Spirituality and Wellness
Lloyd Den Boer
Give Thanks in All Things
Ads tug at our desires . I know my vulnerable spots ; perhaps you know yours ? Maybe fashionable clothes , a gleaming car , a well-furnished condo , or something else ? Our desires may differ , but what we have in common are moments when we imagined , “ Ah , if I only had that . That would be perfect happiness .” Anticipating happiness — that ’ s how ads draw us in . Often , though , once we have what we desire , the pleasure that the ad promised fades . We might say , as the ancient writer of Ecclesiastes discovered , that many pleasures have little substance . Finding happiness by pursuing them is like chasing after wind .
Not that acquiring things means nothing to us . After all , Enlightenment Age philosophers like John Locke saw property as one of our fundamental rights . Our neighbours to the south agreed when they listed the pursuit of happiness , along with life and liberty , as one of the unalienable rights of their citizens . With “ pursuit of happiness ,” Thomas Jefferson , the author of the American Declaration of Independence , pointed toward a purpose for property . Ownership develops a certain kind of person , he believed , a person who is industrious , stewardly , and independent . Many Albertans understand this . For years , we posed “ an entrepreneurial spirit ” as one of three foundational goals for school graduates in our province . Happiness depends on character , according to this view , and people who have qualities that lead to selfsufficiency are the ones most likely to be content with their lives .
People have long thought that happiness is more dependent on our characters than our circumstances . For example , The Emperor ’ s Club , a 2002 film directed by Michael Hoffman , presents Mr . Hundert , a teacher , forming the characters of prep-school boys around high ideals that could help them make lasting contributions to their world . Early in the film , Mr . Hundert admonishes a new student who strayed onto the grass to stick to the sidewalks . Walk where the great men of the past have walked , he advises . The incident signals how the boys will be guided as they tangle with great intellectual works of the past , becoming people with nobler characters in the process . The film is a popularized presentation of a long educational tradition that some of us are old enough to have experienced . The broad aim of the tradition is human excellence . It aims for human excellence by guiding students to be thoughtful , to resist unworthy
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