The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com and Amazon.com.

Can I get a double pizza burger, chili fries with cheese, and a large chocolate milkshake? I don’t know. No matter what I eat, my weight just seems to stay the same. So, figure what the hell, I’m gonna eat what I want. What if you recognize that you've had a pattern of thinking in your life in which you tell yourself, for example, “You know, I know I’m supposed to get a good education in college, but what the heck? I do what I need to do to get by, to pass my courses, and that’s it.” Or you see the pattern come up in another area of your life: “You know, I know I’m supposed to help out my wife or husband around the house, but I just squeak by. I do the bare minimum, and that’s it.” Or, “I know the boss wants me to give my all, and I told him I would in the interview, but I’ve always done the minimum, just so they can’t fire me.” Do you know anybody in your life who drags their feet, who just does the bare minimum? What accounts for this anti-effort mentality, and what can you do about it if you know that you have it?

With me today to take a closer look at this thought pattern is Dr. John Lewis. He received his PhD in classics from the University of Cambridge, England, and he's now an Assistant Professor of History at Ashland University. His specialty is classical Greece. Hey, Dr. Lewis, welcome to The Rational Basis of Happiness.

Hello, Dr. Kenner. How are you? Thanks for having me on.

Oh, wonderful to have you on again. From a professor's point of view, what do you notice in your students? You know, students don’t think that professors notice this all that much, but the students who just want to get by—they just want to do the bare minimum, and they coast.

Well, believe me, if a student thinks that that’s not obvious, they’re wrong. You know, it’s as obvious as all get-out. There are just some students who seem to adopt, as a pattern in their life, just doing the minimum to get by. Now, it’s blatantly obvious in their work. Many of them will come to class, but they don’t participate. Some of them will put on the pretense, anyway, of doing the assigned reading, but they never go beyond that assigned reading. They never go out with any sense of wonder to try and investigate the subject. And basically, they do C-level work and will come in afterward and try to convince you that it’s worth an A. Sometimes, sometimes it seems to, I mean, they do that a lot, and with grade inflation in America today, where the average grade at Harvard is an A, you know, the idea is growing that just by fogging a mirror, you’re somehow worth an A. Well, that’s certainly not the case in my class. So, it is obvious to a professor when a student is just getting by. And I must say, I had a 20-year business career behind me before becoming a history professor, and I saw the same attitude in some employees—they do just what they have to do.

Just what they have to do. At the interview, they tell you exactly, as you said in your intro: at the interview, they tell you about how much they want to work, and how interested and excited they are. They grow an effort mentality, a pro-effort mentality. They make it sound, in other words, like they want a career, and they come in, and in a week, you realize that they’re just there for the job. It’s the difference between a job versus a career mentality.

What would you say is the difference?

A job is the person who watches the clock. The job is the person who says, “My job is to do whatever it is, whether it’s a cleaning service or a brain surgeon,” and just doing the amount of time that is necessary, always looking at the clock, living for the nights and weekends.

What does that tell you about that person’s values? What do they enjoy in life?

Well, they certainly don’t enjoy their work. And more than that, they don’t seem to recognize that they should enjoy their work. It’s the same for some of the college students. They’re there in order to get a degree, in order to get a piece of paper, possibly because their parents told them they had to, or the Career Center told them they wouldn’t get a job if they didn’t do it. But they’re watching the clock, and they don’t realize that they could actually, with some effort, make the college experience enjoyable and worthwhile for them. And I think these are the people who go into a career and end up in the same position. They don’t realize that they could make their work enjoyable as well as monetarily rewarding.

So, they take that same pattern that they’ve adopted, probably from childhood, into college, and then bring it out into the world with them, and carry it on into old age. And what do they miss out on?

Oh, well, they miss out on the real joy of doing something productive with their life. That’s what I think. You know, I don’t ever watch the clock. I mean, I was late for my interview with you today—I'm sorry about that—because I’m working on a book, and I just get carried away with the time. I just love it. It’s not something that I sit here and watch the clock over.

So, they miss the happiness in their life. But they may not see it that way. They may say, “Well, I do what I have to, and then I’m happy. I can go to the bar afterward. I can go partying. I can go play golf. I can do other things, but it’s just a job. Or it’s just college. It’s something you have to do to get a silly paper in college so that you can go out there and get a silly job. But that’s not real living. That’s not what makes you happy.”

