Can You Guess the Four Pillars for a Happy Life?

Go ahead. Take a shot at it. Stumped? OK. I'll give you a hint. Money isn't one of them.

The idea that money, or financial security, is one of the pillars of happiness has been brought to us by the same people who gave us the current financial collapse: investment companies. They have had a very good reason to sell us on the idea that having lots of money for retirement is the key to security (i.e., happiness).

By focusing on creating a large stash of cash, we are led to ignore the very things that bring us happiness. Studies show that many people who have focused on their career and making abundant money for retirement die on the average of three years after retirement. They die friendless, bitter, lonely, and suffering from poor health. They sacrificed everything for job and retirement and, in the end, they lose everything.

Some studies suggest that retirement is the problem. Retirement is not the problem. Living for job and money exclusively before retirement is the problem.

So, what are the four pillars of happiness? Ralph Warner wrote Get a Life: You Don't Need a Million to Retire Well. This is one of the most valuable books I have read. It came bundled for free with my Turbo Tax DVD. I figured that I should read up on ways to fund retirement so I began reading the book. The financial planning for retirement part of the book took up the last few chapters. By far the largest part of the book dealt with the four pillars for successful retirement.

Warner spent nearly twenty five years interviewing successfully retired people, those who had achieved happiness in their later years. He found that they all had four things in common in their lives, four areas that they had paid attention to long before they retired.

All right, already. So what are they? Take a minute to think about this for yourself. What do you see as the most important aspects of your life? Ponder this and write them down before you go on. I'll wager that most of you will get this right if you just use common sense and let your mind go free.

OK. Here they are:

1. Health

Health is one of the first things we ignore when we are driven to succeed in our careers. Who has time for exercise and recreation? Anyway, my job provides good health insurance so I can always pop medicine to control my blood pressure and have the doc fix me up if something goes wrong. Onward and upward, climbing the ladder of success into the wonderland of retirement.

Wrong approach. Health requires constant attention throughout our lives. Stress is probably the number one killer. Achieving and keeping good health is one of the best ways to deal with stress. As we grow older, our health becomes even more important. If we suffer from poor health, we may end up in a nursing home the last years of our lives.

2. Family

Family is another dispensable while climbing the corporate ladder or making a career successful. Family means a lot more than just having dinner together a few times a week. Family is the most fundamental institution in every society in the world. Family includes the relationship between husband and wife. That alone requires great wisdom and diligence to nurture and prosper. Then throw in the children! I have often wished that each child would come with a instruction manual showing which buttons NOT to push!

Family includes the extended family of grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins and nephews. The support of the extended family is a key component for happiness.

3. Friends

Friends, real friends--not just people we associate with through work--are crucial for happiness. Not that friends at work are unimportant. We may develop real friendships at work that go far beyond the requirements of the work place. Friends are those that we can share our life's secretes with, our ideas and thoughts, our successes and failures. Friends see us for who we are and still love us!

Here is the humdinger. It is not just friends that we need. As we grow into our 50s and 60s and beyond, we need to have younger friends. Why younger friends? Because friends our own age begin to die off as we grow older and, before we know it, we are alone. That holds true for our parents, brother's and sister's, aunts and uncles, and cousins. Unless we strike up friendships with the younger generation, we will find ourselves alone and bitter.

4. Interests

Pursuing interests is often one of the casualties of career building and creating that treasure chest for retirement. Who has time for hobbies when work requires 60 to 80 hours a week, including commuting, coming in early and leaving late, and working weekends. Yet hobbies, interests, service projects, organizations, common interest clubs and so forth are a key to a happy life, before and after retirement.

Passionate interests become all the more important if we lose our spouse or our family lives far away. Warner calls this "Loving Life." That is an excellent phrase for this key pillar. A passionate interest is the kind of activity that totally engrosses us. It can be a recreation, a religious community, a hobby, a service dedication and so forth. Loving Life. Yes, indeed, that has to be the cherry on the top of the hot fudge sundae!

