What Do You See?

(If you're doing an individual classroom, you may want to actually do this object lesson to see how the class responds, then tell how the business people responded.) An expert on the economy was asked to talk to a group of business people about the recession they were currently suffering under. She tacked up a big sheet of white paper. Then she made a black spot on the paper with her pencil and asked a man in the front row what he saw. The man replied promptly, ''A black spot.'' 

The speaker asked every person the same question, and each replied, ''A black spot.''

The speaker calmly and deliberately said, "Yes, there is a little black spot, but none of you mentioned the big sheet of white paper. And that's my speech.'' (Speaker's Library of Business Stories, Anecdotes and Humor, by Joe Griffith)

There was a huge sheet of white paper, but all the business people failed to see it because their attention was on the small spot. The economist wanted them to see that they were so focused on the bad things about the economy that they couldn't see all the opportunities and good things about the economy. 

Don't we tend to do that with our lives? Sure, you've got a problem at home and a major problem with a couple of your classes. All I want to say is, don't forget about that one class you're doing well in. And while your relationship with your dad may be bad, at least you've got a roof over your head and a dry bed to sleep in at night. 

I don't want to minimize those spots on the big sheet of paper that represents our lives. Some of them really hurt. I just want to say that there's still a big white sheet there, if we can focus on it. Often we get so wrapped up with the bad things that are happening that we forget about the good. 

This week, every time we start getting depressed about those things that are going wrong, let's think about several things that are going right. If you broke your big toe this week, be thankful that nine of your toes don't hurt at all. If you see me looking grouchy this week, remind me to think of the rest of the sheet of paper. I may need a reminder.

Discussion Questions

1) What did the the business people miss when they saw only the spot on the paper?
2) Who would you rather spend time with, those who constantly complain about the bad things in life, or those who mainly talk about the good things that happen? 
3) What is one of the "spots" in your life today?
4) What things can you name that are going right?
5) This week, let's try to think more of the good things that are happening than the bad things. 

What Brings Happiness?

Lindsay Buckingham of the classic rock band Fleetwood Mac once said, ''I'm lonely. My personal life is fairly barren. A house [worth $2 million] full of new furniture doesn't mean a whole lot. It just means you have a nice place to watch TV. But so what? I feel pretty isolated at the moment. I'm sort of like a guy on the top of a hill in a little castle of his own. I hope that won't last forever.'' (Quoted in Dan Peters and Steve Peters, Why Knock Rock? (Minneapolis, Minn.: Bethany House, 1984), p. 27.

Eddie Murphy is one of the most talented comedians to hit the stage. Yet, he once said, ''I'm paranoid. I do this and I do that. I can buy anything I want. I can have anything I want, but I'm still not happy. I wonder why I'm not happy?'' (Quoted from ''Taking Your Campus...,"' by Barry St. Clair and Keith Naylor.)

Many people climb the ladder to success only to find that the ladder was leaning against the wrong wall. They reached the top only to discover that a bigger house and a nicer car didn't bring happiness.  

How can we find happiness? Perhaps great social reformer Martin Luther King, Jr. was on to something when he said, "Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it, because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others. (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

The more I think about it, that rings true with my experience. I get so excited about buying some new toy, only to play with it a few times and then start dreaming about the next new toy. It's all so shallow. Those things never satisfy me. Looking back, the things that bring me lasting happiness on a deeper level are the things I do for others.  This week, join me in looking for opportunities to bring a smile to someone's face -  complementing a fellow student on an achievement, thanking a teacher for a lesson well taught, asking someone how her life is going...then simply listening. 

In bringing happiness to others, we may just find happiness ourselves. 

Discussion Questions

1) Why do you think so many successful people can't find happiness? 
2) What do you think Martin Luther King, Jr. meant when he said, "...the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others."?
3) Think of some times when others have made you happy. What kinds of things did they do or say that made you feel happy? 
4) What are some things you can do or say to make people happy this week?

Immerse Yourself in Something Bigger Than Yourself
 
Imagine with me for a moment that you're a caveman who has been frozen for thousands of years and just thawed out in the year 2003. A family in our county adopts you and you find yourself trying to adapt to a life of bewildering complexity. Not understanding electricity, you wake up one morning and want to turn on the light.  

