“How to Have a Great Time and Get a Fantastic Education”

How does a college student have a great time and get a fantastic education? Did you know that there has been a significant amount of research into what it takes to have a great time? Did you know that many people don’t know how to enjoy themselves? They pursue the wrong things, and therefore live unfulfilled lives—often in despair and not really knowing why. Knowing what it takes truly to enjoy one’s self is the first step in maximizing your time here at Montreat College. (By the way, is anyone surprised that the president isn’t telling you to forsake fun for the drudgery of hard academic work? Trust me. I’ll explain.)

Before getting into the research, let’s take a moment to paint a couple of mental pictures that will be useful in our review of how to seek out the best in life.

Recently I was leaving P.F. Chang’s restaurant on Tyvola Road in Charlotte. On the way to the parking garage, I walked past a large bronze casting of an elephant on a pedestal. It stood about 8 to 10 feet tall and was 3 or 4 feet across. I glanced at it as I passed, hardly noticing it, as my mind was preoccupied with tasks yet to be accomplished that night. I was about 20 steps past it when I heard a shriek from behind me. What I saw when I turned around was very instructive and very much on point for our topic today. A little boy of about 3 years old in a red striped shirt and khaki shorts and little Keds sneakers was perfectly enthralled by that elephant. He was so excited, his voice came out in happy shrieks. His body conveyed his excitement, too, as not one part of him was still. He danced. He pointed. He moved all around what was clearly in his mind an object of beauty and wonder. He noticed every detail. He took great joy in studying its features—all very new and exciting to him. In less than 90 seconds he was done, and he moved on to a nearby store window, where he repeated the process, enthused now by some other object. Wow! I wish I experienced such joy in discovery of the world around me!

The second picture is more complicated and much more bleak. The inhumanity of people since the Fall is amazing—indeed history is replete with examples of genocide, torture, and dastardly deeds of multiple varieties. What is instructive for our purposes is how the victims who survived handled their plight both during and after. I’ve had the privilege of knowing a few of the men who survived years in prisoner of war camps during the Vietnam War. They tell stories of solitary confinement, severe deprivation, and torture. All gave in to the demands of their captors at some point. Some became broken men and never really recovered.

James Stockdale was shot down in the mid-1960s and spent the next seven years in what came to be known as the “Hanoi Hilton.” He became the leader of what was up to his arrival a dispirited and disorganized group of prisoners. Failure to confess to war crimes and infractions of any kind often led to beatings and torture. One form of torture still causes me to wince when I think about it. Imagine a rope tying your elbows together behind your back. A stick wrapped in the middle of that rope took any slack out of the rope and pulled the elbows closer together with each turn. A “confession” might stop the turning of the stick, but in some cases it would be turned until the breast bone pulled apart from the ribs. It’s hard to imagine surviving much less growing in such an environment—yet many did. After their release, Stockdale attained the rank of Vice Admiral in the Navy and went on to become a leading ethicist and philosopher at the Hoover Institute; and John McCain is now a U.S. Senator. These people—and countless other men and women—were able to grow, enjoy themselves, perhaps even become great under the direst of circumstances.

How did they do it? And what do these very different pictures have to do with having a great time and getting a fantastic education? Let’s take a look at some research to find out.

A professor by the name of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (say that three times fast!) from the University of Chicago published a book called Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience in 1990. In it he summarizes “decades of research on the positive aspects of human experience” (xi). The term “flow” comes from the fact that so many of those he studied described themselves as “in the flow” at the times they were most engaged in life and its enjoyment. He references hundreds of studies and writings that try to capture some aspect of what it is that makes people happy and leads them toward enriching, meaningful lives. What he discovered was (this is the critical point) that “happiness is not something that [just] happens. It is not the result of good fortune or random chance. It does not depend on outside events, but, rather, on how we interpret them. Happiness, in fact, is a condition that must be prepared for, cultivated, and defended privately by each person. People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives…” (2, emphasis mine). So your ability to have a great time, here at Montreat College and wherever you go beyond here, is very much up to you.

Alright, so now you’re wondering “how do I take control of my inner experience so I can have a great time”; and the faculty is wondering “how does this result in a fantastic education.”

First, Csikszentmihalyi tells us, we must distinguish between pleasure and enjoyment. Though most of us take pleasure in food (cappuccino crunch ice cream is my favorite), physical stimulation of various sorts (I love a hot Jacuzzi), and chilling out in front of the TV, these things generally don’t bring us enjoyment because they don’t, in his words, “increase the complexity of consciousness.” (We’ll get back to this idea of complexity in a moment.) But the key point here is that pleasure doesn’t help us to grow or provide meaning to our lives. Basically, the research tells us that most people aren’t happy because they are seeking pleasure rather than enjoyment. Listen to that again: Most people aren’t happy because they are seeking pleasure rather than enjoyment.

We all know how to seek pleasure because there are whole industries out there making billions of dollars selling it to us. Food, alcohol, and entertainment industry giants are spending millions every day in advertising telling us that if we just had what they’re selling, we’d be happy. It’s NOT true. Sure, we may be temporarily distracted from our worries, and we may take pleasure in the flavor or sensation, but when it’s over, we’re right back where we were before. If we’re already happy, the sensation gives us a momentary pleasure and we go on being happy. But if we’re not happy, the end of pleasure leads us back to despair and to groping for more pleasure—which, in the end, never satisfies.

