The following review has already been posted over at my other Blog, Guided Conscience, but given the nature of this blog both a repositories for book review as well as personal writing I am reproducing the original work here in full.
In late October, early November I was selected as part of a group of listeners to be part of the pre-release team for Hugh Hewitt’s new book, The Happiest Life. Shortly before Thanksgiving I received a PDF copy and I promptly began to devour the book.
For those who read this blog you know that I am concerned with ethics, morality and in some cases high minded discussion of theology. Happiness fits in well with these subjects. In fact one of my all time favorite and life changing books is “Happiness is a Serious Problem” by Dennis Prager. I have given Dennis’s book to at least half a dozen people, and I have loaned my own copy out to at least another half dozen since I first read it in 2004. Needless to say I think Happiness is Serious business and the subject is one to be explored with as voracious an appetite.
Before I continue let me touch on one little thing. The book walks in between religious talk and secular philosophy a fair amount. For those unaware Hugh Hewitt is a Protestant/Catholic (he explains it within the pages having been raised in a household of dual faiths), and for a time he had a program on PBS called “Searching For God In America” some of these conversations can be found over at Amazon. Points from these discussions grew and became building blocks for Hugh’s thesis on Happiness.
I say this not to push people away, but to let them know this is a book that will get you thinking about the questions religion asks. It isn’t preachy, it isn’t bible beating down your throat or upside the head it is just honest life experiences and evaluation of what adds up to Happiness, from the point of view of an educated Christian man.
The first half of the book discusses those gifts: Encouragement, Energy, Enthusiasm, Empathy, Good Humor, Graciousness, and Gratitude. I came to refer to them simply as E4G3. By likening it to “Star Wars” character R2D2 it became easier for me to remember these gifts and to better think of their meaning within my own life. I consider myself a fairly happy person, though this has not always been the case. It took reading Dennis Prager’s book to get me down the right track of owning my feelings so many years ago. Where I see myself the weakest on these gifts is the area of Empathy.
The words expressed in Mr. Hewitt’s chapter so eloquently put empathy in it’s rightful place. “Show Up, and shut up.” The truth is for the most part people don’t want to hear how you have had it worse, or how you can’t understand their pain but feel for them. When people are in their worst straights sometimes they just need you there, somebody to cry on, somebody to lift them up, and if they want to know your story they will ask. I’m horrible when it comes to empathy. I can sympathize all day long but it is clear to me this something I need to work on. When it comes to the remaining six gifts I would like to think I am better at them, though there are clearly areas where I stop short. To this degree I created a little tool which I will elaborate on later.
The second half of the book is devoted to seven givers: The Spouse, the Parent, Family Members, Friends, The Coworker, Teachers, and Churches. With a bonus chapter dedicated to the greatest giver, Christ. I said earlier that Hugh wasn’t too churchy in the book and despite what the last two chapters may have you thinking he really isn’t.
Hugh is not going about telling you to believe, nor is he coming forward with the consequences of disbelief. What he does lay out are the benefits of knowing Church goers, and how the addition of a Church in your life can lift you up. With the exception of a few holidays and family occasions I have not attended Church since 2010, I wasn’t married in a Church (2011) but I can relate to the advice given in the chapter.
“Everyone-every single person reading this and every person in the world-needs to belong to a church no matter whether they believe or not. They need to do so because the questions asked and debated in churches are the most important questions; they have been asked since the beginning of time for the simple reason that we are made to wonder about this world and our places in it. Those questions and that wondering are not served – reliably and seriously – anywhere except in a church. And thus that deep, deep hunger is fed only through life within a body devoted to answering these enormous questions of why the world is the way it is and how we ought to live in it,” 168 Happiest Life.
From the context I would argue that Hugh isn’t saying you need to go to a Catholic church. For that matter it probably wouldn’t even have to be a Christian Church. Throughout the chapter he discussed his work on “Searching for God In America”, this discussion took him into very serious discussions with Jews, Christians, Mormons, and even the Dali Lama What Hugh is arguing for is that the relationship in the Church community is such that it fosters discussions. Not everybody who attends a Church has the same philosophy on everything. Hugh discusses that and I can tell from my own life experiences that this is true. The one and only Church that I have been a member of was Community United Methodist Church. From my time there I can say with quite a bit of certainty that I was one of the few Conservatives in the pews. I went because it was a good community and more importantly because I was intellectually and yes spiritually challenged there.
I later would regularly attend other Churches and would frequent a Wesleyan church but as I chose to smoke cigars and drink the occasional glass of wine I could not readily become a member. This didn’t mean I wasn’t welcome, it just meant I could not be on a committee. I could attend bible studies, small groups, Sunday or Saturday service and I was of course invited into the homes of other parishioners. The community was what Hugh suggests is important and from my own experiences I would have to concur.
Hugh himself being a reporter and not a theologian stays away from the heavy stuff, and merely touches on the important tidbits with guideposts for those willing to take the plunge into the works of those serious heavyweights in Christian Theology. His message on the greatest giver boils down to this one paragraph.
“Everything I have learned in all these years and years of broadcasting is that kindness is just, cruelty is unjust, and that fairness is quite easily recognized, understood and acted upon. I have that undesrtaning due to my attending church for more than fifty years and listening to constant repetitions of the same readings and the same messages. That is what is wonderful about faithful church attendance. Something gets through. Something sticks,” 155 Happiest Life.
I urge you to read the Happiest Life. The points are timeless. So much so, that I took the liberty of modeling some of Benjamin Franklin’s own inventions and applying it to the book. For those who do not know, Mr. Franklin was a very dedicated and disciplined man. For whatever his faults, and I hear he had more than a few, he did work very hard at being a more disciplined and productive person. Every night he would ask himself two questions: What good did I do today? What good will I do tomorrow? He would then reflect upon what he considered to be the 13 greatest values:Temperance, Silence, Order, Resolution, Frugality, Industry, Sincerity, Justice, Moderation, Cleanliness, Tranquility, Chastity, and Humility. These values were neatly organized on a chart which can be found over at PocketMod. For the sake of those dedicated to the values of Happiness: Encouragement, Energy, Enthusiasm Empathy, Good Humor, Graciousness, and Gratitude, I have provided my own PocketMod design that is hosted here.
The Happiest Life is available for pre-order right now. It is the perfect New Years resolution and arrives just in time to set you down the New Year with a path of success. The original release date was December 31st, and both iBooks and Barnes and Noble are still advertising this date, Amazon is currently forecasting the release for January 7th.
If you know anybody who needs a bit of Happiness in their life, I encourage you to order the book. The lessons within will help not only the individual but once applied will bring Happiness to others as well.