So you stand on a chair and start fooling with the light bulb, trying to make it light up.  Will I ever get it turned on that way? Of course not! Being a cave man with a small brain under my sloped forehead and no knowledge of electricity, I don't realize that in order to get light, I don't go directly to the light bulb. I go to the light switch. 

In the same way, a lot of modern people who don't have sloped foreheads still don't get it about searching for happiness. Most people don't find happiness by searching for it. They pursue some worthy goal and discover happiness as a byproduct. That worthy goal is like the switch that turns on happiness. 

As literary critic John Mason Brown said, ''No one, I am convinced, can be happy who lives only for himself. The joy of living comes from immersion in something that we know to be bigger, better, more enduring and worthier than we are.'' 

This week, let's try to get our eyes off of ourselves and our own happiness. Instead, let's dream of worthy goals that could make other's lives better. By immersing ourselves in goals bigger than ourselves, we just might flip the switch that empowers our own happiness.  

Discussion Questions

1) Why might a caveman have trouble figuring out out how to turn on a light? 
2) How does the "caveman and the light" story relate to people's search for happiness?
3) What do you think of the quote from John Mason Brown: ''No one, I am convinced, can be happy who lives only for himself...." 
4) What are some examples of worthy goals that are "bigger, better, more enduring and worthier than we are?" 
5) How could such a goal impact the things we do and say this week? 

Thankfulness Brainstorm

Divide into two teams. Appoint a secretary for each team with a sheet of paper and a pen. Explain that one of the most important keys to a person's present and future happiness is developing a positive attitude. One way to do this is to be more aware of your blessings than your trials. 

The Need for Cheerfulness

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Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.  (John Homer Miller)

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A Harvard research project found eighty-five percent of people’s success due to attitude, only fifteen percent due to ability. Attitude was much more important than luck, talent, education or intelligence.

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There is no greater everyday virtue than cheerfulness. This quality is in man among men is like sunshine to the day, or a gentle renewing moisture to parched herbs.

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Life’s circumstances getting you down? Loaded down with homework? Parents on your case about everything? Whatever you’re going through, Viktor Frankl probably had it worse. Hitler stripped him of his medical practice, family and possessions, putting him into a concentration camp. He’d done nothing wrong. Hitler simply didn’t like Jews and Frankl was a Jew. Imagine that it happened to you: you lose everything that matters to you, simply because of your race. Wouldn’t you be ticked?

But things got worse. While in the camp, he watched the Nazi’s murder his friends and saw others commit suicide. Many simply gave up hope.

Frankl chose a different course. Although he couldn’t change his horrendous circumstances, he could control his attitude. It was one thing the Nazi’s couldn’t change, without his permission. His positive attitude helped him to not only survive, but to become a world-renowned author and Psychiatrist.

According to Frankl, concerning his prison camp experience,

  "Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom.”

Again,

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”  (Viktor Frankl)

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“A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest of men.”

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 “There ain’t much fun in medicine, but there’s a heck of a lot of medicine in fun.” (Josh Billings, 19^th century humorist)

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Optimism and humor are the grease and glue of life. Without both of them we would never have survived our captivity. (Philip Butler, Vietnam POW)

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The plainest sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness: her state is like that of things in the regions above the moon, always clear and serene. (Michel de Montaigne) 

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Metropolitan Life used the Seligman Attributional Style Questionnaire to identify the optimists and pessimists that they hired. They then tracked them and found that the optimists outsold the pessimists. The margin of difference was remarkable - 20 percent difference in sales the first year, 50 percent the second year. (Written by Steve Miller. Source: Speaker's Library of Business Stories, Griffith, Joe, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Copyright 1990.)

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The world is moving so fast now-a-days that the man who says it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it. (Elbert Hubbard)

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Norman Cousins, editor of the prestigious Saturday Review and later on the faculty of the UCLA Medical School, visited a Doctor and was given a death sentence – one chance in five hundred of recovering from a disease involving his connective tissues. Not one to take a challenge lying down, he researched his condition and determined that, among other things, hearty laughter might help his ailment.

So, he designed his own path to recovery, which involved watching comedies on TV and laughing. In order to not disturb other patients with his laughter, Cousins moved out of the hospital. According to Cousins, “I made the joyous discovery that ten minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep.” Eventually, he experienced a full recovery and wrote of it in his book, Anatomy of an Illness.

