Article

Change

Royalty

6 May 2023

5 min read

The art of encouraging

After uncovering the enchanting story of how Prince Albert encouraged Queen Victoria, Belle Tindall explains why it's not only children who crave the art of encouragement.

Belle Tindall

Belle is the staff writer at Seen & Unseen.

Under a gilded arch, a statue of a young Queen Victoria sits, between two standing figures.

The Queen Victoria statue in the House of Lords.

Queen Victoria 1819-1901 Reigned 1837-1901 Supporting figures: Justice & Clemency Bas-reliefs: Science Commerce Industry / Useful Arts, Fully-rounded carving by John Gibson , © UK Parliament, WOA S88 heritagecollections.parliament.uk

In the Prince’s Chamber of the House of Lords sits a mighty marble statue of Queen Victoria.

She is sitting on her throne, holding both her sceptre and her crown, hemmed in on either side by two figures who represent justice and mercy. Her expression is strong, her posture is powerful, she is visibly assured and confident in her identity and role as Queen.

You can view the statue, in all its glory, on Parliament's website.

To say it’s striking is an understatement. It’s simply unmissable.

And yet, the most remarkable thing about this statue is not that it exists, there are nine similar figures in London alone. No, what’s so notable about this statue is where it exists, and why.

The story is an admittedly enchanting one. Prince Albert commissioned this particular statue of his wife, and had it precisely placed so that it greeted her head-on as she stepped out of her Robing Room and made her way to the Chamber of the Lords. It had one purpose and one purpose only - to give Queen Victoria courage when she was likely to need it most.

And that’s exactly where it still sits, its colour may be long faded, but its impact is not. It sits as somewhat of an alter to this historic romance, but more profoundly, as an ode to something that is notably overlooked in our culture: it is an ode to the practice of encouragement.

Psychologist and Professor Y Joel Wong powerfully defines encouragement as

‘The expression of affirmation through language or other symbolic representations to instil courage, perseverance, confidence, inspiration, or hope in a person(s) within the context of addressing a challenging situation or realizing a potential’.

When defined this way, it is clear to see just how integral such expressions of affirmation are to the cultivation of a flourishing life. And yet, Prof. Wong also observes just how underestimated, understudied, and undervalued the art of encouragement is. The vast majority of research that has attempted to theorize encouragement places its focus exclusively on early childhood development, implying that they believe it to be an essential need that humans simply outgrow. And yet, while such an idea floats around on an academic level, it’s likely that we each feel a sense that this is simply not congruent with personal experiences. The delight we feel upon learning the story behind Queen Victoria’s statue in the House of Lords is surely evidence that this kind of encouragement from another person is something that we continue to crave well into adulthood.

I would suggest that the underestimation of the practice of encouragement may be a subtle symptom of the individualistic culture we now find ourselves in.

What individualism may starve us of

The political and social philosophy of individualism can be dated back to the late 1700s, primarily as a reaction to the French Revolution. Since then, it has been re-framed and refined countless times, perhaps most influentially by Emile Durkheim in 1893 and Max Weber in 1947. Each philosopher foresaw a society that looks strikingly like ours, here in the 21st Century. A society which expects individuals to grow, learn and flourish independently of each other, which values self-definition, self-sufficiency, and self-actualisation, which ultimately encourages a self-centred and goal-oriented life.

In his 1841 essay, Self-Reliance, Ralph Waldo Emerson famously wrote that ‘nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind’. According to this school of thought, the rights and convictions of the individual supersede the duties of the community, and the Western world is arguably steeped in this very notion (of course, there are exceptions to the rule - the NHS and welfare system being two prime examples).

To condemn individualism completely seems to me to be too simple of a judgment; the notion that one is responsible for their own actions undergirds much of our justice system, our right to question institutions and power structures is integral, while the freedom that each person has (in theory) to pursue their own passions and convictions is a wonderful thing. And yet, it could be argued that the emphasis it places on individual success feeds competition and comparison, which is consequently starving us of empowerment and encouragement.

Perhaps this is one reason the theorizing of encouragement is notably neglected in so much psychological study.

Further to that, maybe this is why stories such as Prince Albert commissioning a statue of Queen Victoria, or Marilyn Monroe famously sitting front row at every one of Ella Fitzgerald’s shows in a notoriously segregated club, or the Barcelonian crowd at the 1992 Olympics who erupted in applause as Team GB’s 400m runner, Derek Redmond, weepingly limped across the finish line with a freshly-torn hamstring, affect us so profoundly. Because encouragement is profoundly absent from our culture - and we miss it.

