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

Sir John Betjeman

Looks like Betjeman wasn't alone ...




Sir 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. The results of the UKTV Gold poll in full:

Pensioners 

"If I could turn back time I'd like to"

Top 10

%

20-30 year olds

"If I could turn back time I'd like to"

Top 10 

%

1.Have more sex

70

1. Buy property earlier

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 "frivolously"

19

7. Study harder

30

8. Set up business,

16

8. Booze less

28

9. Study harder

12

9. Take vocational courses

25

10. Be famous

7

10. Sleep around less

23

1500 over-65s and 20-30 year olds were interviewed for the poll, conducted by UKTV Gold
 

Read On ...

Pensioners regret not having more sex -survey

More sex please, we're old and British

Pensioners' wish: to have had more sex

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 Featured Personal Development Thinker



1. J.S. Mill
"Tis  better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied" John Stuart Mill
(1806-1873)		 John Stuart Mill


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.

Read on ,,,

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 Mil		Comment on this article

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.
Serenity Prayer
 
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.

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Tim LeBon's Personal Development Through Philosophy and Psychology Newsletter     © Tim LeBon 2006
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