As a takeoff of Harold Kushner’s fantastic book, “WHEN Bad Things Happen To Good People,” Stephen Post offers WHY Good things Happen to Good People. (see Everything Happens for a Reason! Make it Good! for a discussion, I posted about Kushner’s book). In grad school, I led a discussion about Kushner’s book, “When Bad Things Happen to Good People.” Only then was it brought to my attention that the title was not WHY, but WHEN. WHEN does not explain; WHY does. A change from when to why is profound. Even so, throughout Post’s book on Why Good Things Happen, he cites supportive research his Institute for Research on Unlimited Love (IRUL) sponsored.
Dr. Post does a fantastic job documenting why and how good things happen to good people for taking beneficial actions. At the end of the book, he suggests this is ultimately selfishness because we get the most for ourselves by giving to other people. “Why Good Things Happen to Good People” is a good read that reinforces how being a good person helps others as it also helps us. I thought he especially did an excellent job helping us learn how to be better listeners and better communicators with each other.
Throughout the book, he suggests 40 ways to give love – 10 areas in 4 domains (Family, Friends, Community, & Humanity). His 10 ways to capture Love include:
- Celebration – gratitude through ritual
- Generativity – generating love
- Forgiveness – freeing the self from guilt, pain, rumination, and bitterness
- Courage – confrontation with caring, what he calls Carefrontation
- Humor – used to convert pain to joy
- Respect – civility, acceptance, reverence, and appreciation
- Compassion – empathetic, emotionally caring
- Loyalty – loving over time and difficulties
- Listening – giving attention and foundation of relationships
- Creativity – the spontaneous, joyful expression of life
All of these 10 suggestions provide great ways to share love. For each, supporting research evidence of “Why Good Things Happen to Good People” is provided. Of course, he is also saying good people should do these 10 things.
Better Listening Suggestions
He offered many communication suggestions, which I thought were especially good. A couple I have been working on using include using my mirroring ability to be able to better empathize with what others experience. This, he suggests, may also help me better understand. Another way he suggests improving communication is by repeating back emotional words heard and asking for more information to better connect. Using this, he suggests a way to empathetically probe without judgment. He suggests this method can help us all connect better. I like these suggestions and will work to use these ideas. Have you used these techniques? Please share how they work for you.
Belonging Insight
Another insight I liked was about belonging. As I have seen many times, one of our most basic human needs is to belong. Interestingly, Post says when we change, such as to a quadriplegic from an accident, or even more simply, when entering a new group, we will feel as if we don’t belong.
Throughout life, we often change into different kinds of people. A person may be newly married, become a college student, or do any other new activity. We don’t feel like we belong when entering a new area because it is different. The feeling we experience, according to Post, makes us feel like an outsider and alone. He says it is at this point we want what we had yesterday — that is, to feel like we belong. In other words, he seems to be saying we are experiencing what Kahneman and Tversky called Loss Aversion and want what we had yesterday. There are many interesting and helpful suggestions throughout the book. It was better than I had expected.
Below is Dr. Posts TED Talk, “Its Good to Be Good“.
It is All Connected
Sometimes art imitates life, and other times, life imitates life. Well, at least I often see things in shows I find meaningful. A meaningful concept I recently saw was the repeated message in the Netflix series Manifest, that it is all connected. As I have noted many times, it is all connected.
Capturing the idea of connection, at the end of his book, Post says this is all about selfishness. As I noted in the review I posted on GoodReads and Google Books, “…While all this is good, we must also ensure these actions do good for the environment, or all will suffer. I hope he pushes for not just selfishness but selfish, selfless, synergy, so these promoted interactions become net-positive, pervasive, and reciprocal so everyone and everything benefits,” as I promote with the Paneugenesis video below. Everything is interconnected, so we must generate more good by generating comprehensive improvements. True selfishness is selfless, “…if you understand how the world works” stated President Clinton in the 1-minute video below.
BeWell’r,
Craig Becker
Be selfish, selfless, & synergistic so everyone and everything benefits!
#SelfishSelflessSynergy
Please share your thoughts and questions below.
Contact me: BeWellr@gmail.com
Positive Health Leadership 