Later, he researched and wrote another book on the power of positive emotions. In Head First, The Biology of Hope, he talks of the proven power of laughter to reduce pain, enhance respiration, reduce stress, improve circulation and strengthen our immune system.  

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Although we’re well acquainted with Thomas Edison’s strong work ethic, most don’t know about his use of humor. “In addition to maintaining hundreds of notebooks full of scientific equations, he filled several others with nothing but jokes. He found that comic relief was valuable for both him and his staff. He used it as a tension breaker and as a morale builder. He said later that people who laugh together can work longer and harder together, and with more effectiveness.” (Urban, Hal, Life’s Greatest Lessons or 20 Things I Want My Kids to Know, Great Lessons Press, Redwood City, CA, 1997)

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“Of all the gifts bestowed by nature on human beings, hearty laughter must be close to the top.”  (Norman Cousins, Senior Editor of the Saturday Review, professor at the University of California at Los Angeles School of Medicine, prolific writer)

How to Be Cheerful

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''The universe pays every man in his own coin; if you smile, it smiles on you in return; if you frown, you will be frowned at; if you sing, you will be invited into cheerful company; if you think, you will be entertained by thinkers; if you love the world, and earnestly seek for the good therein, you will be surrounded by loving friends, and nature will pour into your lap the treasures of the earth.'' (Mike Lea)

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"True as a means of destroying slavery, it was like an attempt to bail out the ocean with a teaspoon, but the thought that there was one less slave, and one more freeman -- having myself been a slave, and a fugitive slave -- brought to my heart unspeakable joy."

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Noble deeds and hot baths are the best cures for depression. (Dodie Smith)

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"When somebody does something well, applaud! It will make two people happy." (Samuel Goldwyn, successful and influential movie producer)

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You'd have thought that Elvis Presley had it all. He was called ''The King'' by millions of adoring fans, had tons of money, girls, and friends to help him with every aspect of his life. But inside, he was often empty and miserable. Why? 

His stepbrother and closest friend, Rick Stanley, observes that Elvis ''was brought up to find his fulfillment in pleasing others. Not in serving them, but pleasing them. There is a difference. People who are motivated to please others rarely have their need to love and be loved met. Their lifelong search for that kind of fulfillment is often tragically unsuccessful.'' (Rick Stanley, Caught in a Trap: Elvis Presley's Tragic Lifelong Search for Love, Word Publishing, Dallas, 1992, p. 21)

How tragic! Remember, we're not out to please everyone, but to serve them. There's a huge difference.

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"Happiness is like a butterfly. The more you chase it, the more it will elude you. But if you turn your attention to other things, it comes softly and sits on your shoulder."

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Video Clip: ''The Grinch.'' Show a clip from the first of the movie about how miserable he was in his selfishness. Then, a clip from the end where he saw the ''Who's'' experiencing the joy of Christmas even without the gifts. His heart grew and he experienced joy himself. If you don't have the video, just get kids to share about the movie.

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''Sociologists find that those who volunteer enjoy better health than those that don't.'' (Eugene C. Dorsey)

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People don't get it. In every generation people believe the lie that just a little more money and just a few more things will give them the joy and peace that eludes them. They've missed the lesson learned by the contemptible Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dicken's classic tale, A Christmas Carol. Consumed by his greed, he lives a lonely, joyless life. People mean nothing to him.

But after three spirits reveal to him the misery he's caused others and the way others despise him, his life is forever changed. He begins to empathize with others, forgetting about himself and meeting their needs. By turning outward, he finds an incredible joy he never knew. Listen carefully to how Here's how Dickens describes the changed man:

Do you lack joy? Perhaps you need to learn from Ebenezer the joy of giving.

He went to church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and fro, and patted children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of houses, and up to the windows; and found that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never dreamed that any walk – that anything – could give him so much happiness… Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them… His own heart laughed, and that was quite enough for him.'' (Written Steve Miller, Copyright September, 2002, quote from Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol.)

