Positively Downbeat~Sometimes happiness isn't everything.

[Kasan]

Came across an article in Newsweek which makes me wonder if there are some merits to what Julia Baird writes.

 

Is this endless pursuit of happiness just making us all miserable?

 

According to Psychology Today, last year 4,000 books were published on happiness, up from 50 in 2000. From Norman Vincent Peale in 1952 (The Power of Positive Thinking) to Rhonda Byrne in 2007 (The Secret), Oprah's America has panted, chanted, and visualized while trying to be really, really cheerful: "I am beautiful, wealthy, and successful."

 

Even when we're really not. Most of us have been getting poorer for some time—and that was before the recession hit. That's the funny thing about the obsession with smiley-faced happiness: the more overtly we have studied and pursued it, the less happy we have become. And the more confusing it gets.

 

The broader point remains—while Europeans are growing happier, especially Italians, Americans are not. This is fascinating because it is in this country that a relentless focus on "positive thinking," from prosperity theology to corporate coaching, has emerged over the past few decades—and it is this country that is now more gloomy.

 

In her new book, Bright-Sided: How Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, Barbara Ehrenreich calls positive thinking a "mass delusion." She argues that an unrelenting drive to train our brains to overlook problems and blame ourselves for failures has blinded us to inequality, incompetence, and stupidity.

 

The philosophy of positive thinking, she argues, developed both as a reaction to the negativity of Calvinism and a salve for the sick and anxious, but has, over time, been turned into a kind of blind optimism. At the heart of positive thinking is a belief that you can will anything you like into happening: recovering from cancer, getting a promotion, becoming a millionaire. Often, the worse things are, the more vehemently people are encouraged to be sunny. The more companies downsized and restructured in the '80s and '90s, the more popular affirmation-chanting, team-building consultants became. And all the while, as the country's wealth shot up, the gap between rich and poor ballooned.

 

Ehrenreich argues that positive thought has at times made us deaf to the pleas of those who warn of potential dangers—the Iraqi resistance, Hurricane Katrina, 9/11, and the Wall Street implosion. Urging positivity is not just beside the point when our circumstances are rotten, it's also dangerously distracting.

 

Link--www.newsweek.com/id/216147

 

I also see the personal toll this endless pursuit of happiness takes on us and our families through this site.

[Dooda]

Kasan, there's a point, but I think America is so lost in their own disbelief that they will never be able to achieve happiness. It's not about the search for the happiness, it's about the searcher being unable to discover the happiness. Americans have lost so much of what is the human SOUL, veritably and truly, that they will never be able to recover happiness.

 

America has dug itself a whole so deep of greed and materialism that there is little to no chance of America ever being happy again. It's the new 'fad' to be happy, on all levels (mentally, socially, economically, bodily), and once again this new fad is using the money of the new horde of 'happy-seekers', that really aren't finding nothing but more empty pockets.

 

The fact that people say that people are looking for happiness does not mean that people are looking for happiness, they are just saying that they are looking for happiness. We're told we have to be happy, and all of a sudden we're flocking to understand how to do this, but without WANTING and understanding our NEED to do this. We don't understand that we need to be happy because of OURSELVES, and not because we were told to and because it's all of a sudden the new thing to be happy. It has to come from within and it is a human instinct and feeling that Americans have been ignoring for too long.

 

The new 'happy' fad will fade away just as all the other 'fads' did. Americans and most of western society will find a new mind gadget to fiddle their thoughts with, or better yet, something material to help pass their idle, unhappy time.

[Trey Walter]

[...]Oprah's America has panted, chanted, and visualized while trying to be really, really cheerful: "I am beautiful, wealthy, and successful."

 

Even when we're really not. Most of us have been getting poorer for some time—and that was before the recession hit. [...]

Yes, you have to believe what you are saying. I think there was a study on that subject. Scientists analyzed the effects of positive thinking and they found out that it usually has negative effects if you don't believe in it. You can't lie to yourself. And that's what most people don't know.

 

Positive thinking is beneficial if it is caused by knowledge, understanding and true belief. At least that's how I think about it. (And it worked for me.)

[Thaddeus]

In much of Western culture, this "pursuit of happiness" has devolved into "pursuit of money."

 

What is forgotten about in that equation is that money is a tool, a means to an end, but it's become an end unto itself.

 

I happen to like money as much as the next guy and I enjoy the freedom and goodies it can bring. But all too often I've seen the pursuit of money as an end-goal to drive people into pits of despair. After all, if money is your goal, it's never enough, is it?

[marlena]

Yes, I do think Americans put too much emphasis on the pursuit of happiness as if happiness can ever be a permanent state of mind. Happiness or joy resides in the moment and is as fleeting as the moment itself. When one acknowledges the transient attribute of happiness,then, it follows that one will equally embrace with stoicism the polar opposite emotion which is sorrow,gief,unhappiness or whatever other negative emotion a human being can feel.

