Find the Fire : Part 2

Why Good Things Happen to Good People: The Exciting New Research that Proves the Link Between Doing Good and Living a Longer, Healthier, Happier Life
by Stephen Post, Ph.D., Jill Neimark

(Page 2 of 2)

A few months after we'd shared tea, Sir John wrote me to continue the conversation; he asked that I establish a first-class scientific institute to study the impact of love and giving on our lives. Soon after, I sat down with the dean of Case Medical School, Nathan A. Berger, to discuss it. "Nate," I said, "public health is about more than the flu and lead paint and obesity. It's also about benevolence and generosity and hope. Love is actually powerful medicine. We all know that - Harry Harlow told us that half a century ago - but we don't study it enough."

In 1951 the psychologist Harry Harlow had offered an extraordinary presidential address to the American Psychological Association. Harlow was one of the first scientists to bring love into the lab. His controversial studies of baby monkeys clinging to cloth-and-wire "moms" are unforgettable - they showed us how deep and hardwired the need for affection and warmth is. "Love," Harlow said, "is a wondrous state, deep, tender and regarding . . . [and yet] psychologists tend to give progressively less attention to a motive which pervades our entire lives." He challenged the entire audience of his peers, asking why we study hatred, violence, fear, pornography, but not positive emotions.

Nate got my point. Visionaries like Nate Berger and Sir John Templeton are rare. And so, in 2001, with a generous start-up grant from the John Templeton Foundation, the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love was founded as an independent entity located at Case Medical School.

Many colleagues of mine, even good friends, have been amused by the name of the Institute. When you accept a challenge like Sir John's, you've got to shore up a lot of nerve to push it forward. And so I embrace the skepticism I encounter. It's one of the delightful challenges of this kind of work, and increasingly, people have come to take the Institute seriously.

When people ask me what the Institute does, I have three answers. The first: we fund pioneering, high-level, empirical research on unselfish love in every aspect from human development and genetics to positive psychology and sociology. The second: Remember what Mr. Rogers said after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks? He was asked on television what parents should tell their children about the terrorist attacks and his simple answer was: "Keep your eye on the helpers." That is what this institute does: it keeps an eye on the helpers, literally studying their good hearts, good works, and good lives, and distills lessons for the rest of us to live by.

And the third answer? In the giving of self lies the unsought discovery of self. In other words, when we give, we find our true selves. At the Institute, we aid that discovery as we can.

Though we are all flawed in a thousand ways, giving can guide our lives. The philosopher Ruth Groenhout of Calvin College recently asked me, "What would it take to generate a true revolution in scientific and evolutionary thinking so that love could be acknowledged openly and unabashedly?"

How about scientific proof for starters? The evidence is mounting, and as you will discover in this book, it is hard not to be swayed by the new research. Let's replace cogito ergo sum ("I think, therefore I am") with the far more benevolent notion, "I love, therefore I am." Love is not so much taught as transmitted, from good neighbors to parents, children, strangers, and saints. What message could be more important?

Consider the story of Katherine Meyers. In the winter of 1996 she met a homeless man named Marvin on the streets of Chicago, and he told her:

"Don't call me homeless. I have a home and it's in my heart." Meyers had just dropped money in Marvin's cup on her morning walk down Michigan Avenue, often called the "Magnificent Mile" because of its imposing stores and architectural splendor. "As I passed him I felt as if my feet weighed two hundred pounds," she recalls. "I couldn't keep walking. I was being pulled back." She turned around and introduced herself. Marvin was born blind, and yet he walked without a cane. "You have eyes in your feet and hands," Meyers said, and he reached for her hand and put it on his heart. "And your heart," she added. She sat down and they began to talk. Soon she put her arms around him, and as she did so she noticed that people walking by them were turning away. Meyers says, "They were missing out on this man's wisdom. He sat there without judgment or bitterness." She has been working with the homeless ever since. "I've learned that an outstretched hand doesn't always mean, 'Put money here.' Sometimes it means, 'Take my hand. See me in my humanity. Acknowledge me.' "

Giving is a great equalizer. Whatever your background - privileged or impoverished, blessed or difficult - the starting place for a life of greater love is within your reach. I think of the life of Susie Valdez, nicknamed the "Queen of the Dumps." Valdez was born in the slums of Mexico, dropped out of school in the tenth grade, and had four babies in quick succession. Packing just a few possessions, she moved with her children to El Paso, Texas, and spent the next forty years caring for dirt-poor Mexicans. Valdez founded a mission, raised funds for two medical centers, mobilized prominent politicians, subsidized schools, and fed as many as three thousand poor people a day. Many who have met her marvel at her charismatic radiance in the face of so much suffering.

Give love, and you'll discover life in all its force, vitality, joy, and buoyancy. In generosity lies healing and health.

The New Science of Love and Health

The remarkable bottom line of the science of love is that giving protects overall health twice as much as aspirin protects against heart disease. If giving weren't free, pharmaceutical companies could herald the discovery of a stupendous new drug called "Give Back" - instead of "Prozac" - and run TV ads about love. The findings of the Institute build on the work of pioneers who have come before me - from great philosophers of love like Pitirim Sorokin to path breaking psychologists of happiness like Martin Seligman, the former head of the American Psychological Association and author of Learned Optimism.

The study of love leaves no person or field of science untouched. For those of us sharing the unfolding of this new field, it is an inspiring time. We are seeing the scientific confirmation of lifelong intuitions. The new research encompasses everybody from Afro-American teenagers to middle-aged Vietnam veterans to churchgoers, atheists, and the elderly. It draws on the insights of scientists from diverse fields - psychology, evolutionary biology, cross-cultural anthropology, gerontology, epidemiology, public health, religion, and human development. Some researchers are even trying to bring love into the doctor's office, asking physicians to prescribe generous behavior. Adam Hirschfelder is one such pioneer: he heads a new program, called Rx: Volunteer, in which patients recruited from the Medicare practice of a large HMO in California receive a volunteerism "prescription" from their physicians.

Giving protects the giver at all ages and stages of life. They say only the good die young. Of course, sometimes the good do die young, and we all eventually face sickness from causes that are completely beyond our control or responsibility. But the remarkably good news is that, over the past ten years, we have about five hundred serious scientific studies that demonstrate the power of unselfish love to enhance health, and our new IRUL-funded studies render the picture even more vivid.

Copyright © 2007 by Stephen Post, Ph.D.

About the Author

Stephen Post, PhD, is a professor of bioethics at Case Western Reserve University's School of Medicine. He is president of the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love, and his work has appeared in top journals such as JAMA, Science, and The Lancet.

Jill Neimark is a journalist, novelist, and former features editor for Psychology Today whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Economist, and Discover.