by Mwizenge S. Tembo, Ph. D.
Emeritus Professor of Sociology
Sunday Service Message to the Harrisonburg Unitarian Universalist Congregation
Message for January 19, 2025
Video: “The Soul of Nature” by Mwizenge Tembo
It all started when I was in Seventh Grade and 13 years old. I was attending the Tamanda Dutch Mission Boarding School for boys 59 years ago in 1966. We were all village kids from some of the remotest parts of Africa in Zambia. One day my teacher, Mr. Phiri, gave the class of 30 students an inspirational speech about our future and the possibilities for further education. From that moment I was motivated to pursue knowledge through Chizongwe high school, University of Zambia, and Michigan State University.
After 21 years since 1966 when I was 13 years old, I finally had reached the very top of the mountain, the pinnacle of knowledge in 1987, so I thought. Having officially completed my doctoral degree; I walked to the administration building at Michigan State University carrying my big Ph. D. dissertation copy in Sociology and turned it in. I went home to our small 2-bedroom graduate student married housing apartment to my wife and our 2 small kids. But something went terribly wrong.
I was supposed to be happy and thrilled. I had achieved all that I wanted all my life and I was 33 years old at that time. This was all that I wanted; 2 kids, my wife, a Ph. D. Degree and I did not even have to look for a job because I already had a teaching position as Assistant Professor at University of Zambia. Yet I was not thrilled. Why was I unhappy? I was disillusioned in so many ways.
I began the search for answers for many weeks. To cut a long story short. I read several books including this book: “When all you have ever wanted isn’t enough” by Rabbi Harold Kushner. The answer was right under my nose: “Good and significant relationships with other people.” This answer seems simple but it opened a pandora’s box. How many of us have significant, strong, and meaningful relationships with other people? I may have been lucky to have good meaningful relationships. But what gets in the way of developing these relationships in America, other societies and communities today? Competition. The struggle to be the best, to be on top, to get the most, and the best of everything and anything in our lives.
Our American society and increasingly other societies in the world have the philosophy that you can only be happy if you fight and struggle to be the best, to be at the top at any cost. What does this mean in real life? Let’s list a few things. You want to be the best and top of you graduating class, you have to climb typically the corporate ladder to the top to be successful. You have to date and marry the best, and the most beautiful, to have the best family, you want to be dominant, and be a high achiever, to be wealthiest, to be a billionaire, the list can go and on. What often happens is that once we reach that top, we find out we are not happy at all. Why is it that even when we have all that we wanted, we are still unhappy? The explanation is that in this process, we often abuse power in order to get to the top.
Every one of us have certain forms of power. You may not believe this. But just think of this. Babies have power, children have power, men have power, women have power. It is how we use that power that is likely to make us happy or unhappy. There are 5 factors that have been found to create happiness. These are 1. Have Control in our lives, 2. We have to have Optimism 3. We have to have Faith, 4. We have to have meaningful activities, a job, an occupation, or work. 5. Strong, close or meaningful relationships with other people.
Having control in our lives refers to how much power we have in life that we use to provide us with food, to provide for loved ones which is often the family, how much power do we have in our marriages and the family. Although all of us want that power, but power has a paradox. (Describe what a Paradox is) When we have pursued what we want using excessive destructive power and we finally reach the top of our lives or career, we are all alone because we may have destroyed most if not all the genuine social relationship in our lives. Because we may be divorced, we never attended our children’s birthdays, never spent much time with our spouse, we are paranoid about everyone because there was so much competitive conflict, stress, and back stabbing during our careers.
All this fierce drive and frustrations in our pursuit of success in our lives are not new. Rabbi Kushner says that The Old Testament book in the Bible; the book of Ecclesiastes is the most dangerous. Because Ecclestiastes experienced the same experiences of frustrations during Biblical times that we experience today. Ecclestiastes says and I quote: “There is an evil I have observed under the sun, and a grave one it is for man, that God sometimes grants a man riches, property and wealth, so that he does not want for anything, but God does not permit him to enjoy it. If a man beget a hundred children and live many years, but never find contentment, I would say that a stillborn child not even accorded a burial is more fortunate than he.” Ecclesiastes 6: Verse 1 to 3.
How many times have you heard or have been aware that some of the richest people, the billionaires, the most famous, CEOs of the largest corporations, those men who have married the most beautiful women experience the least happiness? What has scared me the most are the people that win the largest state lotteries, the instant millionaires. Many of them experience the worst disappointments in their lives. Why? Many regret that the worst part of winning the state lottery is that they lost close relationships with family members, workmates, and friends.
We come back to the key question: “When we have all that we wanted, why are we still unhappy? Miserable?” I did not create this timing of this subject matter. Do we have everything in our lives and yet we are still unhappy? We have an inauguration tomorrow. As Americans, we are the richest and most powerful nation or society. We have everything. But can we say we have everything we wanted and we are happy? This is not a rhetorical question today.
Finally let me end on this note: “We generally may have everything we have ever wanted, but how can we be happy today and especially the next 4 years?” Remember the 5 factors of happiness: Control over our lives, Optimism, Faith, to have Meaningful work or activities, and having good and strong relationships with other people; this does not mean having a thousand friends on social media. One of the most important things we should be aware of are from this quote from the late Kenneth Kaunda, President of Zambia; the power of love.
“The very attempts of modern societies to insulate themselves from suffering have resulted in a refusal of love, for the willingness to love and be loved makes suffering inevitable.” President Kenneth Kaunda, A Humanist in Africa, 1966, 1976, p. 40.
The following quote is NOT from President Kaunda but this quote is from me: “If you are a malignant narcissistic socio path, you may never experience true love. Because love requires that you feel empathy. And that is the tragedy of our times”.
This is one instant of out of the many in my life when I was fortunate enough to experience happiness.
The Village and the video: “The Soul of Nature” reminds me of God’s creation of the beauty of the earth: Genesis 1 Verses 1 to 25. (Show my job FOUR job slides from my model village. THREE, FOUR, and FIVE)
My parting advice: In case you wake up tomorrow and decide, I will have a laser beam single focus on pursuing happiness. After all it is in the constitution. You decide to furiously volunteer, you make large donations to charitable causes, you work 60 hours per week to feed your family, on and on until you discover and ask yourself; “Am doing all these great things, why don’t I feel this thing that they call happiness?” Rabbit Kushner has an answer and I agree with him and I quote: “You don’t become happy by pursuing happiness. You become happy by living a life that means something……..Happiness is a butterfly – the more you chase it, the more it flies away from you and hides. But stop chasing it, put away your net and busy yourself with other, more productive things than the pursuit of personal happiness, and happiness will sneak up on you from behind and perch on your shoulder.” (Kushner, 1968: p. 23)