Prez Corner:
Thoughtful notes from a fearless LVTC leader.
Happiness = We/I
How do you define ‘happiness’? What makes you smile or laugh? What ‘makes your day’? What makes you say ‘Wow, that was a good day’?
Each Las Vegas Triathlon Club event that we have, I always walk away ‘happy’ and proud to be part of a club that enjoys good strong competition and challenges while at the same time enjoying each other’s friendship and support. Each event is a great social event as it is a healthy competition. Even when the gun goes off and even during the race, I see so many members encouraging each other, helping each other, and enjoying celebrating each other’s accomplishments.
In the ‘real world’ I teach Biomechanics – which is the ‘physics of sport.’ I think equations … ∑F = ma, ∑T = Iα, and so forth. The wonderfully simple heading graphic atop this newsletter explains the following:
‘We’ represents other people: e.g., other club members, other community members, …
‘I’ represents the individual. That is, the more that ‘I’ give to others (‘We’) the bigger the ‘happiness quotient’. For example, if the ‘We’ (i.e., supporting and encouraging others) is a value of ‘10’ and the ‘I’ is a value of ‘1’, the Happiness Quotient = 10.
But, if the ‘We’ is only a ‘1’ and the ‘I’ is a ‘10’ … the happiness quotient is 0.1 … not so happy.
In words, what this equation means to me is that the more that an individual can give to a community, the more encouraging we can be of others, the more that we can enjoy celebrating other achievements, then the happier the individual will be.
In short: There is such a great feeling encouraging others and watching them achieve their goals.
What is also great about this equation is that the individual can also go after his/her goal … set those goals high and work to achieve them. But when you increase the ‘I’ value, you have to also increase the ‘We’ in order to still achieve a high level of happiness.
From Day 1 of being involved with the club, I’ve been impressed with how open and caring our club members are – I see members loaning and donating gear to help new athletes get started. I see people getting together for group rides / swims / runs to help encourage each other with training. Fantastic.
The ‘We’ value is high in our club!
Go after great individual achievements – and, at the same time, help and encourage others and your happiness quotient will be high.
~John Mercer
