INTRODUCTION
FROM THE LAW OF ATTRACTION
TO THE LAW OF HAPPINESS
A FEW YEARS ago, a book called The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne, took the world by storm with the claim that the real secret to life and happiness lies in a force called the Law of Attraction. In fact, the book’s premise, as you may recall, was that the entire universe is governed by that one principle. Byrne’s claim was that the universe responds to your thoughts and that you attract happiness to yourself by the power of what you think. If you think positive thoughts, the universe responds to your thoughts by bringing positive outcomes to you, and if you think negative thoughts, your outcomes will be negative. People by the millions responded to the idea that this one law was the secret to happiness and all they desired in life. And, as a psychologist and performance coach, I can certainly tell you that people who think positively have much better outcomes than negative thinkers. For sure.
While Byrne’s book deals with concepts that interface with spirituality, it also brings up a lot of questions about how the Law of Attraction interfaces with more traditional views of spirituality, God, and the like. The first book in this series, The Secret Things of God, examined where those principles agreed with traditional faith, where they disagreed, and also what clinical experience and research say about the same issues. It was a really meaningful project for me, personally, and many readers responded as well.
So that brought us to the question of “what next”? What other topics of personal well-being also interface with spirituality and spiritual wisdom? When my editor asked me that question and what I would like to write about, the answer was immediate. “I want to write about happiness,” I said.
“Happiness? Why happiness?” she asked.
I explained that the field of psychology in the last several years has been actively exploring what is referred to as “positive psychology.” A number of years ago, Martin Seligman (then president of the American Psychological Association) and others championed the message that while psychology had made great strides in its studies on the “negative” side of life—such as depression, trauma, anxiety—it had spent relatively little time studying the “up” side of life. Topics such as happiness, well-being, strengths, etc., had not gained the same amount of attention, especially from scientific research. Researchers began to soundly answer that call.
The result has been an enormous amount of empirical studies that have shed substantial light on questions such as: “Where does happiness come from?” “Can people increase their happiness?” “Is it under our control?” And the good news is that research has actually produced a lot of answers. We now know, not just from experience, but also from scientific data, a lot about the sources of happiness and the lifestyles and practices that actually produce overall well-being.
I would have enjoyed writing about this happiness research and how it applies to life, but that has been done already by others. I did not feel the need to add to the list of good books out there. But I was drawn to writing a book on happiness for The Secret Things of God series because of what had happened to me as I was investigating the field of positive psychology.
As the profession was churning out more and more information on the positive side of life, learning was a lot of fun, and the data clearly resonated with my own experience, both professionally and personally. I had seen firsthand the truths that the research was revealing, so I loved what I was studying. But for me, it was much more than that.
It was a spiritual journey as well. As I was reading the research findings, I felt like I was reading the Bible. It was as if someone took the data and laid the Bible right on top of it and the fit was perfect. Basically, over and over, the robust findings of the research were the same as the ancient spiritual wisdom found in the Scriptures. I saw Moses, Solomon, Jesus, and Paul as I read study after study, which were proving that happiness and fulfillment is not found in our circumstances, our bank accounts, our material possessions, or achievements. Instead, what the research revealed was that happiness comes largely from how we live our lives and into which activities we decide to invest our hearts, minds, souls, and strength.
So that is why I wanted to write this book on happiness in a series of books about how faith integrates with life. Just as the Bible has a lot to say about “positive thinking” and the Law of Attraction, it has even more to say about happiness and fulfillment. In fact, one of my favorite words that we hear over and over in the Bible is the Hebrew word shalom, which among other things implies peace, happiness, well-being, wholeness, completeness, and welfare—most of what we mean when we say we want to be “happy.” In short, we can be assured that the Creator has always been interested in our happiness and well-being.
But further, he is also interested that we know how to find shalom:by investing our lives in the ways that he designed life to be lived. And that was where I was so impacted by the research. It was literally proving through science that the path to happiness is the path that God has been telling us to walk for a long time. Happiness comes as a by-product of the “life well lived.” And that is what brought me to the title, The Law of Happiness: I wanted to show the two things that the research has shown me.
Number one, that happiness can be found and there are principles and practices that reveal that. And number two, those principles and practices, the “law of happiness,” are the ones that God has given all along in his “law,” the Scriptures. From the Torah, which means “instruction,” through the rest of the Bible, he has shown us the “law of happiness.” And now science has verified what the Bible has said all along. For me, that was a really cool thing to behold, and I hope it is for you as well—that you further experience how faith and science interact.
So join me as we take a look at what science reveals and what spiritual instruction has shown us about where happiness comes from. Shalom.
© 2011 Henry Cloud
1
THE SCIENCE OF HAPPINESS
MY CO-HOST ON our radio show, New Life Live!, lit up with enthusiasm when I pulled my minicomputer out before the show one day. “I am so excited,” he exclaimed. “I just got one of those and can’t wait to use it. People tell me that what they can do is incredible!”
“What do you mean ‘can’t wait to use it?’” I asked. “If you have it, why aren’t you using it?”
“Something is wrong with it, and I have an appointment to take it in. I brought it home, and it wouldn’t turn on,” he said, “so, I have to get it fixed.”
“That’s strange,” I said. “It is unusual for them to ship one that won’t even boot up. What did you try?”
“Well, I hit the buttons there on the bottom, and clicked it a bunch, and kept trying over and over, but it never would do anything,” he explained.
“That is so weird,” I said. “But why were you hitting those buttons? Those are the mouse clickers. Did you hit this one up on the corner?”
“What is that? I didn’t see that one,” he said as he peered over my screen.
“Watch this,” I said.
As I hit the power button, the familiar blue screen came up, the sound effects chimed in, and my friend stared in amazement. “What did you do?” he queried.
“I turned it on,” I replied. “It works better when you do that.”
So, what does my colleague’s computer have to do with happiness? Turns out, a lot.
Here is what the scientific research is finding about happiness: we are wired to experience happiness, but we keep hitting the wrong buttons in our efforts to turn our happiness on.
As I mentioned earlier, for more than a hundred years, psychology has often been interested in happiness only in its absence. The interest has focused more on our pain, hurt, depression, and anxiety: “Why do we suffer, and what can the doctor do about it?” And, as research validates, psychology has done quite a good job. We know how to treat depression, anxiety, addictions, and other issues well. The results are promising. And if you are experiencing any of those pains, there is help for you. I strongly encourage you to seek out competent psychological and psychiatric help. In our discussion about happiness, I do not want to seem to ignore the very real pains in life.
But, what about the upside of life? Is there more to life than not being depressed or unhappy? What scientific research has found is that, just like computers are designed to work when properly turned on, humans are wired in such a way that when properly “turned on,” they get happier. Their brains begin to secrete chemicals that make them feel better, their bodies get healthier, they make more money, their relationships improve, their marriages are more fulfilling, they live longer, and their overall sense of well-being and happiness gets better. And what is amazing is that we now have a lot of documentation to show exactly where the power buttons are and how to turn them on.
THE LAW OF HAPPINESS
H umans are wired in such a way that
when properly “turned on,” they get happier. PUSHING THE WRONG BUTTONS
Unfortunately, we often don’t know where the power buttons are, so we keep pushing t...