Health, Friends, Family, and Interests

So, there they are. The four pillars of the happy life. We would be foolish to ignore money. Yet we would be far more foolish to sacrifice health, family, friends, and passionate interests for money. When we love life, we light up with joy and bring happiness to those around us.

Can't We All Just Get Along?

The common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

--George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796

George Washington knew the animosity of party all too well. By the time that he finished his term as the first president of the United States, Washington had had more than his fill of vile attacks upon his person through the print media.

Washington had hoped that the infant USA would navigate a course between the two extremes of party, at that time called the Federalists (the mother of the Republican party) and the Republicans (the mother of the Democratic party). Yet he saw the rigid lines drawn between the Federalists and the Republicans and feared that they had become an institution in USA political life. And they had.

Why did we fail to maintain one party, instead opting for two major parties and a host of very small independent parties? What is it in human nature that drove us to create partisan stances with a clear line drawn in the sand?

It is all about human nature. That is, how we view human nature. No better way exists to understand the character of the Republican party and the Democratic party than to compare the founders of those parties, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

John Adams came from Boston, the home of Puritanism in the USA. His way of life kept much of the Puritan world view. By the way, the Puritans received a lot of bad press which the scholar Perry Miller went a long ways toward dispelling. Adams believed in the depraved nature of the human soul, that we have been afflicted with sin through the fall of Adam and Eve. Regardless of the sophistication of our education, we will never overcome the power of temptation to sin by reason alone. The grace of God, the holiness that comes from living a life of holiness, will alone preserve our souls.

Thomas Jefferson came from Charlottesville, about 130 miles from Jamestown, the birthplace of Virginia and the USA. Jefferson embodied the Virginia plantation slaveholder who cherished reason. He embodied the cruel dichotomy of espousing freedom and equality while holding men in slavery to work his fields, build his mansions, and father his children. Jefferson selectively chose which words he believed in the Bible, holding no place for sin and the depravity of the soul. Instead, all things could be achieved through reason and education.

There you have the basic, fundamental, difference between the Republican world view and the Democratic world view. The Republican world view embraces the Puritan belief in resisting temptation and sin through prayer, holiness, and hard work. The goal is to create the Holy Commonwealth of saints. The Democratic viewpoint uplifts reason as the means to salvation for the person and the human race. There is no human sin, no depravity of the soul. We achieve the New Jerusalem through freedom, equality, and reason.

The Republican and Democratic viewpoints each have their weaknesses. The Republican view, with it's belief in the will, can fall toward the sin of fascism. The tendency to see a race as supreme and a holy people chosen to rule the world. The Democratic viewpoint can, with it's belief in the power of reason, error towards utopianism and sexual immorality. The belief in the power of reason can lead to the practice of imposing a communistic rule over others and a naiveté about the power of passion to derail the reasonable person.

George Washington embodied the strengths and weaknesses of both the Republican and the Democratic parties. A pious Christian and a Mason, he believed in the depravity of the soul and the power of temptation. A Virginian, he embraced the Enlightenment's reverence of reason while owning a plantation with slaves forced to labor as chattel for him.

So, although Washington called for citizens of the USA to stand above party in his farewell address, he fell short of embodying a person neither Democrat nor Republican. What kind of person would that be?

They would embrace God as the creator, seek holiness in community, accept the depravity of the soul while embracing the power of reason. They would not draw lines between the races but see all people as their brothers and sisters. They would not see the USA as the supreme savior of the human race, commissioned to rule over them, but as a nation especially blessed with values, principles, and wealth to help the community of nations.

One concluding note on friendship between Republican and Democrat. In the later years of their lives, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson strengthened their relationship as dear and close friends. Their exchange of letters is a treasure of profound thought and endearing sentiments. They died on July 4, 1826, Adams on his farm near Boston and Jefferson on his plantation near Charlottesville, each asking about the other with their dying breath. In the end, one in love and respect, true patriots both.

A Child (and Beauty Queen) Shall Lead Them

Sometimes it takes an innocent child to show us the way. That or a beauty queen.

