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Why Good Things Happen To Good People

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Last month’s column focused on happiness and how you get that way. The column ended on a global note, with a short paragraph about Why Good Things Happen to Good People: The Exciting New Research That Proves The Link Between Doing Good and Living a Longer, Healthier, Happier Life by Stephen Post, Ph.D. and Jill Neimark. As promised, this month explores both the book and the website (www.whygoodthingshappen.com).

     As it turns out, the website is a great way to get a taste of the book. Like a delicious hors d’oeuvre, it leaves you hankering for the entire meal—the book. The homepage, for example, includes the following segment from the book:

     It turns out that giving—far more than receiving—is a surprisingly potent force whose impact reverberates across an entire lifetime, nourishing health and happiness in astonishing ways. That’s the message of Why Good Things Happen to Good People, which weaves new science with profoundly moving real-life stories. Dr. Stephen Post’s institute has funded over fifty studies—from the likes of Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, and the University of Chicago—to support scientific research on the life-enhancing benefits of caring.

     My advice is to check out the author bios and then delve into the information featured in the pull-down menu under “The Book” (synopsis, the science, praise). Then finish up by taking the Quiz of the Month.

     Since Dr. Stephen Post, president of the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love (IRUL) at Case Western Reserve Medical School, is a friend and mentor of mine, I am, of course, very familiar with his work. Stephen is a Professor in the Department of Bioethics, at the School of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, as well as Senior Research Scholar in the Becket Institute at St. Hughs’ College, Oxford University. IRUL, founded in 2001 with a grant from the John Templeton Foundation, focuses on the scientific study of altruism, compassion and service. Jill Neimark collaborated with Dr. Post on the writing of the book. She is a columnist for Spirituality & Health.

     The Synopsis section includes the following information designed to help you decide to get the book:

     • The exciting new research shows that when we give of ourselves, especially if we start young, everything from life-satisfaction to self-realization and physical health is significantly affected. Mortality is delayed. Depression is reduced. Well-being and good fortune are increased.

     • The inspiring new research includes a fifty-year study showing that people who are giving during their high school years have better physical and mental health throughout their lives.

     • Other studies show that older people who give live longer than those who don’t. Helping others has been shown to bring health benefits to those with chronic illness, including HIV, multiple sclerosis, and heart problems.

     • And studies show that people of all ages who help others on a regular basis, even in small ways, feel happiest.

     • Why Good Things Happen to Good People offers ten ways to give of yourself, in four areas of life, all shown by science to improve your health and even add to your life expectancy.

One fascinating extra in the Synopsis section is “The Good Life,” an essay in the May-June 2007 issue of Spirituality & Health that explores how writing the book changed Jill Neimark’s life. Neimark was stunned by the evidence that helpfulness was so clearly hardwired into our genetic legacy. However, she states, “It was the real stories from real lives that breathed hope back into me.” These stories led to her own story of transformation:

     “One day last June that lesson truly came home. I was weaving my way through the Union Square flower market on the way to my doctor’s. Flowers spilled everywhere like Rapunzel’s golden hair. Even though I felt sick, I was happy. I bought myself an orchid and when I walked into my doctor’s office, I saw another patient I’d become friendly with, someone who owned a house with a garden. Moved by a sudden impulse borne of two years of thinking and writing about giving, I held out the orchid and said, ‘This is for you.’ He actually got teary-eyed. He repeated several times that I’d made his day. The next time he saw me, he told me how well my orchid was doing in his garden. And, strange to say, that flower’s absence has remained with me, revealing a deeper presence.”

The Science section contains highlights of the new science. Here are two examples:

     Giving in high school predicts good physical and mental health in late adulthood, a time interval of over fifty years! Psychologist Paul Wink of Wellesley College studied nearly two hundred individuals who have been followed closely since the 1920s, when they were children, and found that giving protected longevity as well as mental health even half a century later.

