Clarity is …. evolving
Since 2014, I’ve been writing a reflection of what clarity means to different people at different times. Many of our former and contemporary professionals also use clarity, or clarifying as a wheelhouse tool to prove a point, share their wisdom, or guide their clients toward living a better life. Today, my version of clarity is evolving. This will be my last weekly ‘clarity is’ … for now. We are morphing into taking clarity on the virtual road trip.
At the same time that I’ve needed a transformation, the leaders at The PPL asked me if I’d like to put together a newsletter. With the personal and professional transformations in my own life, I can’t do both. So? One is simply becoming the other. Clarity will now become a reflection of what’s out there in the field.
PPL
Positive psychology is a very specific scientific field, practiced and researched by thousands of people worldwide. Humility is lucidity. Then, there is an even bigger sector of society who take slivers of the science of positive psychology, slap it on their products, then use it as a selling tool. There is conflict in this phenomenon, that we all know isn’t new. No ideas are ever truly new.
There are some people who are up and coming, just now hearing about that great speech cast to the APA by Dr. Marty Seligman, challenging professional members of the American Psychological Association to bring back a positive psychology. Then, there are some who have issues with the very idea of this great divide in the field.
Revival
We all know that this is a revival, not a new invention. You can find Maslow coining the term on YouTube. The internet is a powerful tool.
We are reinventing the wheel every day. Studies are done, replicated, then sent out into the universe, but how many people who practice the theories, know the original sources of that material? How many know that with every strength of a new discovery, there will ultimately be a limitation that will be challenged? And it will be challenged. That’s how academia works. That seems to be how business works. Even with the best intentions.
Clarity is understanding something from as many definitions of it as one can find. Revisiting our field as both a learning instrument and a teaching tool, or even a selling point are all relevant to this industry of ours.
The whole purpose of my virtual journey is to discover the people behind the positive psychology. I was introduced to the field with an article by Dr. Chris Peterson in 2006. I’d been studying psychology since 1995, but never heard about the idea of studying the healthy, happy side of life. The term, “other people matter” became a part of my worldview, not just my studies. Today, I begin this journal across the globe for other people who share a passion for the field as a way to clarify who we are as a species.
This isn’t a competition or a race. Other than, to glance into the truth of “Other people matter” as a worldview, as … clarity.
Karen
About the Author: Karen Henry [Daly] is a positive psychology. You can visit her on Linked In while her wordpress is out being pressed. Karen is actively seeking to meet you, people of positive psychology.