We have been witnessing a bizarre phenomena. Men have been seeking to marry men. And women have been seeking to marry women. Although the opposition to the campaign to legalize those marriages has been intense, there is actually little to worry about from such a movement.

It is a self-extinguishing movement, like medieval monasticism. Since the movement can not be advanced through childbirth, each married couple will end with itself. The only means of perpetuation through children comes from adoption, which is the way the movement of lovers of like sex seek to follow.

Yet, the reason for intense opposition to those who hold the traditional marriage as the only marriage sanctioned by God is easy to understand. The movement of lover's of like sex is an ideological movement. During the past couple decades, it has stepped out of the closet into the halls of government. People who have achieved respectable positions proclaim their love of like sex to all the world, advocating that as the best way to marry.

Why has this bizarre phenomena happened? What in the world would make wonderful people chose to perform such a perverted act? Actually, God inspired it. How in the world could that be? Why would God inspire an act that goes contrary to the universal principles of nature and life?

We can find the answer in Carl Jung, the Swiss psychoanalyst whom Freud had picked to carry on his theory. That is, until Jung proclaimed a belief in spiritual reality. At that point Freud pushed him away with a fury. There is no place for God or spirituality in Freud's thinking. God is a neurosis as far as he is concerned. Freud stood shoulder to shoulder with Marx and Darwin in denying God.

What can we find in Jung that would explain the revolting phenomena of like loving like, man loving man and woman loving women? Jung taught that each of us is feminine (anima), and masculine (animus). Women have a greater portion of anima and men have a greater measure of animus. Until recently, to be a woman has meant to embrace feminine characteristics and deny masculine characteristics. Likewise with men. To be a man has meant to embrace the masculine characteristics and deny the feminine characteristics.

We have entered a new age, the age of integration of anima and animus, feminine and masculine, within each one of us. God has put the urge into our hearts for each woman to integrate her masculine qualities and each man to integrate his feminine qualities.

What are the feminine qualities? Some of them are nurturing, sensitivity, spiritual awareness, unconditional love, taking care of the home, raising children, nurse others to health, teach, be beautiful, and be supportive. What are the masculine qualities? A partial list includes not showing pain, acting strong, keeping commitments, bringing home the pay check, punishing the children, taking the boys fishing, never crying, being the leader, being adventurous, performing physically difficult tasks, and working with math and science.

Jung said that we have moved from the age of three to the age of four, into the age of integration, the age of fulfillment. The problem is that the old age seldom easily gives way to the new age. It resists and tries to obstruct the new age. When a woman feels the urge to manifest her masculine qualities, her animus, society admonishes her, "be a woman." Likewise for the man. When a man feels the urge to give play to his anima, society blares back, "be a man!"

That leaves women and men in a pickle. The woman who experiences society's stonewalling determines to be true to her self and her God, over reacts in manifesting her masculine qualities, leading her to believe that she is a man. Likewise with the man. He feels society stonewalling his urge to manifest his feminine aspect, over reacts and believes that he is a woman.

A 12 year old boy, ChristianU2uber, provoked a maelstrom of denunciations for standing up for traditional marriage and saying marriage between like sexes is wrong. Carrie Prejean settled for runner up by standing for traditional marriage in the Miss USA contest. They are right and courageous. Marriage between like sexes is wrong and traditional marriage is right. Yet we need to go one step further and stand for the spirit of the times, to become integrated, whole people.

Since we know that loving the like sex is unnatural and will lead to extinction if we all did that, we know that this movement will fail. But we must not fail to integrate our anima and animus in each of us, to become whole persons, whole men and whole women. That movement must and will succeed.

God Sometimes Tricks Us

Yes. Sometimes God tricks us. Always for our own good. And usually to get us to do something we don't want to do.

