Do as I say, not as I do

I've been reading a lot of books about happiness lately. It's a kick I'm on, what can I say, and who doesn't want to be happier? There's lots of good information and when there isn't it's still usually an interesting read that provides food for thought.

But there is something that is really starting to bug me.

"I dropped out of a promising science career to become a buddhist monk, and I've never been happier," says one. "What I learned along the way is that it's not the circumstances of your life that make you happy or sad, it's the way you think about them."

"I dropped out of a promising career to become an author, and I love it," says another. "And what I've learned is, happiness is a choice you make for yourself!"

"I've spent the past thirty years following my intellectual passions and indulging my curiosities," says a third. "You know what I figured out? It's not what you do, it's how you think about it!"

Geez Louise, talk about hypocrisy. Where's the book that goes, "I was miserable in this dead-end job that made lousy use of my talents and watched the clock tick by all week so I could put food on the table for my kids who, by the way, I didn't get to see enough; but thanks to some remarkable insights I made after they'd gone to bed one night, I discovered I can be happy with exactly what I have already! Now I love my job and don't miss my kids and sing to my clients and customers all week long!"

Is it just me?

Yes, I know, life circumstances accounts for only 10% of overall happiness, and 50% is genetic, and the rest of it is your approach to life. Got it. But for a group of people who, by and large, seem to have found remarkable success in altering their 10% to tell the rest of us that we don't need to seems ... well ... insulting. In fact, in the case of the book that the third example was based on, there was a substantial portion of the book devoted to how to think about your current job in such a way that it makes you happy no matter how rote it is, the example given being a hospital orderly who sees himself or herself as integral to the healing process by making positive hospital environments for patients. Which is admirable and lovely so far as it goes, but why is it illegitimate for someone to just decide to get a different job? And how exactly is an academic who has been able to pursue his intellectual interests for the past thirty years in any kind of position to tell a hospital orderly that he ought to be able to find meaning in his work as it is?

Besides, if changing circumstances is really so unimportant and makes such a paltry impact, then why bother with challenging institutionalized discrimination of any kind? Why try to alter racism or sexism? Why fight disablism or heterosexism? You'll only get yourself in a tizzy; you'll be happier if you can just learn how to relax and not be bothered by all these destructive emotions.

The more I think about it, the more I think that happiness (if defined as "feeling good all or most of the time") can't be the goal. Or it can't be the goal if the only way to achieve it is to follow the advice of the happiness gurus and not worry about changing circumstances, only attitudes. Why can't it be both?

Posted by Andrea at May 20, 2008 9:00 AM under Books , Change Addict

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