On Delivering Happiness and Grit
My skin is burnt from the sun. My lips chapped, and my mouth dry from partial dehydration. The bruises on my thighs don’t tell the real story of the pain I am feeling in my legs and feet. I haven’t slept in over forty hours and dizziness is now setting in making my gait unstable and I stumble at times. The strength that I relied on the last few days is now gone and I struggle to lift the most minor objects, even the fork that is now in my right hand. The device on my wrist reminds me of the almost 90,000 steps I have taken in the last 48 hours or so.
What happened? You ask. Did you go through some kind of survival exercise?
Nope…nothing like that.
It was the church yard sale!
My daughter Hayley gave me the book Grit, the Power of Passion and Perseverance, by Angela Duckworth for Father’s Day. Though I haven’t finished it yet, Ms. Duckworth defines Grit as the combination of passion and perseverance.
My church’s annual yard sale is an example of grit.
Matthew 25:40: “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
Every year on this last weekend of June, a group of very passionate people, persevere through what was a grueling month of work, escalating in the days and hours leading up to and throughout the event itself; to raise money to support missions that help “the least of these brothers and sisters.”
Tony Hsieh, in his book Delivering Happiness, says that happiness is about four things:
Perceived Control
Perceived Progress
Connectedness (number of relationships and the depth of those relationships)
And, most important, being part of something bigger than yourself
I can tell you that the folks who I worked with this last month and especially these last few days have both Grit and Happiness.
I finally arrived home Saturday about 7 pm after being up since Friday morning at 6 am and sat down on my deck to eat the nice dinner that Savannah had made. My neighbor came over to ask if we also had noticed the odor, the smell of a dead animal, evident from time to time in our yards. Since I hadn’t been home in 36 hours I hadn’t really noticed it but Kim had as well.
Our yards back up to wooded area, and we have many animals that we see in out of the trees and brush fairly routinely.
A few minutes later my neighbor came back, this time visibly a little shaken and asked me to come with him, he thought he found something suspicious in the woods behind his house.
Kenneth R. Hirsch, left a home on around 4:45 p.m. Tuesday in the 1400 block of Kingstream Drive around 4:45 p.m. His dog was with him. He was reported missing to authorities on Wednesday.
Police said Hirsch “may be experiencing emotional distress and be in possession of a firearm,” police said. They warned “he should not be approached.”
This was reported in the Washington Post on Friday.
On Saturday evening my neighbor and I found Mr. Hirsch and his dog.
Sadly, according to the police officer I spoke with, it was presumed that Mr. Hirsch took his own life and the life of his dog.
In August of 2014 after the suicide death of Robin Williams, I was reminded in my Happier, Healthier Me blog that not everyone was happy, not everyone was healthy.
Like Robin Williams, I am guessing that Mr. Hirsch didn’t have those four components of Happiness that Tony Hseih defines for us.
Unlike the physical pain I experienced this week in my quest to pursue happiness, Mr. Hirsch’s pain was different. And at least for a moment he couldn’t control it.
And that’s all it took.
There are many around us who don’t have perceived control; who don’t feel like they are making progress; many that don’t have lots of strong relationships or friends; and aren’t part of something bigger than themselves.
They don’t have a passion for life anymore and the strength to persevere.
We need to help these brothers and sisters too.