For example, the United States did not want to enter World War II against Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy. In fact, the foremost people in the USA staunchly stood for pacifism, including the almost god-like Charles Lindbergh, the hero who first flew across the Atlantic solo. Let anyone speak out against pacifism in the 1930s and they would receive the kind of scathing condemnation that Carrie Prajean, Miss California in the Miss USA contest, got from Perez Hilton and his buddies for her stand supporting traditional marriage. Politically incorrect, to say the least.

Yet God had another idea. He wanted the USA to enter World War II and help defeat fascist Germany. So, how did he do that? He helped Japan sneak attack the USA at Pearl Harbor. What! God helped a fascist nation deal a terrible blow to the USA! Yes. Because we held the unjust, cowardly, and self-seeking view that Hitler could have Europe for all we care. We have our security and comfort separated by 3000 miles of Atlantic ocean. Let's live by George Washington's admonishment to keep out of entanglements with Europe.

We should have detected the huge Japanese fleet approaching Hawaii. We didn't. The US military commanders at Hawaii should have received telegrams informing them of the likelihood of a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. They didn't. The newly installed radar should have alerted the US forces at Pearl Harbor of the approaching squadrons of Japanese dive bombers and fighters. It didn't. Even the detection and destruction of miniature submarines in Pearl Harbor didn't put the US forces on full alert. It just seemed destined that the US Navy, Army Air Force, Army, and Marines would be caught relaxing that beautiful Sunday morning on December 7, 1941.

The combination of oversights and mistaken judgments seemed so unbelievable that many scholars of American history believe Franklin Roosevelt allowed Japan to successfully attack the US forces at Pearl Harbor to give the USA reason to fully enter World War II. That is wrong, but not far from the truth. God allowed Japan to attack the USA to bring us into WWII. And thank God He did! The USA, teamed with Great Britain, the Soviet Union, Australia, New Zealand and the underground resistance of conquered nations to bring down the satanic ideology of fascism advanced by Germany, Italy, and Japan. Could you image the world today if the USA had stood on the sidelines allowing the fascist forces to conquer the world? That is too bleak to imagine. For one thing, there would be no Jews, homosexuals, lesbians, gypsies, or, for that matter, anyone other than Aryans living on the earth. That is, unless Japan and Italy could defeat Hitler in a battle of the victors.

Then came another of God's tricks! God needed the USA involved in the Middle East to help free it from feudalism and introduce democracy. There is no way in hell that the United States would do that unless we saw it as in our national interest to do so. We are reluctant warriors for any cause other than that which directly affects us. Maybe that is a good thing. At least it keeps us from jumping into every holy crusade that pops up from time to time. But God wanted the USA to get involved more than holding a few peace retreats at Camp David, sending military hardware to our player of the day in the Middle East, supporting Israel with money and weapons, and talking peace at the UN. So God tricked us.

We believed that Saddam worked to develop weapons of mass destruction. By "we", I mean the entire world intelligence community. Saddam may have planted that idea to protect his brutal dictatorship, hoping that would intimidate the USA and others. We got fooled. We believed that Saddam had been close to producing nuclear and biological weapons and, for that reason, the United States and Great Britain, with a small coalition of nations supporting, invaded Iraq in 2003.

Why did God trick us? Because he needed the terrorist dictator Saddam Hussein removed and a democratic Islamic republic established in fact, not just in name. He needed the first successful Islamic democracy in the Middle East, a democracy rich in oil, water, and educated people. With Iraq a thriving Islamic democracy, other nations in the Middle East would topple the same way one after another. And guess what? We won the war in Iraq! Has anyone noticed? Of course, much remains for the Iraqi people to work out. But once people taste freedom and equality, it is impossible to give it up.

Within a few years, Iraq will be a relatively stable, prosperous democracy shaped by Islamic values. Iran's religious fanatical leaders will fall to a popular uprising. Saudi Arabia will experience a revolution in which the king and prince oligarchy will turn upside down. And, most importantly, Israel will be at peace with her neighbors, cooperating in the development of the Middle East rather than continually struggling to survive surrounded by deadly enemies.