Now let’s go back to that idea of complexity of consciousness, the opposite of which is psychic entropy. Entropy is a label for the concept that all things tend to disorder. I bet your folks would agree that your rooms, the bathroom, the house in general, all tend to disorder, right? The same is true for your mind. Psychic entropy, then, is the tendency of the mind or consciousness to tend toward disorder. Complexity of consciousness is the opposite of psychic entropy. Well, why is a disordered mind so bad? Maybe I like my messy brain. Here’s why psychic entropy is bad. Negative thoughts, fears, perceived slights (like “She thinks I’m ugly. I could tell by the way she looked at me.” You know what I mean)—these things tend to float into our consciousness when it is disordered. Ordering the consciousness tends either to press these thoughts out or to deal with their causes constructively.

Are you starting to get the relationship between a fantastic education and a great time? Let’s bring back the little boy dancing about the bronze elephant. We sometimes forget that everything is new to children, that to the still forming brain and consciousness nearly everything is new, that in discovery the consciousness becomes more complex, more ordered, and that in doing so the child experiences great joy. Now in time our little boy will learn (unfortunately) that it is not “cool” to squeal and dance with delight. He’ll learn, like me, to pass by the never-before-seen and brush it off as casually as dandruff off a collar. Perhaps that’s why Jesus tells us that if we are to experience the Kingdom of Heaven we must come to Him like little children—full of wonder and the joy that comes of new discoveries and experience.

What does this little boy have to teach us? A fantastic education will provide daily opportunities for new discoveries. Approach each opportunity—like our little boy—with wonder and awe. And yes, if you still can, dance and clap and squeal with joy (I promise not to tell). But you have to do this yourself. You have to look for what is new and different. You have to seek. And you have to focus. The first secret of a fantastic education and having a great time is that you have to seek them out. How does the old saying go? “The professor can lead a horse to water, but she can’t make it…” No, that’s not quite right, but you get the point. You have to want it, seek it, go after it, experience it for yourself. In doing so you will find joy—if you know how. Let’s turn to our prisoners of war for clues about how to have a great time in college even though it is often hard work.

Why prisoners of war? Aren’t we free to roam at the most beautiful college in America? Here’s why. If P.O.W.s can build meaningful, rewarding, even enjoyable lives in the context of severe deprivation, even torture, imagine how well we can do in the paradise of Montreat. Also, school, or life in general, can often be difficult, so it is good to know that we can learn from those who dealt with the most severe circumstances.

The first lesson they have to teach us is that we all thrive best in community. When James Stockdale arrived at the Hanoi Hilton prison camp, the men there were a disorganized, dispirited lot. They were kept apart and beaten mercilessly if they tried to speak to one another. Stockdale, despite his multiple injuries from ejecting from a disintegrating jet, began to organize them by developing a tapping code that allowed them to communicate under the noses of the guards. It took quite a while, but they came to know all the prisoners—by name and even service number (so if anyone escaped he could make known all the prisoners).

So here’s the Montreat College application: No one here is the Lone Ranger! Get to know your fellow students and the staff and faculty. Make friends that will last a lifetime. Community is a core value for us because we know God created us to live in community. We thrive when we study together, work together, and play together. There is no solitary confinement at Montreat College, and we won’t torture you for talking to each other. So open your doors, leave your Ipod, abandon your virtual TV friends (like Homer Simpson), ignore the Web, forsake your PlayStation 2 and the next video-manipulated adventure, and engage in life with real flesh and blood people who are here right now. All those electronic pretenders stimulate for a moment, but they don’t satisfy. They distract; they don’t provide complexity; they don’t give lasting enjoyment. People do. Get engaged with life.

The next thing our most successful prisoners teach us is to look for opportunities for action. They looked for things they could do, and they set goals appropriate to their skills and circumstances. When they reached a goal, they would set a new higher goal. Stockdale was told he must make a film confessing to war crimes and telling of the benevolent treatment of his captors. He was tortured all over his body, but they left his face alone so he would look good on camera. His goal was to prevent them from using him in this way. He succeeded by beating his own face. They beat him more and restrained him until his face healed and then took him before the camera. This time, totally spent from his treatment and without use of his hands, he acceded to their demands and read the script presented to him. Yet he set a new goal, to convey the prisoners’ circumstances despite what he was being made to say. During the filming, he used his eye lids to send the message: he blinked out in Morse code the letters T-O-R-T-U-R-E. He got his message to the military staff, and he occupied himself in a way that gave him satisfaction, even a sort of enjoyment, in those awful conditions.

The research tells us that goal setting is an important element of enjoyment no matter what our circumstances. So set goals appropriate to your level of skill. If the challenge is too hard, you will feel anxious; if the challenge is too low, you will be bored; if it is just right, you have the opportunity to be in the flow. Remember that goal setting is a key factor in achieving optimal experience. Goals should be very concrete and provide for immediate and regular feedback. When you meet your goals, set new ones that are a little bit harder. Keep track of your progress and you’ll become more and more aware of your increasing mastery.

Athletes and musicians get this intuitively—whether or not they have learned to apply the lesson to other areas of their lives. Athletes and musicians learn the rules, the game or the musical score makes clear the goals, they keep score, they know immediately if their shot goes wide of the mark or if they miss the note. And then (listen closely because what follows is an essential element to achieving optimal experience or flow) they focus intensely while they practice and play. They focus so intensely that they lose track of time. Hours may go by in what seems like minutes. Have you ever done this? Have you ever been so immersed in your instrument, your sport, a book, a conversation with a close friend, that you totally lost track of everything but the moment? Rock climbers speak of this, swimmers trying to break their record, musicians, even prayer warriors. Perhaps this is why the Apostle Paul tells us to pray without ceasing! To do this is to be in the flow, to enjoy the moment fully, to increase the complexity of your consciousness. Most of us have experienced flow at some level, yet most don’t realize that they can do this in as many areas of their lives as they are willing to apply the steps.

So here is what it takes to have a great time and get a fantastic education: