Here’s something I’ve
noticed about the self-help industry: sometimes it’s not that helpful.
If you look at the
colossal amount of space the self-help section occupies in your bookstore – you
guys still visit bookstores, right? Please do; bookstores are struggling and
they really need our custom – one theme occupies the most shelf space: the pursuit
of happiness.
That makes sense – we
all wanna be happy. But if you read the back covers, many of these books
are promising a magic formula for designing a life where every moment is happy.
I don’t want to criticise books on happiness across the board, because I’m sure
they have helped people, but my opinion is that this approach is
problematic.
What concerns me is
the underlying message – that we should expect to be happy all the time. To me,
that idea is dangerous, and I’m not the only one who thinks so.
Last week I went to a
panel session at the Sydney Writers’ Festival with the compelling title How To
Live. The comments which struck a chord with me the most came from Paul
Dolan, a London-based, internationally renowned expert on happiness and
behaviour.
“The happiness
industry is a distortion of the original positive psychology [movement]. It’s
feeding this idea we are entitled to feel happy, that that is the default
setting for humans. So out of the full spectrum of emotions that make us who we
are – and all emotions, even the dark ones, have something to teach us – it’s
saying that if we’re not feeling happy all the time there’s something wrong
with us.”
YES! It’s natural to
want to maximise your happiness levels, but unless you’re Miley Cyrus, life is
not a constant party, and you’re setting yourself up for disappointment if you
are trying to make it so. In fact I’m not sure that’s working out too well for
Miley either. As much as we might relish the euphoria of graduating from
university or the elation (or perhaps despair, depending on your
circumstances!) of finally seeing those two stripes appear on a pregnancy test,
happy events aren’t shaping you as a person. It’s the agony of rebuilding your
life and healing your fractured heart after the demise of a relationship that
teaches you how resilient you are, and that you’re capable of looking after
yourself. Darker emotional states instil practical lessons too. It’s the
despair of blowing your car’s head gasket in peak traffic that teaches you that
if you’re driving a car older than Cyndi Lauper’s back catalogue, you need to
top up its oil and water frequently. (This example may or may not be inspired
by real-life events.)
Fixating on happiness
like it’s some magical destination – the finish line of an emotional marathon
littered with disappointing boyfriends, menacing bosses and unflattering
haircuts – can also have the effect of lowering your self-esteem.
Basically, you’ll wind up feeling like you’re doing life wrong when you’re
unable to live in a state of infinite happiness. Ugh. We’ve got enough reasons
to feel like we’re failing, thank you very much; experiencing normal human
emotions shouldn’t be one of them.
Instead, I think it’s
more helpful to focus on contentment. Because gratitude is a core value for me,
I spend time focusing on all the good things in my life. That means that when I
get hit by an unexpected curveball and my life starts to feel like a giant pile
of poo, I don’t pretend that it’s wonderful. I acknowledge the crapery (that is
a word now, I just declared it so) and focus on what comes next, because I know
it always gets better in the end, and my life is still, overall, incredible.
When you’re broke, lonely and desperately overworked, it’s much easier to
return to a baseline state of contentment – because unless your life is
completely broken, there is always more right with it than there is wrong.
Happiness is a beautiful place to visit, and you should go there often, but you
can’t build your home there.
Paul’s approach is to
focus not on the meaning of life but the meaning of moments. As an
example, he talked about teaching his child to read: “That has purpose,
but doesn’t always have pleasure.”
The take-away
message: knowing what’s important to you and what you value can be hugely
helpful in achieving life satisfaction – even when things are not going so
well. If you can focus on the moments that give you purpose, and celebrate
moments of pleasure, you might not need to read a trillion books, or even one
book, on happiness. And you’ll be better able to recognise and appreciate it
when you stumble upon it.