Skip to main content

Shadows

Look at a quote by John Stuart Mill:

"Those only are happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness[....] Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness along the way[....] Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so."

Mill believed in what is today called the "paradox of hedonism." This is the idea that pursuing something for the sake of happiness will never lead to happiness, while pursuing something for its own sake (or for some other end) can.

Now, we can forgive Mill for having no knowledge of our biology's influence on happiness (that exercise produces endorphins, for example). Nonetheless, his and others' ideas about this paradox are interesting for two reasons:

First, I've seen this time and again in my own life. I cannot count the number of times I've pursued something for the purpose of making me happy, and have instead found myself disappointed. On the other hand, there have been those moments when I've pursued something for some other reason, and have found happiness sitting unexpectedly near.

Second, and more important here, Mill's thoughts touch on a topic that leads to some necessary self-inspection. That is, they broach the topic of motivation, why we do what we do. When given the chance to perform a good deed, in fact, I sometimes find myself asking this question: Am I shrouding my true motives for doing the deed under the convenient thought that I do it for the sake of others, when in fact I simply want to feel good myself? I know that I don't like shedding light on these umbras of the heart, for fear of what I might find; but being the man or woman God wants us to be demands some introspection, and some help. Look at Jeremiah 17:9:

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and beyond cure. Who can understand it?"

God answers in the next verse:

"I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve."

What I think I've found is that our actions serve as the water that reflects the motives of our hearts back to us, even if that water is muddied by selfishness. Action is the consequence of motive. When James says "I will show you my faith by my deeds [what I do]," he is saying that the act reflects the heart. Knowing my confused motives, at times, this is too simplistic an answer; but I do believe it helps to gauge one's character to look at your track record. In the long run, do the things we do, the way we treat others, our explicit thought life, and other things we are conscious of show us that we are people of character; or do they display a life of selfishness? We can never fully answer, but I believe knowing Scripture helps to parse some of our false motives from some of our true:

"For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart." (Hebrews 4:12)

Beyond this Scriptural help, we can also take solace that we're not alone in our inability sometimes to see ourselves clearly: "Character is like a tree," says Lincoln, "and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing."

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Nice Guy Fallacy

I read part of a poem recently by one of my favorite poets. It reads: I envy not in any moods The captive void of noble rage The linnet born within the cage That never knew the summer woods. I envy not the beast that takes His license in the field of time Unfetter'd by the sense of crime To whom a conscience never wakes. Nor what may call itself as bles't The heart that never plighted troth But stagnates in the weeds of sloth Nor any want-begotten rest. I hold it true, whate'er befall I feel it, when I sorrow most 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all. At base, Tennyson contrasted a life of risk, and consequent pain, with one of security. He sides conclusively with the life of risk, and says he fails to envy those who have faced no hardship. I agree with him; and, for good or ill, his words are just as relevant today as they were in the nineteenth century. Like then, there are those today who choose to live their lives with as little risk as...

Persuasion

At different points in history, governments have devoted men, women, and resources to try to persuade others to their side. One significant example of this occurred in Germany under Adolf Hitler. Hitler knew how important it was to make sure the German people were on his side as leader of the country. One way he did this was by controlling what people heard. Specifically, near the beginning of World War II, Hitler made it a crime for anyone in Germany to listen to foreign radio broadcasts. These were called the “extraordinary radio measures.” He did this to ensure that Germans weren’t being persuaded by enemy countries to question their loyalty to Hitler. He knew that a German listening to a radio broadcast from Britain might persuade that German to believe that Great Britain was the good guy and Hitler the bad guy. This was so important, in fact, that two people in Germany were actually executed because they had either listened to or planned to listen to a foreign radio broadcast (one...

Experiment

My social studies students and I are studying Islam right now. The other day, we were reading about one of the Five Pillars, zakat (charity in Islam that means "that which purifies"). Muslims believe that giving away money helps to purify it and also "safeguards [them] against miserliness" (1). I asked the class if this was true, that giving money away makes us less greedy. They generally agreed that it does. I wanted to test whether or not they really believed this, so I handed a volunteer a $10 bill. I told the class that I would ask for the bill back the next day. I said that they should pass the bill around among their classmates, and that as a result, there would be no way for me to know who had the bill. For that reason, whoever wanted to keep the money could keep it. Even if I did learn who kept it, I told them, I would not punish that person. I wanted them to be motivated by their own honesty. The next day, I asked for the bill, and a student handed it to me...