The next generation will have a much kinder view of the presidency of George W. Bush. He will be remembered as the one who toppled the Berlin Wall of Islamic despotism. Even though God tricked him into doing it.

How About the Good Samaritan?

Life is fine when everything goes right. When we are in our groove, when we know just what to do or say, when everyone is happy with us. The trouble starts when we make a mistake.

A mistake. A misstep. A wrong word. A joke that offends rather than delights. That's when life gets tough.

The hardest part of offending another is letting ourselves feel the pain of the mistake. None of us likes to feel pain. Neither the person who is offended nor the person who offends. The easiest way to deal with the knowledge that we have offended another is to shut it out, to justify our act, to put the blame on the person who feels the offense. That's the easiest way, but that is not the best way.

We all watched the drama unfold on the national stage involving Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. He has spent his professional life dealing with the history of African Americans, the injustice they have experienced. That is his profession and no one in America is more aware of the racial profiling, lynching, discrimination, slavery--the most abject form of chattel in history--than he. Gates has attained a position of respect for his achievements.

Here he is. Most likely quite tired after returning from a long trip home from China. Having made many trips between Asia and that USA, I know the feeling. Not only have you endured the ordeal of many hours going back and forth to the airport, going through security, waiting to board, and then sitting in a chair for 12 hours or so that constricts your blood vessels at the legs. Not fun for the frequent flier.

So, Gates, full of the knowledge of injustice toward the black man in America, tired, ready for rest, found his front door jammed. It must have been a chronic problem, something that he neglected to take care of in the past. So, he, irritated, breaks the door open, then goes inside quite agitated. I think we have all be there, right?

Watching the drama, an "elderly woman without a cell phone" hails Lucia Whalen on a walk to a lunch appointment through Gates' neighborhood. She points out what looks like a break in. Lucia's phone call has been recorded. She never referred to the race of Gates and his fellow. Just a good Samaritan seeking to protect Gates' property! Her only intention was to do good.


Sgt. James Crowley shows up at Professor "Bad Day" Gates's front door, doing what the good people of Cambridge pay him to do--protect people and property. He didn't know Gates yet thought that he might actually be the home owner. But when Bad Day Irish-Black American Gates bad mouthed Irish Policeman Gates, he got arrested by his team of policemen, including black officers.

OK. So far so good. Gates would cool off in the brig then return home, meet with his lawyer, and do what he does best, rid the world of unrighteous behavior toward Irish-Black Americans. Life goes on as usual. Until the news story reaches the President of the United States half baked and a Chicago reporter asks his opinion at a nationally televised news conference.

I happened to be watching the news interview live when the reporter asked him about the case. Obama fell for it. He had a knee-jerk reaction, viscerally remembering the many, many cases of police profiling in Illinois, the bill he sponsored to stop racial profiling, the fact that Gates had been arrested in his home and blurted that the police had acted stupidly. There you have it! The first African-Anglo American President of the United States making a mistake on a very highly charged issue in America: racial profiling!

What a mess! Mistakes all around! No one got killed or hurt but lots of pain spread all around. Three highly successful, professional, competent leaders stepping on each other's toes on the public stage. And now they have the honor of drinking a beer together tonight at the White House, working through their little disagreement that came to symbolize all the racial injustice that every happened between whites and blacks in America.


What happened to Lucia Whalen in this forgiveness fest? The good Samaritan who did not have to make a call to the police about a break in, got the short end of the stick.

Why didn't Professor Gates thank Whalen for being a good citizen, for putting herself out on the limb to protect his property? Why didn't Officer Crowley call Whalen to thank her for being a good citizen? Why didn't President Obama call to thank her for acting the good Samaritan without thought of herself? Instead she bore the brunt of insults and taunts, called a racist far and wide, the racial profiler. And she didn't even get an invitation for a beer at the White House with the guys! I guess the lesson here is, think twice before you act the Good Samaritan. All things will be forgiven but that.

