Released: May 14, 2008
Germantown, TN 38139
“How do we define happiness?” asks Alan Gompers, author and prison program facilitator. “Is it something too subjective?” asks the man who has been a singer, music producer and master salesman. “Or can it be quantified in a survey?” continues the former con-man, drug dealer and convict who was convicted and sentenced to 15 years to life in a maximum-security prison.
Several weeks ago, Gompers saw the news reports on The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. The survey has used interviews with more than 100,000 people to try to define American happiness. It indicates that 47 percent of Americans are struggling while 4 percent are suffering.
“Most Americans are struggling to achieve satisfactory health and well-being,” reported the well-being survey, undertaken by Healthways, a healthcare company, and the pollster Gallup. “When asked to evaluate their lives based on a ladder scale, 47 percent of the 100,000 respondents polled in the 1,000 daily surveys conducted since January say they are struggling and an additional four percent say they are suffering.” But that does leave 49 percent of respondents who were “thriving based on a personal assessment of how they feel about their lives at the time of the survey, and where they think they'll be in five years.”
Another quantifier and qualifier of happiness is the World Database of Happiness, which ranked 95 nations. Number one? Denmark. Where was the U.S.? It ranked 17th.
“All these surveys cite a variety of factors, such as health, environment and the workplace, which make up happiness,” Gompers says. “But, for me, it was something entirely different and unexpected. I had it all: success, wealth, health and friends. And then I lost it all. It was then that I realized that the true meaning of freedom could NEVER be found in the things of this material world, and it took my being thrown into a maximum security prison to discover this undeniable truth and with it the real happiness I had longed for all my life.”
“As I acknowledged my lost livelihood, my lost friends, my former wife, I heard a fellow prisoner near me raging intensely against the world. In that moment, I had this epiphany, as I relate in my book:
“ 'I am happier and more at peace than I have ever been - more than I ever imagined was possible. I am aware of a profound calm emanating from deep inside me, one that brings with it a sense of joy and contentment. I am glad to be alive, grateful for the gift of a beating heart. I have found freedom. I have learned that true freedom flows uninterruptedly, deep inside every human being - an internal, eternal river of serenity, independent of all worldly things, available to everyone, all the time, regardless of outer circumstances.' ”
“Persons may be struggling or may be thriving,” Gompers says. “But I know, through my own direct experience, that true freedom - true happiness -- comes from within. Surveys about the wealth and health of nations are fine, but I discovered what really matters lies deep within all of us. I know this to be true because I experienced more happiness and freedom than I had ever known before while facing the worst external nightmare of my life--a life sentence behind the walls of a maximum-security prison.”
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Alan's memoir, “Maximum Security: The True Meaning of Freedom” (Burns Park Publishers), is available nationwide. The Web site is www.alangompers.com
For more information on Alan Gompers, please contact Lorena Rostig at 901-483-5968, or e-mail her at info@alangompers.com.
Lorena Rostig, Maximum Freedom, LLC
1910 Chelsea Park Drive
Germantown, Tenn. 38139
901-483-5968
Lorena Rostig (info@alangompers.com)
Maximum Freedom, LLC
1910 Chelsea Park Dr
Germantown, TN 38139
Phone : 901-483-5968
Courtesy FeaturesUSA.com