To be grateful

I’ve been thinking a lot about happiness lately, especially since the What I Be Project and Me Too Monologues have come to campus. These events bring attention to the important and hard-hitting issues that impact Duke students. I found both of them to be powerful and insightful lenses into the lives of Duke students and it made me realize that while our campus is a prestigious place to be, that doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone here is happy.

That fact that everyone who goes to Duke isn’t 100 percent happy all the time isn’t that surprising. If you spend more time thinking about how incredible an opportunity it is to receive a college education, to have the luxury of devoting four more years of our lives towards furthering our understanding of the world, you would think that everyone here should be elated. After all, this is a highly ranked, international university. The students and faculty come from all around the world, and the research is rigorous, covering everything from evolutionary anthropology to behavioral economics. Shouldn’t we all be excited? Shouldn’t we be striving to make the most of every minute we spend here?

Doing so is far easier said than done. The reality is that Duke can be competitive, overwhelming and stressful. The vast majority of us are in fact extremely grateful for the opportunity to be here. Still, the realities of being at Duke test us constantly, as evidenced by the common saying, “Duke isn’t a great place to be, it is a great place to be from.”

So how do we appreciate Duke and be happy for what we have, while also being vulnerable and open to the challenges that face us while attending this University?

The science of happiness may have something to offer us. Research shows that happiness is a complex thing—difficult both to describe but also to achieve. It turns out that some people may be genetically engineered to be happier, but that there are also certain techniques and attitudes we can practice to help us along the way.

Studies have explored various approaches, but one 2003 paper suggests that keeping a gratitude journal, something as simple as writing down the things for which one is grateful for a few times a week, can go a long way in increase life satisfaction.

Simply put, if we focus on the things that make us happy, we will generally become happier. As Duke students, this can translate into many different approaches. It can either be a slight tweak in our internal dialogue such as reminding ourselves of how beautiful the Chapel looks on a sunny day. Or maybe it is being vocal and sharing how grateful we feel or reflecting on the positive things in our life, like Duke basketball beating UNC in that epic standoff.

I hope to put this theory into practice by keeping a “gratitude jar.” It’s a pretty humble mechanism; it is literally a jar that will sit in my room and will eventually be filled with little notes about things I am grateful for. The notes won’t have to be on something hard-hitting like “my Duke experience” or “my family.” It could just be that I’m grateful my salmon was cooked all the way through at The Loop or that I got to take a fifteen-minute walk through the Sarah P. Duke Gardens on my way to class.

One of the greatest strengths of this school is the constant self-criticism students are willing to lend. We push our administration to take issues regarding race and gender more seriously, we have extensive conversations about sexual assault and we make it very clear when we are disappointed with Duke, the institution.

In focusing on the flaws of both Duke and ourselves, we may neglect to focus on our own happiness. As students, we should continue to engage in difficult conversations sparked by events like Me Too and What I Be, and we should encourage vulnerability and reflection. However, I worry that if we spend too much time focusing on the difficult and negative experiences in our lives, we endanger our ability to also appreciate everything we have to be grateful for and ultimately our ability to be happy.