The term "transcendence" can evoke some sort of inaccessible mysticism, but it also has a very straightforward meaning: a state in which we look beyond our present concerns, heighten our awareness of the outside world, and feel a greater sense of connection as a result. This definition of transcendence is highly relevant to my work with coaching clients, and to understand why we first need to discuss how people respond to goals and achievements.
While I strive to help clients accomplish ambitious professional goals, it's important to bear in mind that evolution has solved for the adaptation and survival of the species, not for our fulfillment as individuals. As a consequence, the fulfillment we enjoy upon achieving even our most significant goals is invariably fleeting, a process known as "hedonic adaptation." [1] We acclimate so readily to improvements in our life circumstances that we soon take them for granted, and they lose their potency as sources of fulfillment.
This isn't to say that the aspirations we imagine will be sources of fulfillment once achieved are meaningless illusions. They may matter a great deal, and some of them will have a profound impact on the material condition of our lives. But goal pursuit is not the result of a purely rational calculus. We pursue ambitious goals because we want to feel the flush of success, and we want to overcome our fears and anxieties, and we want these emotional states to last.
So it can be something of a cruel joke to accomplish an ambitious goal and realize that the human mind doesn't work this way. We do feel successful--but it's never as comprehensive or sustained as we thought it would be. We do feel at peace--but our fears and anxieties come creeping back with shocking speed. So what can we do about this state of affairs? There are no permanent solutions, but there are steps we can take to ease our discontent, and one of the most effective is what we might call "everyday transcendence."
A useful description of this concept can be found in the work of Martin Seligman and Christopher Peterson, two of the most prominent figures in the positive psychology movement. In the early 2000s they convened a diverse group of thinkers to document and categorize "the strengths of character that make the good life possible," and the result was the monumental volume Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification. [2]
The book identifies six universal virtues, i.e. "the core characteristics valued by moral philosophers and religious thinkers: wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence," as well as 24 character strengths, "the psychological ingredients--processes or mechanisms--that define the virtues. Said another way, they are distinguishable routes to displaying one or another of the virtues." [3]
The virtue of transcendence encompasses five of these character strengths, all of which, Seligman and Peterson note, involve a form of connection:
The common theme running through these strengths of transcendence is that each allows individuals to forge a connection to the larger universe and thereby provide meaning to our lives... The prototype of this strength category is spirituality, variously defined but always referring to a belief in and commitment to the transcendent (non-material) aspects of life--whether they be called universal, ideal, sacred, or divine... Appreciation of beauty is a strength that connects someone directly to excellence. Gratitude connects someone directly to goodness. Hope connects someone directly to the dreamed-of future. Humor--admittedly the most controversially placed entry--connects someone directly to troubles and contradictions in a way that produces not terror or anger but pleasure. [4]
The sense of connection fostered through these activities will not switch off our drive to succeed or our attachment to ambitious goals--nor would we want it to. But the cultivation of "transcendence in everyday life" can help us maintain perspective. Drawing on the work of philosopher Simone Weil, theologian Eric Springsted has observed that human beings are subject to a distorting illusion: "It appears to us as if we were at the center of the world. We thus appear as terrifically important, and what else is of value can be ranked by its proximity to us." [5]
As I've written before, "We can readily grasp why evolution has selected for the center of the world illusion--viewing ourselves from this perspective, we typically put our subjective needs and desires above those of others, making our own biological success more likely." [6] But this only heightens our discontent not only when our achievements inevitably lose their savor, but also when we fall short of our aspirations, as all ambitious people must.
And this is precisely where transcendence can serve an eminently practical purpose. The connections we experience through spirituality, appreciation of beauty, gratitude, hope, and humor remind us that we are not the center of the world and that every other human being is facing challenges of their own, including many that make ours seem trivial. We may find support in unexpected places, perhaps in the mere knowledge that we're not alone. We may even take a step further and see ourselves as part of a larger whole and find comfort in community, or humanity, or the universe itself.
Spirituality: "Having coherent beliefs about the higher purpose and meaning of the universe; knowing where one fits within the larger scheme; having beliefs about the meaning of life that shape conduct and provide comfort." [7]
In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And a compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship--be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles--is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.
