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CHAPTER 1
CONTENTED PEOPLE KNOW THAT EXTERNAL CIRCUMSTANCES DONāT DETERMINE HAPPINESS
I kept my heart from no pleasure. . . . I . . . had great possessions. . . . I made great works. . . . Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had spent in doing it, and again, all was vanity and a chasing after wind.
āEcclesiastes 2:10, 7, 4, 11
A familiar voice on the other end of the phone said, āHi, Martin. Itās Larry. Iām in Nashville for a few days at a conference, and I wondered if we could have lunch together.ā Larry, a clergy friend, serves as senior pastor at a large church in the South. At the time of his call, I worked at the denominational headquarters of my old church. The next day we met at a Mexican restaurant in West Nashville. We talked a long time about our work, our families, and the politics raging in our denomination.
The time quickly passed, and I assumed our visit was nearly over. But then, in a rare moment of transparency and honesty, Larry shared something that caught me completely off guard. He said, āFor the past several years, Iāve been struggling with a strong spirit of discontentment.ā That revelation surprised me. From my limited perspective, Larry lived a charmed life. A handsome, intelligent, and outgoing man, he served a large and respected church in his home state. His wife, an attractive woman who sings like an angel, is smart, kind, and exceptionally funny. They have two beautiful and gifted children. On top of all that, Larryās wife came from a wealthy family, so money never posed a problem. And yet, in spite of all those blessings, Larry told me he rarely felt satisfied and had no inner peace. Concerned he might have clinical depression, he went to see a psychiatrist. However, the doctor told him he did not suffer from clinical depression and did not need antidepressant medication. Still Larry struggled daily with restlessness and discontentment.
An Inside Job
Larry told me that at first he assumed the problem was his church. He thought, If only I could get a bigger and better church, then I would be content. But Larry got a bigger and better church, and it didnāt help. As soon as the initial excitement wore off, Larry felt just as discontented as before. Since the problem wasnāt his church, Larry figured the problem must be his career. He thought he must be in the wrong profession. So he went to a top-flight career counselor, took a battery of aptitude tests, and engaged in numerous vocational interviews. But in the end he realized the problem wasnāt his career. In fact, he discovered he was extremely well suited for pastoral work. After extensive evaluation, Larryās career counselor told him, āI canāt think of a better vocation for you than serving as a minister.ā
Larry finally said to me: āItās taken several years and numerous counseling sessions, but Iāve learned something extremely important. Iāve finally figured out that the problem is not my church or my vocationābut me. Iāve learned that my restlessness and discontentment are not an external problem but an internal problem. Iāve learned that happiness is an inside job.ā
Although it took significant effort, my friend Larry learned that external circumstances, including our jobs, have little impact on overall life satisfaction. In fact, external circumstances, including our job, money, house, and personal appearance, account for only a small fraction of a personās happiness. I know thatās hard to believe, especially in America, but itās absolutely true. Science, experience, and Scripture all clearly teach that happiness is indeed, in Larryās words, āan inside job.ā However, given the counterintuitive nature of this claim, I donāt expect you to accept it at face value. So letās explore the evidence.
The Scientific Evidence
Like many of you, I vividly remember my freshman year of college. One of my first classes was Psychology 101. In that class we studied clinical depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, dysfunctional families, eating disorders, addictions, and other cheery topics! Over the past fifty years, the science of psychology primarily focused on pathologiesāthings that make people sick and miserable. But in recent years a growing number of psychologists have been studying what is called āpositive psychology.ā Positive psychology focuses not on pathologies but on what makes people healthy and happy. For almost two decades, leading psychologists at highly respected institutions like Harvard, Stanford, and the University of California have carefully studied happiness. For a comprehensive overview of this fascinating research, I recommend that you read The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want by Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky, professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside, whom I will cite extensively throughout this book. Sheās written a follow-up book called The Myths of Happiness: What Should Make You Happy but Doesnāt, What Shouldnāt Make You Happy, but Does.1
The most interesting conclusion of positive psychology research is how little external circumstances impact life satisfaction. Most people believe life circumstances are the primary key to happiness. For example, if we took a survey of average Americans and asked, āWhat would make you happier?ā they would likely list things like:
- ā¢ Find a better job.
- ā¢ Make more money.
- ā¢ Own a nicer house.
- ā¢ Have a more loving partner.
- ā¢ Lose a lot of weight.
- ā¢ Have a child.
- ā¢ Be more physically attractive.
- ā¢ Be a prominent member of the community.
- ā¢ Inherit a large estate.
Most people believe that if we can get our circumstances just right, happiness will follow. However, positive psychologists have discovered this is a myth. Circumstances play a small role in happiness. In fact, life circumstancesāincluding income, health, physical appearance, and marital statusāaccount for only about 10 percent of a personās overall life satisfaction.
Take money, for example. Many people think, If I can just get enough money, Iāll be happy. But thatās not true. Extensive research has proven that after our basic needs are met, additional money has minimal impact on our happiness. In his book Flourish, Martin Seligman, a psychologist and an expert in happiness studies, cites amazing research. Pennsylvania Amish, Inuit people in northern Greenland, and African Masaiāpeople who have minimal income and few material assetsāhave virtually the same levels of life satisfaction as Forbes magazineās richest Americans.2 In spite of beliefs to the contrary, after our core necessities are met, money does not make people happy.
