Get the Workbook | Facilitator Guide | If you take a moment to think about all the choices you make in life, from what to have for breakfast to charting a course to achieve your long-term goals, you will notice that everything you want to do is because you believe it will make you happy. So, what makes you happy? A good meal? Winning a game? Getting more likes, views, and upvotes? Making the top 10% of your class and getting into the best colleges? Each of these examples are good. But is there anything beyond these forms of happiness, a form of happiness which could be more pervasive, enduring, deep?
In this episode you will learn that ...
■ There are four major kinds of desire: the desire for sensual pleasure, the desire to get ahead over others, the desire to help others, and the desire for the transcendent.
■ When our desires are satisfied, we feel corresponding levels of happiness.
■ Sensual pleasure is fleeting, and a focus only on ego-comparative desires traps us in a comparison game.
■ The human capacity for empathy and conscience forms the basis for contributive-empathetic desires and the happiness we feel when we make a positive difference to someone or something beyond ourselves.
■ Even if we live a completely contributive-empathetic life, we will still experience a desire for the transcendental.
■ Our four fundamental desires exist in us, whether we acknowledge them or not. It is important to let the higher levels take a lead role in our lives and keep the lower levels in their proper place, as a means to the end of a fully lived life.
About Fr Spitzer: Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on May 16, 1952, Fr. Spitzer is a Catholic priest in the Jesuit order and is currently the President of the Magis Center of Reason and Faith (magiscenter.com). The Magis Center produces documentaries, books, high school programs, college courses, adult-education programs, and social media materials on the close connection among science, reason, and faith. Fr. Spitzer is also the President, Master of Ceremonies, and speaker at the Napa Institute (napa-institute.org).