~David Foster Wallace [8]
Appreciation of Beauty: "Noticing and appreciating beauty, excellence, and/or skilled performance in various domains of life, from nature to art to mathematics to science to everyday experience." [9]
A bee
staggers out
of the peony.
~Matsuo Bashō [10]
Gratitude: "Being aware of and thankful for the good things that happen; taking time to express thanks. [11]
I'm alive. ☐ I'm not in pain. ☐ I can think clearly. ☐ I can see, hear, and walk. ☐ I'm warm and well-nourished. ☐ I'm protected from the elements. ☐ I was born to parents who loved me. ☐ I've built a loving relationship with a partner. ☐ I feel known and cared for by a number of people. ☐ I derive a sense of meaning and purpose from my work. ☐ ~Gratitude Checklist [12]
Hope: "Expecting the best in the future and working to achieve it; believing that a good future is something that can be brought about." [13]
While I certainly wasn’t in denial about the difficulties I might have to face, I knew that I had the capacity to face them. In short, I never lost hope, and not because I told myself a fairy tale that everything would be fine, but because I believed that no matter what happened I could cope with it. We sometimes confuse hope with unfounded optimism, but that's just a form of magical thinking, a sandcastle waiting for the tide to turn. True hope is more robust, rooted not in a wish that things will go our way, but in a confidence that we'll adapt even when they don't.
~On Pain and Hope [14]
Humor: "Liking to laugh and tease; bringing smiles to other people; seeing the light side; making (not necessarily telling) jokes." [15]
~Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobsen [16]
Footnotes
[1] For more on hedonic adaptation:
-
The Myths of Happiness: What Should Make You Happy, but Doesn't, What Shouldn't Make You Happy, but Does (Sonja Lyubomirsky, 2014): "Human beings have the remarkable capacity to grow habituated or inured to most life changes... What is particularly fascinating about this phenomenon, however, is that it is most pronounced with respect to positive experiences. Indeed, it turns out that we are prone to take for granted pretty much everything positive that happens to us." [pages 18-19]
-
The Laws of Emotion, pages 353-354 (Nico Frijda, American Psychologist, 1988): "One must, I think, posit a law of hedonic asymmetry, the law of asymmetrical adaptation to pleasure or pain: Pleasure is always contingent upon change and disappears with continuous satisfaction. Pain may persist under persisting adverse conditions... The law of hedonic asymmetry is a stern and bitter law. It seems almost a necessary one, considering its roots, which, theoretically, are so obvious. Emotions exist for the sake of signaling states of the world that have to be responded to or that no longer need response and action. Once the 'no more action needed' signal has sounded, the signaling system can be switched off; there is no further need for it. That the net quality of life, by consequence, tends to be negative is an unfortunate result. It shows the human mind to have been made not for happiness, but for instantiating the blind biological laws of survival."
- Stop Trying to Be "Good Enough" by "Getting Better"
[2] Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification, page 4 (Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman, 2004). For more on Peterson and Seligman's work and its application, see the VIA Survey of Character Strengths.
[3] Ibid, page 13.
[4] Ibid, page 519.
[5] "Will and Order: The Moral Self in Augustine's De Libero Arbitrio," page 92 (Eric O. Springsted, Augustinian Studies, Volume 29, Issue 2, 1998). This essay is also available as a chapter in Springsted's The Act of Faith: Christian Faith and the Moral Self (2015).
[6] We're Not the Center of the World (But We Think We Are)
[7] Character Strengths and Virtues, page 30.
[8] This Is Water (David Foster Wallace, 2005)
[9] Character Strengths and Virtues, page 30.
[10] Bashō was a Japanese poet and essayist in the 17th century, recognized during his lifetime as one of the greatest masters of haiku. I highly recommend his Narrow Road to the Interior, a book I discussed in my June 2022 newsletter. Here's a sample of his work.
[11] Character Strengths and Virtues, page 30.
[12] Gratitude Checklist
[13] Character Strengths and Virtues, page 30.
[14] On Pain and Hope
[15] Character Strengths and Virtues, page 30.
[16] Broad City, Episode 1 (written and created by Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobsen, 2009)
Photo by Chaval Brasil.