UPDATE: August 1, 2009: YES!!!
Gates sends flowers to passerby who called police

UPDATE: August 2, 2009: Gates racial drama ensnares minor characters, too

Obama is God: Or At Least Jesus Christ

"I will complete the next 100 days in 72 days. Then on the 73rd day I will rest." Pretty good humor. Pretty good humor because Obama skillfully tapped a common view of his presidential leadership. Obama is God. Or at least Jesus Christ.

"Most of you covered me. All of you voted for me." Another pun for the Press Club dinner at the White House. Funny. Funny because that is the truth. The Press elected Obama. The Liberal establishment elected Obama. Already the Press is celebrating Obama as a great president, possibly the greatest president in US history.

But just because the Liberal establishment elected Obama, and have given him a cushioned ride in a palanquin, doesn't make him a great president. He has been grappling with a Great Depression-like economic crisis. The jury is still out on whether or not his policies will work. I, like most people, hope so. His, and Michelle's, charismatic characters, won lots of friends in Europe and Latin America. That's hopeful. Hopeful, but not tangible accomplishments.

Still, Obama and Michelle might be on the path of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. The Roosevelts are two of my heroes. I live in the Hudson Valley of New York just a few miles from their presidential and first lady museums. There are remarkable similarities between the Roosevelts and the Obamas. Both inherited the White House with the nation in a great, or nearly great, depression. Both brought a charisma to the office that inspired confidence in the people during a time of uncertainty and fear. Both found the conservatives livid in opposition to bail out programs.

It might be worth noting that Franklin Roosevelt did not bring the USA out of the Great Depression. Granted, his government sponsored work programs in the New Deal helped many restore their dignity and earn money to care for their families. But the USA only came out of the Great Depression when we entered World War II in 1941. From that time, the USA had full employment, including women taking on the jobs that men serving in the military left unfilled. It took a Hitler, Mussolini, and Emperor Hirohito to bring the USA out of the Great Depression.

That points to the one thing above all else that makes a president great. The great president leads the USA through a life and death struggle for existence. Franklin D. Roosevelt met that criteria. During the pre-war years, Roosevelt did what he could to prod a pacifist USA to help Great Britain, France, and the rest of Europe to defeat Hitler and Mussolini. After Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt led the USA to rally its full strength in three theaters of war; the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and the Pacific.

Not only did Roosevelt lead the USA to defeat Germany, Italy, and Japan along with the Allied Forces, his practical non-ideological form of leadership helped to lay the foundation for the successful defeat of communism. During the Great Depression, many Liberals touted the Soviet Union as the panacea for capitalism's ills. Roosevelt preserved both democracy and capitalism by just doing what needed to be done.

Will Obama, God forbid, be given the opportunity to lead the USA through a life and death struggle like Franklin Roosevelt did? That would be the full measure of test. If not, then regardless of how much the Liberal establishment touts Obama as God or Jesus Christ, he will be a second tier president, at best.

Eleanor Roosevelt emerged after her husband's death to take leadership in creating the United Nations, drafting the charter for the United Nations. Michelle has big shoes to fill. Eleanor lacked Michelle's beauty, yet they both have charm. And both of them possess impressive intellect. Will Michelle Obama be given the chance to draft a world government document on the level of the United Nations?

Who are the greatest presidents in American history? Here are my top ten:

1. Abraham Lincoln (Civil War)
2. George Washington (Revolutionary War)
3. Ronald Reagan (Cold War)
4. Franklin Roosevelt (World War II)
5. Woodrow Wilson (World War I)
6. James Polk (Mexican-American War)
7. James Madison (War of 1812)
8. George Bush (9/11 War)
9. Harry Truman (World War II/Korean War)
10. John Kennedy (Cold War)

Let's let God--oops! I mean Obama--deal with the challenges ahead before declaring him the greatest president in history. He still has the Great Depression, Iran, Israel, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and North Korea to deal with. His call for the Green Society could pan out to be like Johnson's call for the Great Society if he fails to meet the life and death challenges down the road. Let us all pray that he has the right stuff, even if he falls a bit short of God or Jesus Christ.