Christianity and the emotional life

Christianity, as you can imagine, has an awful lot to say about the emotional life of humanity and the key ingredients involved in human flourishing. Although it stresses the individuality and dignity of every single human being, while also emphasising the agency (or ‘free will’) of every person, that is largely where its relationship with individualism comes to a halt. To untangle the inherent value of community from Christianity is a mean feat indeed.

In his book, Unapologetic: Why, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Still Make Surprising Emotional Sense, Francis Spufford writes that Christianity is supposed to make us

‘full of passion for each other’s minds, hearts, souls, and bodies’ because it is in this curiosity and passion that we ‘recreate as best we can some fraction of the absolute and inimitable love behind everything.’

This certainly doesn’t leave much room for an exclusively self-actualising existence.

If Francis Spufford is correct, if Christianity’s worldview has even a little sense to it, then it’s possible that our success is directly linked to the success of others. Individual victories, communal victories, collective losses, personal losses – they are, to a point, inseparable from each other. If this is the case, it is worth suggesting that the art and the impact of encouragement may well be worthy of far more of our attention.

Article

Change

Character

Purpose

Virtues

14 June 2024

7 min read

What’s the point of purpose?

We need a wider understanding of our purpose – grand or small.

Emerson Csorba

Emerson writes on geopolitics. He is also a business executive and holds a doctorate in theology.

A white arrow on tarmac points towards a setting sun and people walking by a silhouetted lamp post.

Chris Loh on Unsplash.

In his 2009 book Start With Why, the leadership speaker and consultant Simon Sinek encourages leaders and businesses to think about their purpose. He encourages them to answer the question ‘Why?’ before moving to ‘How?’ Sinek’s book is part of an industry, with no shortage of self-help books, executive coaches and university programmes assisting individuals in finding purpose. Surely Sinek is right that a sense of mission (the ‘Why?’) needs to come before the development of a strategy (the ‘How?’ as well as ‘Who?’ ‘What?’ ‘When?’ and ‘Where?’). Yet working out our purpose is not easy. It takes time, effort, listening and crucially, an open mind.

In a ‘purpose economy’ (to use the term coined by writer Aaron Hurst), we risk arriving at fast, superficial, or inflated purposes disconnected from the unique vocations to which we are actually called. Several years ago, I undertook a project, of which elements were shared in the Harvard Business Review. One interviewee stated ‘We are a generation that is ruthlessly comparing ourselves with those around us and our role models at the same time. And if we are not doing something exceptional or don’t feel important and fulfilled for what we are doing, we have a hard time.’ In an age dominated by social media and its emphasis on presentation of superficial images inviting us to compare ourselves with others, these are words worth dwelling on.

This reflection struck me at the time, implying that many people believe that their purposes must be significant. Without grand purposes, we tend to struggle. That interviewee was right. Many of us value purposes involving high levels of excellence if not notoriety, whether pursuing elected political office, climbing the ranks in prestigious industries such as finance or consulting, or entering professions that are well-known and whose value can be readily explained to others (such as medicine, law or accounting).

The problem with an idea of purpose focused on excellence is that only some people will be seen to have worthy purposes. The consequence is more ‘ruthless comparison, in which we all look over our shoulders to what our peers are doing, wondering whether their respective purposes measure up or not. Of course, this issue could be dismissed as little more than a case of early-career angst, in which ambitious self-starters seek to outdo their peers in climbing the career ladder, but I doubt this is a good explanation.

Her calling is not as impressive in the world as the more publicly recognised calling of a profession, but surely the calling is of equal value.

After all, modern workplaces are full of people, across all generations, searching for purpose. More generally, rapid industrial transition over recent decades – whether the loss of the shipbuilding or coal mines (not to mention important parts of the steel industry in recent months) in the UK, or the recent loss of manufacturing jobs in the United States – and waves of technological change leave countless thousands of people feeling lost at sea. A sense of aimlessness is amplified when personal dignity is connected to work rooted in local communities. When this industrial work vanishes seemingly overnight amid shifts in government policy and technological change.