Well, you’re going to spend, you know, a third of your life working. And, you know, a good college student spends half of their life either in class or studying. Why would you want to be miserable for that time? Search out, find out that which interests you, that which makes you happy, and go do it. One of the things that should be available to a college student is—

I’ve got to interrupt this because we’ve got to pay some bills. Thirty seconds, that’s it. A very quick break, and then Dr. Lewis will be back.

Romance. Oh, I wish guys knew more about what we want from a relationship. Boy, I wish I knew more about what I want. Where’s that ad I saw? Here it is: The Selfish Path to Romance, a serious romance guidebook. Download chapter one for free at SelfishRomance.com, and buy it at Amazon.com. The Selfish Path to Romance—that is interesting.

You know, search out, find out that which interests you, that which makes you happy, and go do it. One of the things that should be available to a college student is the opportunity to take different classes in many different areas to try and figure out what he or she likes to do.

To shop around for a career, to see what interests they have.

Why not? Why not?

Yeah, I certainly did that. I wanted to major in French, and then I wanted to major in art history and art, and I bounced around a lot. Then I tried psychology, but I wasn’t interested in feeding rats, so I dumped that one, and then I ended up in biology.

Well, that’s interesting, because if psychology means feeding rats Rice Krispies, you may not want to be interested in it. I used to like Rice Krispies.

My love of Rice Krispies, like rats.

Well, you know, the student needs to go out and find something that he or she likes to do, and don’t accept this idea that because you’re benefiting from it materially, you can’t benefit from it psychologically. It can make you happy. You’ve got to find the right thing. If you find a career, you’ve got to find the right thing. And more than that, you’ve got to say, “Okay, I’ve got the right thing. In order to find the right thing, I’ve got to throw myself with gusto into it,” right?

And I know I did that. I don’t think I ever studied so hard in my life. When I finally made the decision to go back to graduate school, it was non-stop. But it wasn’t torture for me. It wasn’t a duty, it wasn’t an obligation, it wasn’t heavy. I was passionate about it. I couldn’t wait to learn the next vocabulary word.

The same for me. Even when I was in business before that, you know, the 16-hour days were—when it came time for a vacation, I could actually appreciate the vacation more than people who were just getting by. You know, for whom the vacation is just a chance to get away from the drudgery. I used to like to try to tire myself out so that a vacation really meant something.

Yeah, and usually on vacation, I take my work with me because I love my work. You would be punishing me if you said, “Ellen, you can sit by the pool all day long without any books.”

I did that too. We just got back from Florida, and I took a big box of books with me.

Right? So, we’re on the same wavelength here, on the same level. This is what people miss out on. When we talked earlier about the students who just think they can get away with it, that they’ll achieve happiness by just skimming by in life—whether it’s in school or in work, or in romance—just doing the bare minimum. “I gave her flowers on the wedding day, and that’s it. I gave her a ring, that’s it. I cooked a meal for him. What else does he want? That’s it.” When they have that type of mentality, they think they’re fooling other people. They try to tell themselves they’re really happy, but they don’t realize they’re robbing themselves of what could be a phenomenal life, a much happier life. And it’s that attitude, that if you find it in yourself, you want to change that anti-effort mentality into a pro-effort mentality—really enjoying your life. Would you agree, Doctor?

I would agree. And boy, you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool yourself for long.

Yeah, and that’s the person who suffers most. Thank you so much for joining us today, Dr. Lewis.

Thanks for the chance to be on.

For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to DrKenner.com.

Here’s an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance, the serious romance guidebook by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner and Dr. Edwin Locke:

Partners need to communicate constantly, but no one wants a partner who chatters incessantly about nothing in particular. This drives one crazy, and it leads to tuning out. If the jabbering consists of criticism, the tuning out occurs even faster. Tell your partner about things that happen to you during the day, being aware of what events might be most interesting. Talk about things you’ve read or heard, memories of your childhood, ideas for future vacations, recent experiences, news items, personal longings, ideas about morality, interesting relatives, your children, new movies or books—the possibilities are endless. Be creative.

You can download chapter one for free by going to DrKenner.com, and you can buy the book at Amazon.com.