? This is an ancient question. The Classical Greeks called it eudaimonia, which founding father Thomas Jefferson translated as “the pursuit of happiness.” I would define human flourishing as not merely surviving or being successful in one specific area of life, but rather a state where the whole human being is thriving.
The problem is that we are manipulated to accept a shallow, materialistic, fear-based understanding of flourishing. Much of the media we are exposed to insists that we are first and foremost buyers, i.e., our identity is tied to what we consume. What’s more, political messaging renders us into pawns in a game of power, as we are manipulated into believing that one particular group is all that stands between us and happiness.
If this were true—if the solutions being presented to us by those who want to sell us things and ideas actually worked—then wouldn’t we be happier? Over all, America’s happiness is falling and loneliness is rising. There is also a general pessimism, as Americans feel more scared and sad about the future than ever before. This certainly does not sound like flourishing to me.
Clearly, we must reclaim our understanding of flourishing. But how to regain our freedom and humanity from these corporate and political interests? I believe the answer lies in a two-fold process:
- Identifying the qualities we wish to see more of in the world.
- Committing to actions that cultivate those traits in ourselves.
This may sound obvious, but in fact it is quite at odds with how we are encouraged to think about ourselves these days—as either satisfied or dissatisfied consumers, be that in politics or in commerce.
As a rabbi, I often turn to Book of Psalms for inspiration and clarity. The psalmist’s understanding of happiness might strike us initially as a bit stringent: “Happy is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked” (Ps. 1); “Happy are those who uphold justice, who practice righteousness at all times” (Ps. 106); “Happy are those whose way is blameless” (Ps. 119). However, I think the common thread we can see here is that happiness emerges from living in a way that is aligned with our ethics.
Flourishing, then, really starts with character traits (middot) and inner life (penimiut). Whatever our religious orientation may be, we can come together for a discussion around refining our best qualities. But how to begin? I suggest you start by choosing a quality you wish to see more of in the world, for example, compassion, generosity, love, or understanding, to name a few.
After you have chosen the quality, decide on an action that will strengthen this quality within you, as if the quality itself were a muscle. Let’s say you choose compassion as your trait, wishing to flourish with compassion for self, family and coworkers, and the strangers who live among us. To cultivate this trait, you might challenge yourself to listen with curiosity to someone with whom you disagree, seeking only to understand; or you might meditate on the quality of compassion for a few minutes each day for a week.
Whatever you feel is lacking in the world, begin by nurturing it in yourself. Wish humans were more generous? Start by giving anonymously. Want to see more love in the world? Ask yourself how you can cultivate love. Feel the world is lacking integrity? Double-down on your own. In doing so, we reclaim our power. We are more than consumers; we are agents of change and manifestation.
There are always arguments that we are one technological advance away from collective human flourishing. However, at this point, it is clear that the antidote for what ails us is not better tools. We have the best technological tools that have ever existed, and we are unhappier than ever. The answer, therefore, is not in how powerful we can become, but how human we can be. It is not about how productive we can be or how many likes we can have on social media, but how we can reclaim our inner lives with more spaciousness.
This is more important than ever. We are losing our freedom at an accelerated rate. I don’t mean just political freedom, I am talking about something fundamental to what makes us human. The key to getting it back lies within us.