 

The emphasis in western culture to achieve or find ever-lasting happiness whether it be through love,money,career,family or fame is an unrealistic and romantic notion and so therefore doomed to fail from the very start.

 

I think Europeans have grasped this notion more so than Americans. They, like the Italians cited in the article, live more in the moment, have a more laissez-faire, devil-may-care attitude that reduces stress and makes life a lot more fun. Another thing I have noticed is that Americans tend to over-analyze everything which is a joy killer to begin with. Never mind the strict, unbending moral code that I see emerging in American society which also contributes to anxiety and depression as it imposes an inflexible code of behaviour-the do's and don'ts of living a certain way. I have often wondered why so many Americans are on meds or seeing therapists. Why not just accept that there will be days when one will feel depressed or unhappy, that bad things do happen to people and that life can truly be a trying experience at times? Why the need to live in a chemically induced constant state of euphoria?

 

People worry to much about attaining happiness and in so doing forget to actually live and create as many happy moments as they can even on a bad day.

 

Oh, as for the positive thinking,well, yes, it can work wonders when coupled with positive doing.

[Kasan]

It's not about the search for the happiness, it's about the searcher being unable to discover the happiness.

 

Love this!

 

Perhaps we should strive for contentment instead of happiness!

[deux ex machina]

Yes, you have to believe what you are saying. I think there was a study on that subject. Scientists analyzed the effects of positive thinking and they found out that it usually has negative effects if you don't believe in it. You can't lie to yourself. And that's what most people don't know.

 

Positive thinking is beneficial if it is caused by knowledge, understanding and true belief. At least that's how I think about it. (And it worked for me.)

 

I read the same thing about that!

 

Yes, it really looks like "positive thinking" only works out if it's accurate, otherwise they'll be an inner conflict - people will know they are lying to themselves.

 

Even worse, if what they are telling themselves is objectively untrue, while at the same time there's this pressure or belief that they should be happy dammit - it'll make them feel inadequate, or not living up to some expection, in addition to the rest.

[Trialbyfire]

Happiness isn't always blinding exhilaration. It's not attained by "getting". Most often, it's something simple and sweet.

[marlena]

Perhaps we should strive for contentment instead of happiness!

 

Maybe we should stop striving and just start living. We human-beings take ourselves too seriously, methinks.

 

I also agree with Dooda - all this emphasis on happiness is a fad - like being depressed was cool in an "intellectual" way in the 70s. Woody Allen made a fortune out of peddling unhappiness. No, others are cashing in on the jump on the happy wagon trend with all this psycho babble and self-help books.

[Dooda]

Happiness isn't always blinding exhilaration. It's not attained by "getting". Most often, it's something simple and sweet.

 

Exactly. It's not about living life the way Oprah says it is, it's about living life the way you live life, as yourself and not anyone else.

[marlena]

Even worse, if what they are telling themselves is objectively untrue, while at the same time there's this pressure or belief that they should be happy dammit - it'll make them feel inadequate, or not living up to some expection, in addition to the rest.

 

Totally agree. All this pressure to be happy is doing more harm than good. In old times, people knew that sorrow was a part of life and accepted it as such. They weren't expected to be happy all the time or else risk being labelled "failures"

[Thaddeus]

Even worse, if what they are telling themselves is objectively untrue, while at the same time there's this pressure or belief that they should be happy dammit - it'll make them feel inadequate, or not living up to some expection, in addition to the rest.

I've often wondered about this, especially in light of all the talk and websites and whatnot about positive affirmations. For instance, if one goes about their day creating positive affirmations about themselves ("I'm content/I'm successful") but their reality isn't in line with those affirmations (they're not content/they're not successful) won't this simply create an inner conflict and actually do more harm than good?

[Kasan]

“We're always being told that looking on the bright side is good for us, but now we see that it's a great way to brush off poverty, disease, and unemployment, to rationalize an order where all the rewards go to those on top. The people who are sick or jobless—why, they just aren't thinking positively. ”—Thomas Frank, author of The Wrecking Crew and What's the Matter with Kansas?

 

The article and this quote fascinates me. How much of this thinking leads to self-blame?

 

And....how does this thinking shape US policy?

[Dooda]

Thaddeus, that's exactly what he was saying.

The more we tell ourselves our lives are great, but where we know they aren't, the more we feel useless and even more depressed because we think even this positive thinking, which is supposed to work (based on Oprah and the new self-love books), isn't helping us.

