FOUR FOUNDATIONS FOR A GOOD LIFE

By: Richard Kyte
Sandra is the happiest person I know.
When she was 13 years old, she promised her parents
she would always take care of her little brother,
Joe. For the past 21 years, Joe has lived with Sandra
and her husband, Paul.
Joe has Down syndrome.
Caring for Joe is a sacrifice. At a time when Sandra
and Paul could be enjoying the freedom that comes
with being “empty nesters,” they are home most evenings
and weekends taking care of Joe. In the mornings,
they are getting him ready for work.
This is not the kind of life most people envision
when asked, “What will make you happy?” Yet, this,
or something like it, is what most happy people describe
when asked what their life is like.
Researchers find that the four most common things
people think will make them happy are physical attractiveness,
free time, wealth, and being younger.
However, what actually makes people happy are being
good at something, staying busy, having good
friends, and growing old.
Why is there such a disconnect between what we
think and what people actually experience? When we
think about happiness abstractly, we tend to imagine
it resulting from status, from the position we attain in
relation to others. We tend to think, “wouldn’t it be
great to have what that person has?”
Status, however, is illusory. When we attain whatever
status goal we set for ourselves, we find there
is no “there” there. The goalposts have shifted. The
line over which we were trying to cross has moved
further away. Happiness isn’t about getting somewhere
or obtaining something. It’s about being a certain
kind of person.
Consider the well-known children’s story: The
Three Little Pigs. The first pig builds a house made
of straw, the second a house made of sticks, and the
third builds a house out of bricks. A wolf comes along
and huffs and puffs and blows down the houses of
the first and second pigs, but he cannot destroy the
brick house.
The first two pigs come to a bad end because they
lack foresight, persistence, and an ability to distinguish
between needs and desires. The third pig, by
contrast, possesses character traits long valued in
many different societies. First, he has wisdom. He
understands that his house may be needed to protect
him, so he makes it much stronger than it has to
be during ordinary times. Second, he has courage, a
strength of spirit demonstrated by his persistence in
continuing to work on his house long after the other
pigs have finished theirs and despite their ridicule. He
is not afraid of appearing foolish.
Third, he has temperance. He invests his resources
in the right things—the bricks, the time, and the
effort needed to build a strong house—which requires
him to forfeit some of the things he might enjoy. The
combination of these traits results in integrity, represented
by the house itself: well-built, sturdy, able
to withstand stress. These four virtues—wisdom,
courage, temperance, and integrity (or justice)—are
known as the “cardinal virtues.” They are the foundation
of a good life.
The lesson of The Three Little Pigs is this: If you
accept responsibility for the challenging things that
come your way, you will develop character traits that
allow you to deal with other, bigger challenges also.
But if you try to remain a child and evade responsibility,
challenges will inevitably come along that you
cannot evade, and they will destroy you.
Not everybody can grow up. There will always be
people like Joe, who through chromosomal disorder,
or disease, or accident, have their growth disrupted.
But Joe is not a tragedy; he is a gift. A tragedy is the
person who is able to grow up but chooses not to, the
person who just wants to have fun, who relies on others
to clean up the mess.
Sandra has good moments and bad moments, like
everyone else. But what seems to make her happy
is the way she deals with those moments. Every
week or so Sandra will share what she calls a
“Joe story.” Like the time Joe confessed he had been
swearing while she was gone. “What happens when
you swear?” he asked. Sandra replied, “You tell me.
What happens when you swear?” Joe thought for a
second, “You go to prison, I think, or to church.”
This ability to balance the good and the bad
through persistent humor and gratitude is central to
what psychologists have lately termed “resilience.”
But resilience is just a fashionable word for integrity:
the strength and wholeness of a person who has embraced
challenges willingly and grown into maturity
as a result.
When we think about what would make us happy,
we should not look at the things we can see, asking,
“How can I get what those people have?” Instead, we
should look at people like Sandra and try to imagine
the world as she sees it, asking, “What could I do to
become a person like her?”
Richard Kyte is the Endowed Professor of the D. B. Reinhart
Institute for Ethics in Leadership at Viterbo University
in La Crosse, Wisconsin where he teaches a variety of
ethics courses dealing with issues in business, leadership,
and the environment. He received his Ph.D. in philosophy
from The Johns Hopkins University in 1994.
Richard writes a regular column for the La Crosse Tribune
titled “The Ethical Life.” He is the author of An
Ethical Life: A Practical Guide to Ethical Reasoning (Anselm
Academic, 2012), Ideas Unite, Issues Divide: Essays
on the Ethical Life (Piscator Press, 2013). His latest book,
Ethical Business: Cultivating the Good in Organizational
Culture, is forthcoming from Anselm Academic Press in
2016.