Principal's Reflection

The British philosopher, Bertram Russell, stated that, “To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.” As with most good quotes, the sentence is both a statement and a conundrum, a prompt for deeper thinking and even, of action. There is nothing wrong with wanting our loved ones to be happy, however, Russell highlighted the need for us to deeply consider the term, ‘happiness’ in a much broader and deeper interpretation and context than most of us would choose to consider. Two terms are of interest when exploring the complexity of happiness – ‘toxic positivity’ and ‘tragic optimism.’

Professor Brock Bastian from the University of Melbourne defines ‘toxic positivity’ as the idea for the expectation to be positive at all times, to maintain positive thoughts, a certain level of positive emotionality regardless of circumstances; that we fail a social standard when we invariably do feel unhappy and that we are made to feel that to be unhappy is unhealthy. When things are going wrong in our lives, there are certain platitudes that people tend to say which are perhaps meant to be helpful but often are not helpful. It is good to be able to find happiness in life, it is important to reframe situations if we are viewing them unnecessarily negatively, to reframe them in a way which allows us to respond or to manage them better, however, it is often the unhappiness that helps motivate a more honest appraisal of current circumstances in order to move towards a better and ‘healthier’ outcome.

Viktor Frankl, a psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor wrote, Man's Search for Meaning, and he coined the term ‘tragic optimism’ – as a concentrate camp prisoner he did not know whether he was going to survive so there was no outlook of, 'well, everything will be okay in the future, everything is going to be fine’. Frankl coined tragic optimism in that optimism in the context of a search for meaning in the face and recognition of tragedy. We should feel encouraged to embrace tragic optimism by making a daily effort to feel comfortable with feelings that are uncomfortable instead of what toxic positivity might lend towards where you would ignore these feelings and just focus on building positive feelings. The fact is we can't always be happy, and in fact the good life involves some negatives. Negative emotions are important emotions; for our wellbeing, it is good to be able to have things going well more often than not. But the negative emotions are often the emotions which really have information attached to them, they are the ones that really tell us something about what we need to pay attention.

As educators, to focus on ‘happy outcomes’ is disingenuous to the reality of a life well lived, a life that all of us lead that involves an experience with ‘wilderness.’ Edward Abbey was an American writer who had a great affinity for the vast, beautiful, arid areas of the southwest of the United States of America. We, too, are fortunate to live in a state that has abundant beautiful wilderness. To most of us, our relationship with wilderness is influenced by our perception of our mastery over it – we are prepared for our drives, walks or journeys through the wilderness so the term ‘wild’, which is at the heart of the word ‘wilderness’, may have lost its unsettling aspect. In chapter one of the Gospel of Mark, there is an outline of Jesus’s wilderness experience – an experience of being tempted or tested for a considerable length of time. The account highlights the notion that wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit. Wilderness times are moments of crisis – moments when choice and change are forced upon us - there is no reference in this chapter to happiness, only of experience which has intrinsic to it, agony and ecstasy.

It is rare that we walk willingly into a wilderness; usually it is the result of losing our way, or an accident; the Gospel tells us that Jesus was ‘driven by the Spirit’ into the wilderness. In other words, the wilderness for Jesus was to be an encounter with God, it was where God wanted Jesus to be. For all its starkness and inhospitableness, a wilderness can be an invitation to discover depths in ourselves that ordinary living can leave untapped, for a wilderness demands more resourcefulness than the everyday norm. This is why the wilderness is often used as a place for initiation in ancient religions, for here a person can meet the Divine reality with greater immediacy.

The important season of Lent begins tomorrow with Ash Wednesday. As we journey through Lent both as individuals and as part of ‘a collective’ – be it our family, school community or workplace – it is reassuring to remember that we are not alone in our ‘wilderness confrontations’, and that a singular goal of ‘to be happy’ is unrealistic and unhealthy; that Lent is a time for self-reflection, for facing difficult facts, for settling the ‘muddied the waters’, in order to come out of the wilderness experience strengthened by our encounters with the same confrontations that are part of living in any community.

Each morning during our assemblies, students and staff are challenged to set themselves a goal to ensure they make a positive influence on their world that day, with the full realisation that we can almost never achieve any worthy goal alone.

Regards,

Rod Linhart

(Principal)