A Standard Over 250 Years in the Making
It's one thing to be nice. It's another to be lovely.
In 2015, I read a book that deeply affected me in the moment, helped accelerate my emotional intelligence practice and, as a result, delivered on its title. That book was How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life: An Unexpected Guide to Human Nature and Happiness, by Russell Roberts.
It’s a book about an economist by an economist but – as you can tell by the title – it has nothing to do with economics.
Many people know Adam Smith as the father of capitalism because of the seminal book he published in 1776, The Wealth of Nations. But few people know that Smith was also a social philosopher, memorialized in his first book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, which was published in 1759 when he was 36 years old. That book uncovers the human side of Smith, in which he addresses more philosophical and esoteric topics such as morality, happiness, respect, and the meaning of life.
Russ Roberts was so moved by reading Moral Sentiments that he decided to write his own book about it, interpreting Smith’s main ideas in the context of modern society. In particular, Roberts interprets the core message of Moral Sentiments as the following:
The chief part of human happiness arises from the consciousness of being beloved. For Smith, being loved is a natural result of being lovely. When Smith says that we want to be lovely, he means worthy of being loved.
And by “worthy”, according to Roberts’ interpretation, Adam Smith means having integrity, honesty, good principles, a good name, and a good reputation: virtues that most people aspire to achieving and practicing, and that are often mentioned as important elements of humanity and leadership.
Roberts continues:
When [Smith] says we want to be loved, he means paid attention to, liked, respected, honored. We want to matter. We want people to notice us, to think highly of us.
So then, the natural question is, how do we become worthy of being loved by being lovely? According to Roberts,
Smith has two answers for how to be lovely.
The first is a minimum standard, what Smith calls propriety…acting appropriately. And by appropriately, he means meeting the expectations of those around us – acting in the way that they expect and that allows them to interact with us in the way that we expect. When we conform to such expectations, we allow those around us to trust us. That trust allows us to share our emotions with each other at the right level of intensity for the different rings of intimacy we inhabit. That’s the beginning of loveliness, of earning the respect of those around us, along with self-respect. Propriety gains you the approval of those around you. But it is not admired or celebrated. For admiration and celebration, you need virtue [the second answer].
What exactly does Smith mean by virtue? Prudence, justice, and beneficence. For Smith, prudence means, in modern terms, taking care of yourself, justice means not hurting others, and beneficence means being good to others.
First of all, I must point out that I feel a kinship to both Smith and Roberts simply due to the language the latter uses in the above passage: “minimum standard” and, of course, “expectations.” One of my deep convictions is that when we set a standard and communicate it to others, we are able to manage their expectations. Smith - through Roberts - says that if we act appropriately, we meet the expectations of others and enable them to do the same with us.
Second, and more importantly, I see a compelling standard by reversing the order of Roberts’ passage:
Imagine taking care of yourself, not hurting others, and being good to others.
By practicing these three things regularly (referred to as prudence, justice, and beneficence by Smith), you’re enabled to meet the standard of virtue.
That could put you in position to be admired and celebrated, a heightened version of being seen, acknowledged, and recognized, all of which are fundamental human desires, in my opinion.
Before being admired and celebrated, however, you must gain approval, or earn the respect of others and have self-respect.
That’s achieved by building trust with others in a way that makes sense given how intimate of a relationship you have with them (acquaintance, friend, best friend, loved one, significant other, etc.).
That trust gets built by conforming to, or meeting, the expectations of those people.
And that, of course, is achieved by you simply acting appropriately.
Where I’m going with all of this is that “being lovely” is a very hard standard to set because it lacks specificity. We don’t know what to necessarily do by setting that standard.
However, if we simply practice the first item in my reversed list - taking care of yourself, not hurting others, and being good - we can put ourselves on the path to being lovely.
And when we start being lovely, according to Roberts and Smith:
We become worthy of being loved.
We are paid attention to, liked, respected, honored, noticed, thought highly of, and feel like we matter.
That leads to us having integrity, honesty, good principles, and a good name.
That, combined with being loved, leads to happiness.
So it all starts with taking care of ourselves (physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, financially), not hurting others (based on their perspective, not ours), and being good to others (again, based on their view).
That’s the standard worth setting. Sounds pretty easy, right?
After all, many of us might say that we already do those three things. But do we practice them consistently and together with everyone and every day?
As someone who has been actively trying to do so since 2015, I can honestly say that it’s not as easy as I originally thought. I don’t do it every day and with every person, however, I’m continuing to work on it and believe I’m gradually making progress.
But it’s been a standard worth setting.
(adapted from How Being Lovely Helps You Become a Better Leader)