Does doing good make you happier?

I will be starting a series of meditation classes on “how to develop ethical intelligence” tomorrow, so with this in mind I thought I would have a little bit of a look at the basic question “does doing good make you happier?” And a second follow up question, “if it does make you happier, why do we find it so tough to do, and so easy to do the opposite?” Then I want to finish off with a meditation exercise where we are specifically developing an appreciation of our own good actions, and seeing just how happy they can indeed make us.

So, does doing good make you happier?
On a basic level, yes it does, when you can combine TWO different types of good actions into your life in a balanced and harmonious way. I am going to call these two types of good actions “naturally good actions” and “willed good actions”.

Naturally good actions:
Naturally good actions are actions that are more about cultivating relaxed forms of holistic awareness that, when we engage in them help us to connect to conditions of healing, regeneration and wonder within ourselves. They are not “willed” dynamic actions, but more about opening to what is already there and allowing ourselves to sink into the experience. Some examples of naturally good actions might be:
- Creating spaces in our day for our mind to naturally unwind and unclutter, so that we can connect to the natural wholeness and dignity of our soul and inner being
- Connecting to the natural rhythms of nature and landscape, and allowing these natural planetary rhythms to bring our own individual rhythm back into balance
- Deliberately getting in touch with deeper conditions of “feeling-ness” within our mind and body, and making sure that we do not allow our mind and daily actions to become feelingless and mechanical.
Naturally good actions are an essential part of leaning to do good and enjoy it. They are not about doing anything special, just creating spaces in our everyday life to open to what is there and improve our qualitative experience of it.

Willed good actions:
Willed good actions are more dynamic forms of virtue where we are actively taking a step to do something that we consider to be positive for ourself or for the sake of another, amongst infinite examples here are a few
- The giving of time and money to good causes
- Helping others to develop their skills in an area where we have competence
- Refraining from food from unethical sources, or where animals have had to die for our pleasure
- Reducing our energy consumption
- Actively refraining from our own negative habitual actions such as bitching about others behind their back
So, I think we are all familiar with the different types of willed good actions on a basic level.

Why do we find it so difficult to do good, and so easy to do the opposite?
There are many answers to this, but my answer here is that one main reason why we find it so difficult to do good is that our understanding of good actions is very biased toward “willed” good actions that I mentioned above, and we have not developed our experience of “naturally” good actions substantially enough. If we see good actions as something that we SHOULD do, and continually will ourselves to do those good actions, we will lose sight of the NATURAL PLEASURE of doing good. Doing good starts to feel like an obligation, and of course when our ego feels like we are obliged to do something, then it rebels, it looks for reasons to sabotage our perceived obligations.
So, my proposed solution here is that we spend more time getting in touch with the “naturally” good actions that I outline above. Engaging in these activities each day will help us to keep in touch with the natural feel good factor of goodness, and prevent us from feeling as if doing good is an obligation. Naturally good actions are those that naturally help us to rest, regenerate and revive depth and sensitivity of feeling, and that heal us of the naturally fractious and fragmented states of consciousness that we find ourselves in for so much of our everyday life.

Meditation for combining the willed and natural good within us.
What I am going to do now is outline a meditative exercise that will help us to combine both natural good and willed good into a single experience. In this exercise we look at willed good actions that we have done in the past or present, and rejoice in them, allowing our contemplation of them to produce feelings of natural goodness and depth within our being. It is very simple and easy to do, and you can apply it to your own experiences with no trouble:

Firstly sit down in a comfortable posture with a relatively straight back, spend a little time relaxing your body and breathing, setting aside your daily tasks just for a short time.
Now bring to mind two or three willed good actions that you have done recently, here are my three that I am thinking of as I write:
- Renewal of my membership to treesforlife.co.uk , a group that is regenerating the wild rainforest in the west coast of Scotland
- Time spent last night helping a friend talk through an issue on the phone
- The fact that our family now uses 100% green washing powder for clothes and dishwashing liquid
Bring these to mind (write them down if you like), and just contemplate them and breathe with them for a while. In my case using the above examples, I think about how in some small way I am helping regenerate forest in Scotland, how I have helped a friend clarify their issues, how the water that goes into the drain from our house has far, far fewer damaging chemicals.
As I contemplate like this there is a NATURAL feel good factor that starts to arise, I can feel my body relax, my face begins to smile gently, it feels good to have done good.
Once you have that good FEELING in your heart, mind and body from having contemplated what you have done, you can now stop contemplating the specific actions that you have done, and instead just breathe the feeling that you now have in my mind and body in and out. Allow that good feeling to move as deep as possible into your consciousness and into your cellular structure. It is almost like you are soaking in your good feeling like soaking in a bath. Stay with this feeling, (using the breathing as a focus point to orientate you concentration) for as long as you like, then when you are ready relax and move back to your daily awareness.

So, my final comment here is that doing good does make us happy, but we have to learn to do good in the right way, out of a conscious volitional choice, not out of obligation!

© Text Toby Ouvry 2010, please do not reproduce without permission.