Issue 1 - Life Regrets, Mill & Serenity Prayer
Personal Development Through Philosophy and Psychology
Newsletter Issue 1
By Tim LeBon
Welcome to issue 1 of
a newsletter designed both to entertain and inform. Today we discuss a
new survey on pensioner's regrets, J.S. Mill, whose bicentenary fell
this year and the Serenity Prayer, the wisdom of which originates in
Stoic philosophy. I hope you find these articles interesting and useful
in your own journey of personal development.
Personal Development in the News
- Looks
like Betjeman wasn't alone ...
Featured Personal Development Thinker
- J.S.
Mill
Featured Personal Development Quotation - The
Serenity Prayer
Personal Development in
the News
Looks
like Betjeman wasn't alone ...
John Betjeman, late in life, said his one regret was that he
had not had enough sex.
A UK poll published in October 2006 suggests that he was not alone. 70%
of pensioners included "more sex" as one their top ten wishes if they
could have their time over again. In comparison, many 20-30 year olds
actually wanted to sleep with less partners (23%) and seemed a lot more
bothered about material concerns -
their main regret was that they hadnt bought property earlier (77%)
Unfortunately, the results don't reveal gender differences, which I am
sure would have made fascinating reading. Are women pensioners
regretting not having more sex to the same extent as men, or is the
story like it is in Woody Allen's Annie Hall?
When their respective
therapists ask Annie (Dianne Keaton) and Alvy (Woody Allen) how often
they sleep together, they give strangely similar yet different answers.
"Hardly ever" laments Alvy, "Maybe three times a week."
"Constantly" compains Annie. "I'd say three times a week."
So what are we to make of the findings? James Newton, of UKTV Gold, who
commisioned the survey, commented :-
"Who would have thought
that pensioners would be so fixated on having missed their opportunity
to have more sex and travel the world, while twenty-somethings are more
concerned about property?"
Well, maybe that old
sage, Abraham
Maslow, who long ago in his hierarchy of human needs
postulated that we are most motivated by what we are lacking. From
Maslow's perspective, it's hardly surprising that 20-somethings,
probably in debt, value money and that pensioners, many whose sexual
needs are not met as they once were, value sex. If that's true, then
the poll results shouldn't be interpreted as providing universal
answers to the question "what matters most". It's even possible to turn
Maslow's ideas round and ask "is what is motivating me most now just a
symptom of my not having it?. Would I be really happy if I did have
it?".
Or am I being too sceptical about the poll results? Maybe we should
leave the last word on that to Woody Allen.
Sex without love an empty
experience, but as empty experiences go, it's one of the best.
Gold poll in full:
Pensioners "If I could turn back Top 10 | % | 20-30 year olds "If I could turn back Top | % |
1.Have more sex | 70 | 1. Buy property | 77 |
2. Travel more | 57 | 2. Not waste money | 56 |
3. Change jobs | 45 | 3. Vote differently | 45 |
4. Save more | 50 | 4. Be famous | 44 |
7. Spend | 19 | 7. Study harder | 30 |
8. Set up business, | 16 | 8. Booze less | 28 |
9. Study harder | 12 | 9. Take vocational | 25 |
10. Be famous | 7 | 10. Sleep around | 23 |
1500 over-65s and 20-30
year olds were interviewed for the poll, conducted by UKTV Gold
External Links
Pensioners
regret not having more sex -survey
More
sex please, we're old and British
Pensioners'
wish: to have had more sex
| "Tis better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied" | John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) |  |
John Stuart Mill
was arguably the most important British philosopher of the 19th
century. With an estimated IQ of 192, he was way ahead of his time in
his advocacy of women's rights and his principle that we should be free
to do what we like as long as it harms no-one else is still often
quoted in many a modern debate.
For personal development through philosophy, Mill can help in three
ways.
1) Consider the Consequences
Consequentialism
is the idea that you base your decision-making on the consequences of
your actions. Should you say the kind thing or the unkind thing? Should
you give to charity or not? Should you continue to smoke or give up? If
John Stuart Mill were here to advice you , he would say "consider the
consequences". This is a very simple, forward-looking and helpful piece
of advice- try it and see!
2) Value happiness - both your own happiness and other
people's happiness
Everyone
wants happiness, and, Mill tells us, they are right to do so. Mill
considered happiness to be the good, but his philosophy was more subtle
than the old Epicurean ideal of just valuing pleasure. First, Mill and
his fellow utilitarians thought that it is everyone's happiness that
should be improved - not just your own. Try to make other people and
yourself as happy as possible. Secondly, Mill did not think all
pleasures equal - hence his famous "better Socrates dissatisfied than a
fool satisfied" adage, This brings us to his third idea.
