Walking in beauty heightens the resonance between beauty in our surroundings and beauty in ourselves; and this resonance enhances vitality. Vitality is associated with energy, enthusiasm, zest, and vigor. As psychologists describe it, vitality involves the entire personality, embracing several kinds of value: biological, psychological, social, philosophical, and spiritual. Vitality expresses physical health and stamina as well as mental well-being; it includes being decisive and effective in getting things done; and it is an indicator of personal and social integration. Since it owes so much to genetic inheritance and upbringing, vitality is not a typical virtue. But personal growth and cultivation may be required to sustain and enhance natural and unconsciously acquired vitality, which seems to be a result of balanced energies; tension, stress, and conflict depress vitality. Researchers have noted another aspect of vitality with great implications for the value priorities of our culture. Vitality is linked with happiness in the classic sense of full functioning and self-actualization rather than pleasure (and happiness in the sense of momentary satisfaction). The pursuit of pleasure, self-gratification, can compromise vitality and interfere with true happiness.[1]
When you are living at your best, you enjoy a higher quality of vitality. In your experience, what factors enhance vitality, and what difference does vitality make in your capacity for optimal functioning?
[1] This paragraph summarizes Jessey H. Bernstein and Richard M. Ryan, “Vitality,” in Peterson and Seligman, Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 273—80. The photo credit: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Aymanati.jpg
In addition to having good health of the whole personality, essential to vitality is the pursuit of a worthwhile purpose, and a identified vocation for pursuing that purpose. Without those factors, vitality slips away.
Dr Perry
Beloved brother Dr Perry, thank you for this comment, which opens a huge question. I use the phrase, “when you are living at our best.” Once a friend told me, “I have never experienced that.” He was depressed, working an extremely demanding job, seeing decline in a school that he had attended and continued to support, and frustrated in his worship life. It is the character of depression to spread its cloud into the interpretation of a person’s past and future. He simply could not access better days, even though he was able to find important sources of satisfaction in life and could enjoy conversation with a friend. I believe we are at our best in moments when we make a genuine, full moral decision–engaging our mental and spiritual gears in a unified way.
The question arises whether it is possible to live at one’s best when in poor health or dying. One can experience inner health, even the body is not doing well. Maybe the concept should be clarified: living as best one can in the circumstances.
In addition to having good health of the whole personality, essential to vitality is the pursuit of a worthwhile purpose, and a identified vocation for pursuing that purpose. Without those factors, vitality slips away.
Dr Perry
Beloved brother Dr Perry, thank you for this comment, which opens a huge question. I use the phrase, “when you are living at our best.” Once a friend told me, “I have never experienced that.” He was depressed, working an extremely demanding job, seeing decline in a school that he had attended and continued to support, and frustrated in his worship life. It is the character of depression to spread its cloud into the interpretation of a person’s past and future. He simply could not access better days, even though he was able to find important sources of satisfaction in life and could enjoy conversation with a friend. I believe we are at our best in moments when we make a genuine, full moral decision–engaging our mental and spiritual gears in a unified way.
The question arises whether it is possible to live at one’s best when in poor health or dying. One can experience inner health, even the body is not doing well. Maybe the concept should be clarified: living as best one can in the circumstances.
In my experience vitality is very much linked to happiness; I feel energized when I am happy and this happiness comes from an inner satisfaction. The kind of satisfaction that would truly bring that vitality to my life is one that results from at least some degree of balancing of spiritual, mental, and physical energies. Vitality enhances my capacity for better functioning, and makes me more receptive of “vitalizing” influences around me. In addition I find that when I am more spiritually tuned in I experience a more potent and higher quality of vitality. Lastly, when I am of service to others I feel vitality at a higher level.
Mahtab, such a clear, intelligent, spiritually fresh, and well-focused statement is of service to this conversation. I hope your vitality got a boost from writing it! I get a vitality boost by reading it.
In my experience vitality is very much linked to happiness; I feel energized when I am happy and this happiness comes from an inner satisfaction. The kind of satisfaction that would truly bring that vitality to my life is one that results from at least some degree of balancing of spiritual, mental, and physical energies. Vitality enhances my capacity for better functioning, and makes me more receptive of “vitalizing” influences around me. In addition I find that when I am more spiritually tuned in I experience a more potent and higher quality of vitality. Lastly, when I am of service to others I feel vitality at a higher level.
Mahtab, such a clear, intelligent, spiritually fresh, and well-focused statement is of service to this conversation. I hope your vitality got a boost from writing it! I get a vitality boost by reading it.
I find my greatest happiness when I’m being of service to others. If I can help someone, really help them to find an answer or give them peace and comfort, or help them feel better about themselves or God, that leaves me supremely happy, satisfied and vitalized.
Thank you, Paula, for joining our conversation. You are being of service by doing so. You show yourself to be a true spiritual teacher by feeling as you do as you serve: “supremely happy, satisfied, and vitalized.”
I find my greatest happiness when I’m being of service to others. If I can help someone, really help them to find an answer or give them peace and comfort, or help them feel better about themselves or God, that leaves me supremely happy, satisfied and vitalized.
Thank you, Paula, for joining our conversation. You are being of service by doing so. You show yourself to be a true spiritual teacher by feeling as you do as you serve: “supremely happy, satisfied, and vitalized.”