What’s Better Than Happiness?

Find Awe

Credit Arnie Bragg at Pixabay

“I just want you to be happy.”

When have you said that to someone you love, unconditionally, no matter what? When has someone said that to you and—just for an instant, you thought life was complete? Remember the many times that was the popcorn-selling moment of every movie when someone says, “I just want us to be happy.”

What about this from the Declaration of Independence—Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? These are three unalienable rights given to all humans by their Creator and governments are created to protect.

For a long time, we’ve been chasing happiness and thinking it is at each end of the rainbow that touches the ground where you find answers about life and work.

What If Awe Passes Happiness and Wins?

I’m still on a high from the 2024 Olympics, watching the one athlete I wanted to win, burst through the field of favorites, take the lead, and come in first. I’m feeling the same high as I experience the hot new concept in brain science and human experience blow past the long-time favorite, called happiness, to show us the gold—the biggest prize is in awe.

How did this happen? Let’s unpack it and run this by you again, in slow motion, so you can grab this gold prize for yourself.

Three books in the past 12 months set me up to see this trifecta we call awe. It’s not just any three books. It’s the three that came into my field of vision as I chewed on this question after several months of experiencing a series of profound changes involving life, death, and relationships:

The question: Every day that we live, what moves us to deepen our relations with the wonders of life and marvel at the vast mysteries that are part of our fleeting time here?

And this question: What complex emotion arises when we encounter something beyond our current understanding, prompting a shift in perspective? What is it that can happen in an instant and change everything forever, such as a birth, a death, a song, a sporting event win, or the mystical encounter of the sunrise while sitting on the sand of the beach, looking at the water dance with the rapidly changing colors of the sun’s movement?

And this question: What do our tears, chills, and “whoas” tell us about our encounters with the eight wonders of life: 1) moral beauty (courage, exceptional physical beauty), 2) collective effervescence (gatherings and celebrations), 3) nature, 4) music, 5) visual design (buildings, paintings, photos), 6) spiritual and religious stories, 7) life and death stories (cycle of life narratives), and 8) epiphanies (sudden disclosures that transform life in an instant)?

Credit Alban Gogh on Pixabay

The Trifecta of Books That Blew My Mind

Any one of the three books has great merit, status as a #1 bestseller, and insights into the big question and follow-on questions. Together, they form a trifecta for awe.

A trifecta is a perfect group or combination of three elements or events that is powerfully more impressive than any one element or two without the third. In horse racing, if you place a bet and name the horses you think will win, place, and show and they come across the finish line in that order, you win a tremendous pile of money.

In nature, the trifecta is a sunrise where the sky, sea, and land come together and the colors change with every instant of time moving what you see. Trifecta in business happens when someone introduces a groundbreaking product, enters the market at the perfect time, and executes the customer experience strategy flawlessly.

Another trifecta in sports is when your favorite team wins the championship, your favorite player scores the game-winning points, and you are there to witness it live.

You can read these books in any order and the trifecta experience happens when you complete all three. Skimming doesn’t work because it’s worth the time to read every page.

Here’s the path I took to discover what is better than happiness.

What about the churning life changes you are experiencing now?

First came Russell C. Smith and The New Now: Manifestos, Reinventions & Declarations: Notes on Living through History in the Making. The book explores themes of reinvention, resilience, and adaptation, offering a series of essays and reflections on how individuals and societies can thrive amid uncertainty. He wrote the book to inspire proactive thinking and to encourage readers to see themselves as active participants in shaping the future during these transformative times.

Russell is a genuine guy who writes well, writes prolifically, and answers emails. Subscribe to his Substack The New Now for doses throughout the week of his variety of prose poems, manifestos, essays, novels, poetry, and flash fiction.

The takeaway from The New Now gets right to the churning life changes you are experiencing now. What about the next big transition in your life, health, work, or relationships that’s around the corner and 100% with your name on it, unavoidable? What about that last big transformation in your life? What did you do and what wisdom did you seek for a heaping plate of truth, freedom, and feeling that you are connected, alive, and glad in your heart?

What about turning a corner? Russell said, “A shift happened. If you’re lucky, a new mode of envisioning the world takes you to an up-leveled someplace else. When synchronicities align, it feels like you’ve been heading toward this always in flux and flow destination all along.”

What about our fascination with happiness?

Next came Arthur C. Brooks and Oprah Winfrey and Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier. “One of the many things I got from doing The Oprah Winfrey Show for twenty-five years was a front-row seat to unhappiness,” Oprah said.

Arthur said he wrote this for people who are not as happy as they want to be—whether because they are suffering from something in particular, or they have a good life “on paper” but always find themselves struggling

The book emphasizes the importance of emotional well-being, connection, and purpose in creating a fulfilling life. It includes practical strategies for managing emotions, nurturing relationships, and finding meaning, aiming to empower readers to take control of their happiness.

Overall, this book addresses the larger topic of happiness, including the many professions studying it, writing about it, and exploring it in counseling and mental health situations.

Credit Pete Linforth at Pixabay

Then who plowed the happiness fields and found awe?

The trifecta appeared with the life’s work and book by Dacher Keltner Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life.

Dacher taught happiness to hundreds of thousands of people around the world for more than 20 years. The emergence of awe as the winner came from asking this one question in a variety of ways to everyone coming in and out of his life: “How can we live the good life?”

It took decades of exploration and the answer to the big question is “Find awe.”

Keltner reveals how awe, often triggered by nature, art, or human connection, can enhance our happiness, health, and sense of purpose. His writing is grounded in scientific research and personal stories, demonstrating how cultivating awe can lead to a more meaningful life.

I’m glad to see awe grabbing our professional communicators by the lapels and getting them to write about their deeper dives into the topic. Several have already caught our attention. Katherine May wrote The Clearing Substack and came up with 10 ways to rediscover awe when she interviewed Dacher. Katherine states, “I’ve been calling awe an emotion, but that doesn’t quite nail it. Awe is notoriously hard to define. It’s better described as a life-shifting experience or an intensely present state of being.”

Adam Grant, professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and popular science author, writes “We need more awe in our lives and Dacher Keltner has written the definitive book on where to find it.”

Steven Pinker, Johnston Professor of Psychology at Harvard University writes, “Awe is awesome in both senses: a superb analysis of an emotion that is strongly felt but poorly understood, with a showcase of examples that remind us of what is worthy of our awe.”

What Matters Most to You? Happiness, Awe, or Something Else?

This Substack, this community of Gifted Professionals and Communicators, this safe space to be real and come out of the shadows with your wisdom and questions is where I feel awe every day. And you? What can you add to this conversation?

I know a thing or two about massive changes and I could tell stories of my own experiences with life, losses, triumphs, and transcendent experiences. I prefer to observe and write about those massive changes in people who seem to be a lot like me— over 50, professional, accomplished in business and communication on every level of expression or artistry, and not yet done with creating, loving, connecting, and completing their final act—a legacy project.

Russell Smith does a good job of putting a bow on this package of wonder and wisdom with his words:

“Questions arise, and mornings often begin with focused energy. Is this same feeling emblematic of what’s occurring with everyone across the planet? Have I been getting in my own way all throughout my life? What other elements of my interior landscape are waiting to be unearthed? Aware of but not always being fully in the flow, and then, feeling it happening in an instant. Knowing how to enter the timeless time-is-stopped space at will. I keep having examples delivered to me on a daily basis. One moment, one day, one week can change your life.”

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