Elevation could be the answer.

It is difficult to breathe in Colorado. The elevation seems to have that effect. One website described it as the air pressure outside being lower than the air pressure in a person’s lungs, which makes it difficult to breathe (among other things).

I’ve experienced it. Running through the mountains - with no one else around - I felt shortness of breath, and after trying to push through it (like I’ve been known to do), I relented and walked for a bit. Hiking in the mountains had a similar effect. While running (and hiking) with my five year old, I experienced a different feeling. My attention was given to his breathing and his success, and I didn’t notice that I had a problem breathing.

Sure, I was moving at a slower pace, but there is something to the idea of helping someone else succeed rather than being self-focused.

In social-psychology it is called moral elevation (or sometimes just elevation). It’s been studied in detail within the past thirty years, but Thomas Jefferson even referenced the effects of moral elevation in the 18th Century. After witnessing acts of charity and virtue by other people, Mr. Jefferson concluded that individuals naturally begin desiring to behave in similar ways.

Jonathan Haidt, social psychologist and professor at New York University, is probably the most qualified individual to discuss elevation; and he describes it in the following way: “Elevation is elicited by acts of virtue or moral beauty; it causes warm, open feelings in the chest; and it motivates people to behave more virtuously themselves.”

In other words, when people witness others acting externally - compassionately, altruistically, or selflessly - they are in awe and desire to be better people. Studies have shown that moral elevation creates oxytocin, and has been shown to improve the psychological well-being of people who struggle with mental health.

Moral elevation increases happiness. It gives people faith in humanity. It allows people to breathe.

Maybe this is true because our attention is on a higher goal, just as my focus was with my five-year-old. Maybe elevation is the answer.

I’m no expert so I cannot confirm that America ever was great; however, it seems as if moral elevation could help us be great for once.

Acting selflessly is not the norm in our society, but maybe it’s time for a change. Maybe it’s time to create a feeling of elevation in our communities and our country.

• Maybe we could pay for the car behind us in the drive-thru line.
• Maybe we could offer to babysit for a neighbor so they could go out for the night.
• Maybe we could find a local non-profit and choose to serve on a weekly or monthly basis.

I don’t have all the answers, but what I know is the answer cannot be to continue focus on self. To continue to create a society of disgust. We need to create a society of awe. Not in awe because we are amazing, but in awe because we have chosen to see the amazingness of others and act in a way to help their amazingness to shine.

Elevation could be the answer, and we could be the people to bring it.

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