 

Life isn't about being the successful, rich, socially loved, intimate, athletic businessman that is portrayed by the "American Dream". The more we think that, the more we get lost in our own inadequacies, which is exactly what Deus said. Instead of thinking, "I'm great, I'm rich", how about we think, "I'm fine with who I am, because that is who I am."

The American search for happiness is a lost path.

[Dooda]

“We're always being told that looking on the bright side is good for us, but now we see that it's a great way to brush off poverty, disease, and unemployment, to rationalize an order where all the rewards go to those on top. The people who are sick or jobless—why, they just aren't thinking positively. ”—Thomas Frank, author of The Wrecking Crew and What's the Matter with Kansas?

 

The article and this quote fascinates me. How much of this thinking leads to self-blame?

 

And....how does this thinking shape US policy?

 

Exactly! This new search for happiness (the one deranged by American thinking) is in fact a strife to reach the top, to be the BEST, something not everyone is suited to being, simply.

If we find peace in ourselves, we'd be much happier than if we'd find peace in being something we're not.

[Trialbyfire]

Extremism and generisissm, never work. Individuals need to figure out what drives them, thus figure out the methodology that creates inner balance.

[Thaddeus]

I came across a quote recently that, I think, pretty much nailed it:

We spend most of [our] lives conjugating three verbs: to Want, to Have and to Do. Craving, clutching and fussing on the material, political, social, emotional, intellectual - even on the religious - plane, that we are kept in perpetual unrest: forgetting that none of these verbs have any ultimate significance, except so far as they are trancended by and included in, the fundamental verb, to Be: and that Being, not wanting, having or doing, is the essence of a spiritual life.

Evelyn Underhill, as quoted in David Roper's Out of the Ordinary.

 

The point, at least as I see it, is that for all our striving and yearning, reaching for the "more" or the "better," we forget who we are and end up perpetually frustrated. "More" is never enough, "better" is never good enough.

[marlena]

We spend most of [our] lives conjugating three verbs: to Want, to Have and to Do. Craving, clutching and fussing on the material, political, social, emotional, intellectual - even on the religious - plane, that we are kept in perpetual unrest: forgetting that none of these verbs have any ultimate significance, except so far as they are trancended by and included in, the fundamental verb, to Be: and that Being, not wanting, having or doing, is the essence of a spiritual life.

 

This is what I meant, we forget to just be, to live in the moment. Life happens in the NOW. The past is useless, tomorrow never comes.

 

Perhaps this is why Shakespeare so fittingly said: "To be or not to be". That's about it . You either are or you aren't. Having, doing like the author days are just a source of agitation and a way to keep the soul chained to the ground.

[Dooda]

This is what I meant, we forget to just be, to live in the moment. Life happens in the NOW. The past is useless, tomorrow never comes.

 

Perhaps this is why Shakespeare so fittingly said: "To be or not to be". That's about it . You either are or you aren't. Having, doing like the author days are just a source of agitation and a way to keep the soul chained to the ground.

 

But I think Shakespeare's quote talked more about Hamlet's inability to act. To be, to do, to act, to be SOMEONE, or to not be, do nothing, be useless, and thus be NO ONE. Essentially, we are judged by our actions, and this makes up who we are, NOT the continual pondering and thinking that leads to nothing but a feeling of inadequacy and MORE pondering, which Hamlet displays so well. It relates to his internal struggle, for his need to do rather than to think.

However, in such a way, it also does relate to what we see as life and the happiness we seek in it, for it is our actions which depict who we are, rather than just thinking about them and doing nothing. Hamlet is confronted with misery, from all sides, and instead of facing it and pursuing action, he decides to remain inactive, and thus leads himself to his own tragic demise.

Just a little Shakespeare analysis .

[quankanne]

I think we royally screwed ourselves when we bought into the phrase "and the pursuit of happiness" that our forefathers talked about, but gave it a materialistic threat.

 

happiness all boils down to a sense of spirituality: If you are not content with what's inside, no amount of material goods are going to make you happy, even if you "think" those shopping sprees or designer thingy-mabobbers do just that.

 

the best "power of positive thinking" a person can do is to get to know and like him/herself. Everything else falls into place, and you begin to realize it's not "stuff" that creates that inner happiness that translates on a wider scale, but being contented in the person you are.

[marlena]

Perhaps but I see it as an existential dilemma in Hamlet's moment of despair. In wondering whether "to exist" or "not to exist" he ponders on whether taking "arms against a sea of troubles" is in the long run worth the trouble after all. Perhaps in his mind, death is not a demise, a failure to live, but a blessed release from all that burdens the human soul and in so being is the wiser choice.

 

Just another Shakespeare analysis.

[Dooda]

Damn, that was good.

[marlena]

Damn, that was good.

 

Thanks! I liked your analysis, too. Maybe we should write some Cliff notes together and make a fortune!

[Dooda]

Ya, definitely.