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Imagine for a moment that you're an idiot and don't understand how lights work. Walking into the youth room you find that the light isn't turned on. So you immediately go to the light to try to make it turn on. What's the problem with that? Right. In order to turn the light on, you don't go for the light. You go to the light switch. (Use this as an object lesson. Have a student act like an idiot and try to turn on the youth room light by going straight to the light. He's saying to himself things like, ''Now how can I get this light on?'' ''Maybe if I just turn the bulb harder.'' ''Maybe it needs some W-D 40 to oil it.'' ''Duct Tape! It will fix anything!'')

In the same way, you don't go looking for happiness and find it sitting somewhere. You find it by going to the switch. The switch to true happiness is making others happy. It's getting up in the morning and asking, ''How can I encourage someone today? What can I do to make someone's life better today?''

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A Carnegie Foundation study once showed that only 15 percent of a business person's success could be attributed to job knowledge and technical skills. An essential element but a small overall contribution. It showed that 85 percent of one's success would be determined by what they call ''ability to deal with people'' and ''attitude.'' (Joe Griffith, Speaker's Library of Business Quotes)

''The surest way to be miserable,'' said George Bernard Shaw, ''is to have the leisure to wonder whether or not you are happy.''

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Any man's life will be filled with constant and unexpected encouragement if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day. (Booker T. Washington)

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Benjamin Franklin, while working to build forts, observed, ''…When Men are employ'd they are best contented. For on the Days they work'd they were good-natur'd and cheerful; and with the consciousness of having done a good Day's work they spent the Evenings jollily; but on the idle Days they were mutinous and quarrelsome, finding fault with their Pork, the Bread, etc., and in continual ill-humor….'' (Autobiography, p. 165)

''The optimist sees the doughnut, the pessimist, only the hole.''

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An economist was asked to talk to a group of business people about the recession. She tacked up a big sheet of white paper. Then she made a black spot on the paper with her pencil and asked a man in the front row what he saw. The man replied promptly, ''A black spot.'' 

The speaker asked every person the same question, and each replied, ''A black spot.''

With calm and deliberate emphasis, the speaker said, ''Yes, there is a little black spot, but none of you mentioned the big sheet of white paper. And that's my speech.'' (Speaker's Library of Business Stories, Anecdotes and Humor, by Joe Griffith)

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''A smile is contagious; be a carrier.''

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There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is. I believe in the latter. (Albert Einstein)

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If you love life, life will love you back.

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''The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; the pessimist fears that this is true.''

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A pessimist is someone who can look at the land of milk and honey and see only calories and cholesterol.

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My job is secure. No one else wants it. (Bumper Sticker)

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Every year of my life I grow more convinced that it is wisest and best to fix our attention on the beautiful and the good and dwell as little as possible on the evil and the false. (Richard Cecil)

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This pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails. (William Arthur Ward)

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So much of our enjoyment of life is based, not on our circumstances, but on our perception of it. Two people can live under the same roof encountering mostly the same circumstances, while one perceives life as terrible and another as wonderful. Often our outlook comes from what people have told us about our circumstances. As Warren Buffet, America's greatest investor has said, ''Maybe grapes from a little eight-acre vineyard in France are really the best in the whole world, but I have always had a suspicion that about 99 percent of it is in the telling and about 1 percent is in the drinking.'' (Written by Steve Miller. Source: Warren Buffet, quoted by Roger Lowenstein in ''Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist.'') So be careful what you believe of what others say.

Reject Pessimism

We are born naked, wet and hungry. Then things get worse. (Bumper Sticker)

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Whether you believe you can, or whether you believe you can't, you're absolutely right. (Paul Rousseau)

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''It always looks darkest just before it gets totally black.'' Charlie Brown

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The 50-50-90 rule: Anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there's a 90% probability you'll get it wrong.

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“Pain is inevitable, but misery is optional.”

Don't Dwell on Past Hurts

''You have the capacity to choose what you think about. If you choose to think about past hurts, you will continue to feel bad. While it's true you can't change the effect past influences had on you once, you can change the effect they have on you now.'' (Gary McKay, Ph.D.)

Be More Like a Dog!

A dog thinks: "Hey, these people I live with feed me, love me,provide me with a nice warm, dry house, pet me, and take good care of me... They must be Gods!"

A cat thinks: "Hey, these people I live with feed me, love me, provide me with a nice warm, dry house, pet me, and take goodcare of me... I must be a God!"

Alter Your Attitudes

A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes. (Hugh Downs)

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