In light of our class discussion of wu wei, flow, and so on…
"On Trying Too Hard to Be Happy"
Try to pose for yourself this task: not to think of a polar bear, and you will see that the cursed thing will come to mind every minute.–Fyodor Dostoevsky, Winter Notes on Summer Impressions
THE MAN WHO CLAIMS that he is about to tell me the secret of human happiness is eighty-three years old, with an alarming orange tan that does nothing to enhance his credibility. It is just after eight o'clock on a December morning, in a darkened basketball stadium on the outskirts of San Antonio in Texas, and–according to the orange man–I am about to learn 'the one thing that will change your life forever'. I'm sceptical, but not as much as I might normally be, because I am only one of more than fifteen thousand people at Get Motivated!, America's 'most popular business motivational seminar', and the enthusiasm of my fellow audience members is starting to become infectious. 'So you wanna know?', asks the octogenarian, who is Dr Robert H. Schuller, veteran self-help guru, author of more than thirty-five books on the power of positive thinking, and, in his other job, the founding pastor of the largest church in the United States constructed entirely out of glass. The crowd roars its assent. Easily embarrassed British people like me do not, generally speaking, roar our assent at motivational seminars in Texas basketball stadiums, but the atmosphere partially overpowers my reticence. I roar quietly. 'Here it is, then,' Dr Schuller declares, stiffly pacing the stage, which is decorated with two enormous banners reading 'MOTIVATE!' and 'SUCCEED!', seventeen American flags, and a large number of potted plants. 'Here's the thing that will change your life forever.' Then he barks a single syllable–'Cut!'–and leaves a dramatic pause before completing his sentence: '… the word "impossible" out of your life! Cut it out! Cut it out forever!' The audience combusts. I can't help feeling underwhelmed,"
— The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking by Oliver Burkeman
— The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking by Oliver Burkeman
Burkeman earlier wrote Help!: How to Be Slightly Happier, Slightly More Successful and Get a Bit More Done--
“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people,’ the infinitely more sensible essayist Anne Lamott observes in her book on writing, Bird by Bird. ‘It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life … perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping stone just right, you won’t have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren’t even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they’re doing it.”
And
"...we have the positive-thinking movement to blame for the unhelpful idea that the goal of life – Aristotle’s ‘whole aim and end of human existence’ – should be a state of unalloyed ecstasy. As the best scientific investigations into happiness make clear, there are two major problems with this. The first is that it simply isn’t how we experience our most satisfying moments: when wrapped up in genuinely engaging work, or conversation, or interactions with our friends and families, it’s more accurate to say that we’re so absorbed that we’re unaware of any kind of mood, overjoyed or otherwise. The second is that to experience a real sense of aliveness and fulfilment, the happiness researchers will tell you, you need to be exposed to a full symphony of emotions and not just the one-note melody of cheeriness. Too often, positive thinking is about closing off the possibility of negative emotions. But real happiness may also require a capacity for awe, curiosity and being comfortable with uncertainty – all characteristics that involve not closing off, but remaining open to the negative."
A similar spirit informs his latest, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals--
“Nobody in the history of humanity has ever achieved “work-life balance,” whatever that might be, and you certainly won’t get there by copying the “six things successful people do before 7:00 a.m.” The day will never arrive when you finally have everything under control—when the flood of emails has been contained; when your to-do lists have stopped getting longer; when you’re meeting all your obligations at work and in your home life; when nobody’s angry with you for missing a deadline or dropping the ball; and when the fully optimized person you’ve become can turn, at long last, to the things life is really supposed to be about.”
Phil.Oliver@mtsu.edu
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Can any of you, like Burkeman, "not stand positive thinking"? Or do you love the Robert Schullers and Norman Vincent Peales of the world? How about Rhonda Byrne's "Secret"?
ReplyDeleteIf I am to be honest, the ever-intruding presence of motivational quotes never fails to get an eye roll out of me. After all, my first thought of seeing that classic poster of the cat hanging from the tree with the words “Hang in there” inscribed upon it was to ask myself “What else am I supposed to do?” With that being said, I cannot simply deem these quotes as useless just because they do not benefit me.
ReplyDeleteContinuing the discussion of flow and how it may relate to the acquisition of happiness, it seems to be the case that the happiest people are those that don’t try to be happy at all. Instead, they simply are; it is of their nature. In many ways, I myself tend to fall into that camp.
To expand on this, I have a genuine question. When was the last time you told yourself “I am happy” while in the moment. Everyone else’s experience may be different, but I’ve never done so. Even in the face of my greatest achievements and most joyful moments, I cannot recall a particular instance in which I was aware of my happiness. It isn’t until some time later, upon reflection of those moments, that I recognize my happiness. This would seem to be evidence to the theory that happiness is not so much a conscientious effort, but a state which comes naturally in response to an event.
However, another vein of this topic that may be up for inquiry is that I have on numerous times thought to myself that “I am sad.” Would that entail that it takes a conscious effort to be sad? I wouldn’t argue that, but why is it then that a person would more readily recognize their momentary bouts of sadness but not happiness. (Maybe it’s just that it’s more out of the ordinary to the happy person. We do tend to define our experiences by those that are out of the ordinary and interfere with our routine.)
Though, there may even be people that are of the opposite camp that must be conscious of their happiness to be happy. They, instead, notice their happiness more for the fact that their nature is to be normally sad. Here would lie our audience for these motivational quotes, after all.