3) Ask "What would a well-informed person say and do in this situation?"
Mill disagreed
with his godfather, Jeremy Bentham, that "pushpin was as good as
poetry". He thought that any competent judge - someone who had
experienced both - would prefer certain "higher" pleasures to "lower"
ones. You don't have to agree with Mill about poetry to find value in
his general idea - that we can benefit by asking "what would a
well-informed person say about this situation?". Wondering
whether to become a teacher or a lawyer? Mill's idea suggests you
should speak to someone who has experienced both - or better still, try
out both yourself, before deciding.
External
Links
Full text of Utilitarianism and Autobiography
at www.utilitarianism.com
Prospect
article
for Mill bicentenary by Richard Reeves
Wiki article on J.S. Mill
Article in The
Times
to celebrate Mill bicentenary
Radio 4 "In
our Times"
on John Stuart Mill
Featured Personal
Development Quotation
The Serenity Prayer
- God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
- courage to change the things I can,
- and the wisdom to know the difference.
You may
have already encountered this saying, the Serenity Prayer, perhaps on a
tablemat in a souvenir shop or as the prayer associated with AA
(Alcoholics
Anonymous). You may have written it off
either as a clichéd truism or as applicable only to
alcoholics. If so, can I
ask you to now reread the Serenity Prayer, now, slowly, as if you were
reading
it the first time? You may end up believing, like me, that far from
offering
trite advice it contains the seeds of great practical wisdom. Why do I
say
this? Let’s look at each of the three parts of the Prayer in
turn.
First,
have the serenity to accept what you can’t change. Think about some things
that you really, really can’t
change. Perhaps
the fact you weren’t
born a millionaire, or that the world is not always a fair place. What
is the
best attitude you can take to these realities? To get angry? No,
you’ll only
make a bad situation worse. To try to put things right? By definition,
no,
because these are thing that you can’t change, so it will
just be wasted
energy. Accepting the situation and not letting it disturb your peace
of mind
is the only appropriate response.
What
about things that you can (and
should)
change? Although by definition these are things we can change, this
doesn’t
mean it’s easy, popular or risk-free to do so. It’s
not easy to change oneself
into being a more patient person (but it can be done). It is not always
popular
to campaign for something you believe in (but things can change as a
result). We can
change these things,
but we need courage to do so.
Finally,
and above all, we need the wisdom to tell the difference between the
things we
can change and the things we can’t change. We can’t
change the fact that we
were not born a millionaire, but we can put effort into becoming richer,
or
change our attitude to not being so wealthy. We can’t make
the world a
completely fair place, but we can make the world a fairer place.
Usually there
will be some aspects of a situation we can change, and some aspects we
can’t.
We need to distinguish which is which and then change courageously or
accept
serenely as appropriate.
What I like most about the Serenity Prayer is how easy it is to recall and
apply in
difficult situations. Such a situation happened to me a while ago, a
few days
before I was due to go abroad to a conference I really wanted to go to.
Having
finished lunch in a restaurant, I checked in my trouser pocket for my
wallet
–only to discover that it wasn’t there. I looked
next in my jacket pocket – no
wallet. Neither was it in my briefcase or anywhere else. I
tried to think back to when I last saw it,
and recalled having it on entering a train station a few hours before.
I also
remembered someone bumping into me rather carelessly (or so I thought
at the
time) soon after. I guessed the rest. What to do? It must have been
several
hours ago that he stole my wallet. Thoughts began to race through my
mind. What
else did I have in my wallet? Had he already bankrupted me by using my
credit
cards? If only I’d taken a different journey…. If
only I’d checked my pocket
after he’d bumped into me… Maybe I’d
have to cancel my conference trip …
Luckily,
before these thoughts got completely out of control, I remembered the
Serenity
Prayer. I had to
accept with serenity
what I could not change. Well, I could not change the fact that my
wallet had
been stolen. There was no point beating myself up or fretting about
these
unchangeables – that would cause me to be even more upset and
also stop me thinking
about what I could change. So, what
could I change? Well, obviously I could limit my liability –
first thing was to
phone the bank. Then
I could arrange
for the credit card company to see if they could send me new cards
before my travel
– there was just sufficient time for them to do so. In future, I
resolved, I would be more alert to people bumping
into me. Using the
Serenity Prayer
helped me deal constructively with this mini-crisis, and it has helped
me many
times since. Forget
the table mat image
and AA associations and focus on the underlying message and it can be
of great
assistance to you too.
more, see Tim's Personal Development
through Philosophy and Psychology website
To book your own personal coaching session with Tim in Central London, e-mail him now
posted by Tim LeBon @ 2:07 PM
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