Lectors in cigar factories.lesson in employee wellbeing and community

A lesson in employee well being and community

I live in Florida - near Tampa. My son loves to go to Ybor City - which is where the cigar factories were. The history of the cigar factories is interesting. They almost located in my county - which was bigger population wise. But our founding fathers were greed SOBs (the used enslaved labor up until the 1940s - and actually the last slavery prosecution here was in 2005). Anyway - they priced the land too high and the cigar companies located where the land was cheaper - in Tampa.  Tampa grew to be a major city. Mine - is hardly worth noting.

But I'm not here to talk about the negative impact greed had on the development - or rather - lack of development - in my county.

Instead - I want to talk about he practice of lectors.  Making cigars is simple - but tedious. So - the companies allowed workers to pool their resources and hire a lector to read stories and news and other things to the workers to help relieve the boredom. The choice of material was made by the workers.

The lector - helped build community - within the community of workers. It's something they shared together and enjoyed together while they worked.

It's an interesting concept to think about. How might workers today - create community - through shared story telling.

Wellness Syndrome

Does being happy & well make you narcissistic? It turns out it can, depending on how you approach it.

Before I start this post I need to admit – I do have a book called, The Humanist Approach to Happiness and I am guilty of peddling happiness, from a humanist perspective.

What started this reflection is a BBC radio program called Thinking Allowed. One episode was about happiness and the wellness syndrome - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05w3wfc

Like anything, it turns out that if you focus too much on happiness, to the exclusion of other things, it’s not good for you. It’s kind of like water. Water is great, but too much of it can drown you or throw off your internal salt balance.

Happiness is the same. If we focus too much on our own happiness, we become narcissistic. Instead of thinking about how to improve society, we are focused on how to improve ourselves.  Which is fine, we should be improving ourselves, just not exclusively.

I make this exact case in my book, which if you haven’t read it – you really should. The Humanist approach to happiness is that we are happy when we are helping others.  Happiness occurs when we are connected to others through service to others.  The pursuit of happiness, the way a Humanist does it, isn’t narcissistic. And if it is, it isn’t humanism.

One of many definitions of Humanism is that it is a progressive philosophy of life that, without supernaturalism, affirms our ability and our responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity.  *Note – this is the same tag I have at the top of this blog*

The problem with pursuing wellness and happiness is that it can become a syndrome. An ideology that pairs happiness and wellness with morality. If you are happy, you are good. If you are well, you are good, how could it be otherwise. It becomes a form of “biomorality.”  Which is really unfortunate because not everyone is bio-inclined to be happy or healthy. It’s as stupid to pair morality with wellness and happiness as it is to pair it to wealth.  (There is a book about this problem and how to avoid it called The Wellness Syndrome – see here - http://www.wellness-syndrome.com/)

So, while I do encourage people to live ethically full lives, that are hopefully happy. I never tell people they need to be happy all the time or they are failures. No one is happy all the time and that should not be your goal in life. Your goal should be to lead a full ethical life that aspires to the greater good of humanity.

Everyone, regardless of who they are and what sorts of biological challenges they might have, can at live life to the fullest of their individual ability, whatever that ability or disability might be. That is the choice. We should not consider ourselves failures if we aren’t well or happy. The real judge of success is: did I do my best and did I try to make the world a little bit better?

Wellness as a Humanist concept

What is well-being and how can it help you to be more ethical and happy?

I come at this from a Humanist perspective (so not religious – but dedicated to thriving as a whole human).

For me –the act of making well-being, contentment or happiness a priority helps me to make decisions that are not only in my best interest, but in the best interest of others. In other words, wanting to be happy or well – helps me to make more ethical decisions and be more ethical as a person.

Which seems counter-intuitive, but it really does work.  I bring this back to Epicurus – pain is to be avoided. But a little bit of pain to get long term gain is good.  Short term gain for long term pain is bad.

By prioritizing well-being – I am better able to employ a decision making framework that helps me avoid those short term gain for long term pain situations – and so – I am able to not sabotage my happiness as a result.

Authentic Happiness

Are you truly happy? Or do you just think you are?

What is the difference between happiness and wellbeing? Does the different matter?  To a Humanist it does.

My books are about happiness, from a Humanist perspective, but actually happiness is an inadequate word. As one of my late friends once said, he isn’t aiming for happiness, he is aiming for contentment. Other Humanists, like the late Paul Kurtz, preferred the word eudemonia (which is a Greek word that roughly translates as human flourishing).

Whatever this thing is that we call happiness, it’s clearly anything but simple. It’s one of those, “you know it when you experience it” sort of things. The problem is that most people have never truly experienced it, which is why there are all sorts of self-help coaches out there teaching “how to be happy” or authentic happiness. There is also a ton of research into how to be happy that has been conducted by the positive psychology movement, which sounds a lot more cultier than it actually is.

What is interesting to me is that Marty Seligman – who is one of the founders of the positive psychology movement has decided (in the last couple of years), that his authentic happiness theory isn’t complete and that what we should be aiming for wellbeing instead.

To have wellbeing he says you need 5 things:

• Positive emotion (of which happiness and life satisfaction are all aspects)
• Engagement
• Relationships
• Meaning and purpose
• Accomplishment

According to Seligman “The goal of positive psychology in well-being theory ... is to increase the amount of flourishing in your own life and on the planet.” Sounds like Humanism to me.

To learn more read an excerpt from his book at: http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/newsletter.aspx?id=1533

And participate in his online research program into happiness by filling out some questionnaires. http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/questionnaires.aspx

View a video of Seligman speaking on his theory of wellbeing - http://www.amareway.org/holisticliving/01/martin-seligman-on-flourishing-us-zeitgeist-2010/

Or get his book: Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being