     Giving to others increases your longevity, although receiving the same kind of help did not. Psychologist Stephanie Brown of the University of Michigan spent five years studying 423 older couples. After adjusting for age, gender, and physical and emotional health, Brown found that those who provided significant support to others were more than twice as likely to remain alive in that five year period. These surprising findings ruled out other factors like personality, health, mental health and marital relationship variables.

Praise for Why Good Things Happen To Good People is extensive. Examples from this section include:

     “Stephen Post and Jill Neimark have brought together the main findings from the new science of genuine love, and translated them into helpful, practical advice that the reader can easily apply. Those who take this book to heart will surely make their lives better, and will help to make the world a better place as well.” — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Ph. D., Professor of Psychology, Claremont Graduate University, and author of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.

     “Stephen Post and Jill Neimark have brought sophisticated survey research techniques to the task of exploring such supposedly elusive topics as compassion and love. In this book they examine the extraordinary benefits of giving. Their focus is practical, and encourages readers to make giving a driving force in their lives, leading to positive thoughts and actions. Appearing at a time of growing public angst about the state of society and the world, this book offers a timely message of hope and restoration.” — George Gallup, Jr., Founder, The George H Gallup International Institute.

A core feature of Why Good Things Happen To Good People are the quizzes that allow readers to test their own habits of giving in the areas of Celebration, Loyalty, Humor, Creativity, Forgiveness, Generativity (helping the next generation), Courage, Respect, Listening, and Creativity. According to Post, these are ten ways to give in four domains of life (family, friends, community and humanity) and they are all proven by science to improve your health, and even add to your life expectancy. Each month, the Quizzes section of the website includes a quiz adapted from The Love and Longevity scale, which was created and tested by Dr. Stephen Post and colleagues of his at the University of Miami. Each chapter of Why Good Things Happen To Good People contains one of these quizzes that help you monitor and increase your own ways of giving, of being good.

     The July Quiz of the Month focused on Forgiveness. The section points out, “There is power and joy in forgiveness—and, as each one of us knows so well, it is a deeply challenging form of love.” The quiz features questions like “I don’t hold grudges when one of my family members does something that hurts me,” “I never let my anger simmer when a friend treats me unfairly,” and “I encourage people I know to view the conflicts around the world in a more forgiving way.” The answers range from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree. You can score yourself—but then what do you do?

     That is where the website stops and you must go and get the book. Each chapter of Why Good Things Happen To Good People contains a cornucopia of lessons and strategies that help readers use the new science to transform their own lives and the lives of family and friends. Lesson Three in the chapter, “The Way of Forgiveness,” for example, states, “First Forgive Yourself.” Strategies include:

     Envision someone who loves you. Imagine yourself from their perspective. Would they judge you as harshly as you sometimes judge yourself?

     Lesson Six advises, “Shift Your Perspective.” Strategies include:

     Shift to gratitude. If you find yourself ruminating over a hurt and are not ready to forgive, shift to gratitude. Think about all that is good in your life and all that you appreciate. Remember, forgiveness is a positive response to harm. By focusing on the good, you move anger and hurt to the periphery. As the new-age cliché so correctly puts it, energy flows where attention goes.

     Sooo ... my advice: Explore the Why Good Things Happen To Good People website, but don’t forget to buy the book, soak up the science, and add the strategies to your quiver of transformational tools.

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Mary Montgomery is a certified web author and developer. Her company, Montgomery Media Enterprises (“Freelancing with Finesse!”), specializes in public relations, writing projects and web authoring, development and publicity, especially in the non-profit sector. Ms. Montgomery has a Master’s Degree in religious studies from Chicago Theological Seminary (CTS) and is working on a Ph.D. with a focus on the new scholarship of Unlimited Love and the Other Regarding Virtues. She is also in the process of completing the Morris Pratt Institute Course on Modern Spiritualism. Contact her via e-mail at monty764@sbcglobal.net.

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