Neither does physical beauty. Although many of us believe beautiful people are happier than plain people, research has proven otherwise. Numerous studies have shown that attractive people are no happier than average-looking people. For example, one psychologist tells about a woman who had major cosmetic surgery on her face, including eye lifts, a face lift, a nose job, liposuction under her chin, and laser resurfacing of her skin. The surgery made her look younger and more attractive. But a year later she said: āI do have to say itās nice to have less wrinkles. But it didnāt make me happier. The makeover is nothing compared to real happiness.ā3 Beauty, like money, does not make people happy. Neither does fame, children, a status job, youthfulness, or intelligence. Even good health doesnāt make people more appreciably happy. In the end, external circumstances have minimal impact on happiness. It accounts for only about 10 percent of overall life satisfaction.
Although Iād like to go into far more depth on this subject, we have much more to cover. However, in order to give you a taste of the fascinating research on this important topic, Iāve listed the following quotes from three leading experts on the subject of happiness:
Lyubomirsky, in The How of Happiness, says:
- ā¢ āThe things most of us think create happinessāwealth, fame, beautyādonāt really matter all that much.ā4
- ā¢ āChanges in our circumstances, no matter how positive and stunning, actually have little bearing on our well-being.ā5
- ā¢ āNot only does materialism not bring happiness, but itās been shown to be a strong predictor of unhappiness.ā6
- ā¢ āBeautiful people are not happier than their plain-looking relatives, colleagues, and friends.ā7
- ā¢ āAlthough you may find it very hard to believe, whether you drive to work in a Lexus hybrid or a battered truck, whether youāre young or old, or have had wrinkle-removing plastic surgery, whether you live in the frigid Midwest or on the balmy West Coast, your chances of being happy and becoming happier are pretty much the same.ā8
- ā¢ āTrying to be happy by changing our life situations ultimately will not work.ā9
Richard Layard, economist, happiness expert, and author of Happiness: Lessons from a New Science, states:
- ā¢ āMost people want more income and strive for it. Yet as Western societies have got richer, their people have become no happier.ā10
- ā¢ āFor most types of people in the West, happiness has not increased since 1950. In the United States people are no happier, although living standards have more than doubled.ā11
- ā¢ āWhen whole societies have become richer, they have not become happier.ā12
- ā¢ āDepression has actually increased as incomes have risen.ā13
- ā¢ āWe have in the First World a deep paradoxāa society that seeks and delivers ever greater income, but is little if any happier than before.ā14
- ā¢ āWe can begin with five features that on average have a negligible effect on happiness . . . age . . . gender . . . looks . . . IQ . . . education.ā15
Martin Seligman, who also wrote Authentic Happiness, claims:
- ā¢ āThe less fortunate are, by and large, just as happy as the more fortunate. Good things and high accomplishments, studies have shown, have astonishingly little power to raise happiness more than transiently.ā16
- ā¢ āRich people are, on average, only slightly happier than poor people.ā17
- ā¢ āPhysical attractiveness . . . does not have much effect at all on happiness.ā18
- ā¢ āObjective physical health, perhaps the most valuable of all resources, is barely correlated with happiness.ā19
- ā¢ āOnce a person is just barely comfortable, added money adds little or no happiness. Even the fabulously richāthe Forbes 100, with an average net worth of over 125 million dollarsāare only slightly happier than the average American.ā20
- ā¢ āSurprisingly, none of them (education, intelligence, climate, gender and race) much matters for happiness.ā21
The research is clear. In the end, external circumstances have little impact on life satisfaction. Of course, they can make a short-term impact on our happiness. If we win the lottery, we will be extremely happy but only for a short while. For example, a classic study of Illinois State Lottery winners (people who won between fifty thousand and one million dollars in 1970s dollars) revealed an amazing fact. Less than a year after winning the lottery, winners were no happier than regular folks who did not have the good fortune of receiving a windfall of money.22 The same dynamic is true with getting a new house or car, getting engaged or married, having a child, or getting a promotion. These things will briefly raise our happiness, but it wears off rapidly. Bottom line: psychological research has proven that circumstances do not significantly increase long-term contentment.
The Experiential Evidence
As weāve seen, psychological research reveals that external circumstances do not impact happiness in any significant way. Experience also supports that conclusion. Many rich, beautiful, and famous people live miserable lives of broken relationships, substance abuse, and crippling, sometimes suicidal, depression. For example, while I was writing this book, the talented and wildly successful comedian and actor Robin Williams tragically took his own life. On the other hand, a lot of simple, economically modest, and average-looking people live lives full of joy and happiness. No significant correlation exists between external circumstances and life satisfaction.
Iāve worked in pastoral ministry for over three decades. Iāve served small churches with hundreds of members, large churches with over a thousand members, and a megachurch with ten thousand members (adults and children). My profession constantly puts me in close contact with large numbers of people. After decades of pastoral experience, one thing has become overwhelmingly clear to me: external circumstances like money, status, success, popularity, beautiful homes, personal appearance, education levels, and IQ have little impact on life satisfaction. Some of the most miserable people Iāve known are rich, successful, attractive, well educated, and prominent. On the other hand, some of the happiest people Iāve known have few financial assets, minimal social status, average physical appearance, and even poor health. After decades of being in the people business, Iāve seen firsthand the extremely small correlation between external circumstances and contentment.
Not only has this been true in my professional life, but itās also been true in my personal life. In one of my previous books, Whatās the Least I Can Believe and Still Be a Christian?, I confessed that in my early adult years I chased after money in the business world and then chased after success in the church world. Although I attained some degree of wealth and success, it never satisfied my desire for contentment. Finally, through a series of life-changing events and a powerful epiphany, I finally realized, like my friend Larry, that contentment is not dependent on external circumstances but is āan inside job.ā For over twenty years Iāve been highly content, regardless of the circumstances.
Instructively, the least contented professional experience of my lifeāalthough I still maintained a good bit of personal contentmentāoccurred during a two-year stint as senior pastor of a megachurch. It was the largest chu...
