Character, Well-being, and the Pursuit of Happiness

Jennifer Moss, Chief Research and Strategy Officer at the Global Wellbeing Group, who delivered the keynote, cited research from the World Happiness Report suggesting that strangers are about twice as kind as people think. Researchers used lost wallets as an experimental tool to measure people’s expectations regarding the kindness of strangers. They found that people returned lost wallets at double the rate most expected. The research pointed to another key finding. Not only do people universally underestimate others' honesty, but being in an environment where they trust one another also boosts mental health and happiness. 

These findings immediately hit home. Recently, I had the unfortunate experience of losing my credit card. To compound matters, I was travelling abroad and had no other form of payment. A few hours later, I received the most unexpected text. My card had been found, and the person who found it wanted to get it back to me. When I  had the opportunity to meet this person and thank her for her kindness, I asked her why she had gone to such trouble to help me. “Because doing the right thing is important to me,” she said.

I am generally a very happy person and actively work on my physical, emotional, social, spiritual, and financial well-being. But admittedly, I didn’t see this coming, perhaps because I was in a big American city. I learned an important lesson that day, which reminded me of this year’s opening school assembly. 

To kick off the school year, I thought it appropriate to share with the boys a summer highlight — watching the movie The Odyssey with my son Fionn. The Odyssey is one of the oldest works of Greek literature and was my favourite book in high school. First composed more than 2,000 years ago, it’s perhaps the earliest story in the Western canon about character traits such as courage, leadership, and resilience. 

The author Homer portrays a warrior named Odysseus who confronts many obstacles, including man-eating giants, tired soldiers, and changing weather patterns. For more than 10 years after the Trojan War, he struggles to find his way home; while most people think he has perished, his wife Penelope and son Telemachus never give up hope.

I won’t comment on the ending, but it’s worth reading (and certainly watching). We, too, will face many challenges in life, whether we are 15 or 50. Finding our way is the means to grow our character. Like Odysseus, we will be tested. Doing the right thing is never easy, whether in class, at a party, or in the boardroom. However, a test of one’s moral character is choosing right not just when people are watching, but when no one is. And what should we use to guide our behaviour? I contend it is the values that every boy at Crescent can cite on demand: respect, responsibility, honesty, and compassion. 

Our boys are under constant pressure to do the right thing, as are our school and those leading it. And yet, we go about this work of character development every day and not just because it is convenient to do so, because a headline suggests we should, or because of a pop-up initiative elsewhere. 

The Crescent Way is about leaning into our core values with parents, faculty, and students every day in service of our mission to help our boys practice being and doing good, so as to ground them with a moral code that transcends any particular world event. And the kicker — pursuing a life of character (such as with Odysseus and that stranger who returned my credit card) also increases the likelihood of being a happy person. 

With all due respect to artificial intelligence, is there anything more important for the world right now than human character? I don’t think so.

Veritate stamus et crescimus