In the positive psychology movement, one word emerges as a foundational goal ... the holy grail. It's a word we don't often use in regular conversation, but it's descriptive and helpful. They talk about human flourishing. In other words,
"What makes for a great life? What makes people happier, healthier, and causes them to live longer and better?"
Having a life characterized by those factors -- happiness, physical health and longevity, a lower-than-usual experience of stress and anxiety -- that's what human flourishing is.
This is obviously what everybody wants. It's what most marketing messages appeal to. It's what religion appeals to. Jesus talked about this in one of my favorite Bible verses, John 10:10. In that passage He said that He has come to give people "life, and life to the full." Some older translations use the term "abundant life." Human flourishing.
"Abundant Life" and the Church
In the church, we are forever reminding people that the "abundant life" is found when we invite
Christ into our lives and become His followers. The Christian faith is the pathway to having "life to the full." I really believe that ... but I also have come to believe that we need to be more careful and precise about how we talk about this.
I know a lot of Christians who are miserable. They are anxious and depressed.
They are super unhealthy. They are addicted to various substances. They die young. The Christian faith teaches that if they have invited Christ into their lives, that they have eternal life. They will go to heaven when they die. But it sure seems that their experience in this life wasn't very good.
So there's something more that we need to talk
about than just adopting certain beliefs (about Jesus and the Bible) and maybe going to church periodically, so that we can find "salvation." Those things might help us find eternal life, but I'm not sure they always give us "abundant life" in the here and now.
Do you know what does? The Bible tells us, but too many
Christians are so focused on their own reductionist view of "salvation" that they don't talk about this. Or if they do talk about it, they don't do so near enough. Wisdom reveals what brings abundant life to us. It's clear and obvious, when you stand back and think about it. Social scientists, who devote themselves to observing and studying human behavior, have come to a pretty clear consensus on what this is.
Getting to the Answer
What leads to human flourishing? What helps us live an 'abundant life (assuming that we are followers of Christ and our spiritual life is intact)?
The answer is simple, clear, profound, and for many of us -- it SHOULD cause us to radically change the way we live.
What leads to human flourishing is
good, healthy, supportive relationships
with key people in our lives.
All the way
back in the Bible we hear God saying that it was "not good for the man to be alone." All through the Bible story we see God calling people not only into meaningful and restored relation with Himself, but also into meaningful relationships with one another.
Here's another way of putting it -- and please let this truth sink in, permeate your
thinking, and change how you live:
The quality of your life is determined by the quality of your relationships.
That's it. That's the way it is. Do you doubt this?
The single largest and longest running study of human flourishing ever put together -- The Harvard Study of Adult Development -- proves it. It is the
inescapable conclusion of research conducted over several generations (going back to the 1930s). It's interesting and important to note that this conclusion was NOT what
the researchers expected or were looking for.
I
first heard of this study years ago -- in the 1980s. At the time, it was being used to demonstrate how important having written goals is to your success in life. They tracked the students at Harvard in the 1930s, and noted which ones had written goals for their lives, and which ones didn't. Then as their lives unfolded, researchers found that the ones who'd had goals were much more "successful" (by varying measures, but especially career-wise) than the others.
Interesting, right? But the research kept going. They followed the former students, until many of them died. They also started tracking their kids. (They are not tracking some grandchildren of the original subjects.) Along the way, they also started studying other people -- not just Harvard students -- and comparing how their lives unfolded.
As time went on, more information became clear. They could see who lived the longest, who had more "success" in life (by various measures), and who reported having the highest experience of joy and happiness in life.
By the turn of the century (2000), many of the first generation of people being studied had died, and as researchers could study people across the whole life-span, a clear theme emerged: relationships matter more than other things that were being measured.
George Vaillant -- who led the study for
3 decades -- wrote a book about it some years ago, and concluded that the warmth of relationships throughout life has the greatest positive impact on life satisfaction. Put differently, he says the study shows: "Happiness is love. Full stop."
This theme solidified and continues to reinforced as the study continues. One of
the current heads of this research project is Harvard professor of Psychology Robert Waldinger, who puts it this way:
"What makes us happy, and what leads to a long life? Contrary to what you might think, it’s not career achievement, money, exercise, or a healthy diet. The most consistent finding we’ve learned
through 85 years of study is: Positive relationships keep us happier, healthier, and help us live longer. Period."
What Does This Mean For You?
Please do not just read this article, and then go back to business as usual. This is your life we are talking about! How are your relationships going? With friends, with your spouse, with other family members? What can you do to make them better?
This is one of the reasons why my wife
Charlene and I are embarking on a new project -- working with couples to restore and strengthen their marriages. Working on this relationship is really important.
Think about it this way: The most important factor for your own well-being is your relationships. And if you are married, far and away the most important relationship
in your life is the one you have with your spouse.
If that relationship is troubled, or mediocre, then making changes to fix it would make a huge difference in your life. And if that relationship is good, how much better would life be if you made it great?
I hope that, for you, 2024 will be a year of building and strengthening these relationships. It might be one of the most important things you do.
