The Selfless Life is a Good Life
Mary Margaret Fanning
How to live the Good Life has been the focal point of the Conversatio experience. Pondered by saints and scholars for centuries, the pursuit of the Good Life is one which forms the basis of Saint Anselm College’s liberal arts identity and is inseparable from the values of the institution. Stress on this idea was repeated throughout the year-long course, and themes encouraged living the Good Life were highlighted and addressed time and again. The readings chosen for Conversatio were included because of their connection to one another and to the overall message of their respective units. As such, it was not difficult to identify chief, recurrent themes woven throughout the various materials. To name a few, there were emphases on community, friendship, being true to oneself, forming a relationship with a higher power, and so on and so forth. With such a wide range to choose from, pinpointing and focusing on the single most influential theme was quite a trial. After reexamining the sources from last semester and taking the ones from this semester into deeper consideration, I discerned that there is one theme that is featured most frequently in the materials we were assigned: that is the theme of selflessness. Selflessness can be found in examples spanning across the whole year, although it is manifested in slightly different forms. These can be characterized by the concepts of duty, devotion, and diminishment of self. I will examine these three distinct forms of selflessness, each of which I believe to be essential to living a Good Life.
Numerous examples in the assigned texts, movies, and plays showcase that by selflessly prioritizing one’s duty to others, one is able to achieve great fulfillment, peace, and happiness. In The Chosen, Danny Saunders places the wishes of his father and his community over his own goals and aspirations because that is what is expected of him. He is a dutiful son and a devout Hasidic Jew, loyal to the laws and customs of his people. By his selfless act of adhering to his father’s authority despite his desire to explore his great potential in the field of psychology, Danny gains the trust of his father. Eventually, Reb Saunders is able to see Danny’s strong moral character and loyal heart. By selflessly sacrificing his personal career choices for the betterment of his community, Danny is ultimately rewarded with his father’s approval and affection and is able to freely choose how he will live his own life. His duty defined his character.
Contrastingly, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, we see that forsaking one’s duty to one’s kith and kin and obsessively prioritizing personal happiness leads to chaos and discontent, specifically in the case of Helena and Egeus. Helena is so blindly focused on her relationship with Demetrius, that she willingly casts aside her duty to her friend Hermia so that she might reap recognition in the eyes of the man she loves. Likewise, Egeus forsakes his duty to his daughter for his social gratification, and in doing so, instigates the entire drama that unfolds. Had Shakespeare’s play not been a comedy, these characters’ lives would have ended far more tragically. Properly ordered duty to others strengthens one’s sense of self and frees one from unhealthy, selfish pursuits. As such, finding this middle ground is crucial to living a good and happy life.
Going hand-in-hand with duty, devotion is another form of selflessness which, I believe, is exemplified in the chosen texts. Devotion to a cause, a people, or a deity allows one to detach oneself from the fleeting, material things of this world. In Of Gods and Men, the Trappist monks of the priory selflessly decide to remain in Algeria despite the very real threat to their lives and safety. In the spirit of Saint Augustine—who preached that true happiness lies in heaven rather than on earth—the monks force themselves not to succumb to their fears of torment and death because of their great devotion to God and to the people they were called to serve. Although they were martyred, I strongly believe that each of them lived the “Good Life,”—for they died bravely and willingly. Although their devotion to the divine demanded a heavy price, the monks eventually realized that they were happy to pay it. The resolve the community found in their mission cemented their brotherhood and gave them greater joy than any selfish pursuit ever could. Opposing this mindset would be the figure of Judas from Luke’s Gospel, who selfishly remains devoted to his own idea of the Messiah’s mission. Judas focuses only on his own desires, pitting himself against God, which inevitably leads to isolation, unhappiness, and suicide. To live an authentically Good Life, one must be devoted to a cause greater than oneself, because that devotion will put the material things of the world into perspective and provide the individual with inner peace. Ultimately, despite their trials in life, the monks achieved an intangible reward in their community and their faith via their selfless actions.
Perhaps the greatest form of selflessness is the diminishment of one’s own self and interests, which I believe to be essential in Phil Connors’ redemption arc in the film Groundhog Day. Phil is introduced to us as a proud, arrogant, selfish, cruel man—furthermore, he is bitter, unhappy, and lonely. Upon discovering that he is trapped in a time loop, his knee-jerk reaction is to commit crimes and manipulate women, all for his own personal gain and enjoyment. After a period of despondency, suicide, and anger at the universe, Phil begins to do benevolent deeds for the benefit of the folks of Punxsutawney, initially for his own gratification, but later developing into a genuine desire to do good for the sake of others rather than for himself. It is this realization that ultimately frees Phil from his temporal prison. He ends the film a happy man, and at peace with himself and the world around him. By prioritizing others and diminishing himself and his pride, Phil becomes beloved in Punxsutawney and even gets the girl through his own authentic merits.
In juxtaposition, it is the pride of the townspeople in the small east Texas town in The Great Debaters that fuels their racism and keeps the color line divided. Their complete fixation on their own interests and the exclusion of others is extremely selfish, even though Melvin Tolson’s movement for a union would benefit all. The racists of the movie refuse to diminish themselves, especially not for the sake of others, as racism is built upon the belief that some are inherently greater than others. This mentality not only harms innocent people but also divides the community and prevents all citizens from living better lives. In the same vein, although seemingly dissimilar, the people at Harvard who invite the Wiley students to debate do so for selfish reasons: they wish to be perceived as superior, not only in terms of skill but also in morality. It can be argued that Harvard did not invite the debate team due to their own merits, as they were surprised when the Wiley students won and applauded in astonishment. This demonstrates that they did not truly value or anticipate the abilities of the students. Presupposed self-importance stands in direct contrast to living a Good Life, which requires that one let go of pride in order to be truly happy with oneself.
From the very beginning, the Conversatio program has been preparing students to answer that ever so pressing question: what makes for the Good Life? The college believes that this is essential to our formation as Anselmians, and crucial to our future happiness. All students must partake in the discovery of their very own Conversatio, for our own good and for the good of others. After spending two semesters in the Conversatio program, I have inevitably concluded that a life lived selflessly for the betterment of others is the Good Life—the life well lived. While other philosophies may also provide happiness to the individual, this satisfaction is brief and often meaningless in the long run. Selfless acts of duty, devotion, and diminishment of self compel people to look not at the world through a lens of self-obsession and personal joy, but rather through the perspective of others (or even through the eyes of God). In this way, we are better able to appreciate the communities around us and can live our lives genuinely, in a manner which is ordered properly.
The Good Life lies in realizing that while you cannot be the most important of people, your actions can affect (and even change) the lives of those around you for the better and that caring for others will bring you greater happiness than any self-centered pursuit. Duty, devotion, and diminishment of self might seem difficult or dull, but the Good Life never promised to be easy. Things that are good are seldom easy, as a matter of fact. Being selfish comes more naturally to people and is not wholly bad—but focusing purely on one’s own desires for the sake of oneself isolates and alienates the individual from the community and the divine, which in turns disrupts the innate human compulsion of achieving inner peace. Peace with oneself is synonymous with living a Good Life—as is love and care for the world in which we live. The Good Life is the life lived in consideration of others, where one finds that there is found harmony between the individual, the community, and the divine.
Mary Margaret Fanning is a senior Classical Archaeology major at Saint Anselm College, interested in the conservation of historical environments and preservation of past peoples and cultures. She intends to pursue her field further in graduate school, following a gap year. Mary Margaret is delighted that her works have been selected for humanitas, and she considers this honor to be the happy culmination of her time as an undergraduate.