These examples suggest the need for a wider understanding of purpose, which makes room for many kinds of excellence, whether grand or small. Consider the example of a single mother. In comparison to the high-flying politician, business executive or university administrator, her purpose is anonymous. A paid job in the workplace is unlikely to be the source of the single mum’s purpose. Rather, the raising of a family is almost certainly the driving purpose in her life, a purpose which is nevertheless no less significant than those occupying more esteemed, high-status roles.

In the eyes of God, the single parent is called to the vocation of parent (I don’t think there is a difference here between a vocation or purpose), possibly through an unexpected event such as a divorce or passing of a spouse. Her calling is not as impressive in the world as the more publicly recognised calling of a profession, but surely the calling is of equal value. Indeed, from a Christian perspective, the lone parent fulfills a vital role of service in raising children who can help to approximate the Kingdom of God on Earth. Martin Luther pointed it out well: every person has a divine calling providing them with purpose, whether they are aware of this or not.

The idea is that a sense of what we are becoming matters more than the circumstances we find ourselves in.

How then can we define our purpose when elements of culture, technology and other forces tempt us to identify clear purposes as rapidly as possible? To start, it helps to resist the urge to form large and lengthy purposes. Our purposes are often revealed gradually. Even the most profound events altering the landscape of a person’s life must be digested slowly. Tom Wright, in his biography of Saint Paul, writes that after Paul’s encounter with Jesus while on the Road to Damascus, he returned to Tarsus for ten years to meditate on what he had learned. In all likelihood, Paul spent this time working as a tentmaker, working within a ‘small, cramped workshop,’ in which ‘he prayed, he studied, and he figured out all sorts of things.’

It is only ‘by the end of the Tarsus decade [that] Saul had worked out in considerable detail what it meant that the One God had revealed himself in and as the crucified and risen Jesus.’ Paul’s purpose was formed over many years, ‘hammering away’ at what he learned on the Road to Damascus. Had Paul wanted to make sense of his encounter with Jesus in a single go, then his purpose would surely have been truncated, thereby limiting the fulfilment of his unique calling that transformed the world we live in today.

Our circumstances may also limit the scope of our purposes. Our family, geography, gender, and socioeconomic situation all shape the people we become – at least in the short-term. The philosopher Robert Adams writes in Finite and Infinite Goods that ‘One’s actual circumstances condition and in various ways influence and limit one’s vocation. The vocation, however, is not the circumstances, but what one is called to do in them.’

The idea is that a sense of what we are becoming matters more than the circumstances we find ourselves in. The question of who we wish to become is a crucial one, involving personal vision, and Adams sees this question as outweighing extensive consideration given to existing circumstances. Another idea of vocation, proposed by the theologian Oliver O’Donovan, is more gradual. He says that we come to be a certain person over time, without too much planning. Our purposes develop one day at a time. Specific events give us chances to put our purposes into action, but we do not know when these events will occur.

With this approach, clear purposes are formed over time through constant practice, rather than revealed at the outset of an activity.

How then can we find our purposes when they are often ambiguous, intertwined with our personal circumstances, and without too much recourse to self-help books, life coaches or university programmes recommending quick answers?

Our purposes need to be worked out through consistent, small-scale practice of the things we enjoy. For some, this is the playing of a musical instrument, for instance the piano or guitar, two hours per day. For others, this is the constant practice of a given sport in the early hours of the morning. And for others, this is working away on a tricky mathematical problem that simply grips them.

With this approach, clear purposes are formed over time through constant practice, rather than revealed at the outset of an activity. It is then unexpected events – as Harold MacMillan said ‘Events, dear boy, events’ – which shape us. These events may change us, setting us in entirely new directions much like Paul’s encounter on the Damascus Road, or the lone parent following a divorce or death of a spouse. But it is not only the events that create purpose. The seeds of purpose are planted well ahead of time, through practice in relation to the things that bring us joy.

Our purposes, then, should be less a cause of anxiety requiring self-help industries – needing to figure everything out at once – than a reason for play, practice, and prayer, listening to the still small voice – perhaps the voice of God, gently leading us to a settled sense of purpose. This allows purposes we never imagined to reveal themselves to us over time, sometimes merging with – and sometimes out of – our circumstances and personal attributes that are more easily visible.

Rather than search for fast answers to our purposes, we can take comfort knowing that we do not need to do all the work ourselves. We may begin to work out our purpose through action, but trust that our purposes will come to fruition when the time is right.