Ever have that feeling, like last time you checked your Facebook, that everyone else is happy except you?
And that there must be something wrong with you for not being happy?
The pressure to be happy sometimes feels as American as your citizenship. From the chirpy “how are you?” to the beloved Pharrell Williams “Happy” song to the pervasive mindfulness movement, happiness is a cultural trend — and a Constitutional right.
But does the pressure to conform to happiness actually do more harm than good? “It’s like the coach of a losing team giving a pep talk,” says Corey Kimer, a 20-year-old student at St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland.
Kimer, who attended a happiness workshop last weekend in the District of Columbia, suspects that in other cultures, it’s easier and more acceptable to be unhappy. The range of answers to the “how are you?” question in Latin cultures, for example, is much more widely expressed: “Así, así ” in Spanish means so-so, and is a perfectly acceptable answer, Kimer says. And in Italian, a frequent reply to someone who shares a not-so-great life circumstance is “Così è la vita.” That’s life. But not, Kimer adds, as in, “That’s life, so get over it and what’s wrong with you if you don’t,” but rather, “That’s life, and we’re all in this together.”
What’s the hidden harm in saying that you’re great when you’re not? “If everything was half as good as people say it is, I don’t think we’d have half the problems we have in the world,” Kimer observes.
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The Psychology of Acceptance
One of the biggest mistakes in American culture, says Todd Kashdan, a psychology professor at George Mason University in Virginia, is that, “People are incredibly susceptible to the persuasiveness that being happy will capture all of your problems.” People have what Kashdan calls a “comfort addiction” — from bigger shower heads to scientifically-precise coffee makers to thermostats on our phone. All these things have made us less resilient than our ancestors at coping with reality. At the same time, Kashdan says, “We still have the vestiges of the 1970s self-esteem movement” that says everyone is a winner.
As a result of these cultural forces, “a cottage industry has evolved,” Kashdan continues, with the intent of providing you with a shortsighted sense of happiness, often through simple strategies that may lead you astray from a more evolved path of enduring peace.
“When you make happiness your goal in life, what that means is that there are certain thoughts, feelings and situations you will try to avoid because they take you off the road to happiness,” Kashdan says. “This means you don’t interact with people who are smarter,” or better in some way. In the short term, that may make you happy, but in the long term it’s precisely those types of interactions that are “the springboard for a higher sense of peace where you grow, expand and gain meaning,” Kashdan says.
Think about the last time you stretched yourself: when you spoke to a stranger, asked someone you liked out on a date or asked for a raise. Regardless of the outcome, you probably felt better just in having gone beyond your limits. Those are the situations that might mitigate immediate happiness in exchange for more enduring self-acceptance, which leads to greater serenity, Kashdan says.
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Know Thyself
And greater self-awareness underpins that path, he adds. “We all have these gut intuitions about what works for us, and yet we deviate from them all the time to follow the herd.” Now that happiness has become part of the herd mentality, attaining it on an individual level is arguably more difficult.
Kashdan, who yesterday published his book “The Upside of Your Dark Side: Why Being Your Whole Self — Not Just Your ‘Good’ Self — Drives Success and Fulfillment” — cautions against “the tyranny of mindfulness.” “Of course quieting the mind can be useful, but as soon as you make it a tool to feel better, it’s not actually that good anymore,” he says. “It’s no better than downing some bourbon” if the intent is getting rid of things the brain is naturally producing. As such, mindfulness becomes existential escapism.
Instead, Kashdan argues, use mindfulness to your advantage. If you’re in a work meeting and someone insults your idea, “Now it’s about, how do I bring myself to a state of equanimity to access my best possible behavior? Because I can’t whip out my yoga mat,” Kashdan says. “But I can focus on my breath and be aware of my anger. I can definitely show my irritability. I can assure you that will win the tribe over. You’re telling people, ‘I’m not the person you can steamroll.'”
Asserting yourself makes you feel better, even if you’re in an unhappy situation, he adds. “If you want to beat anxiety and depression, don’t try to be good. Try to be in contact with your emotions.” That means dispensing with the happiness charade and harnessing negative emotions when they’re useful: Anger can fuel creativity, selfishness and courage. “Selfishness has its place. Woe is the entrepreneur who does not have a little bit of grandiose narcissism,” Kashdan says. “If you don’t fall in love with your ideas and connect with people, I am going to invest in another company. If you decide not to use these less desirable parts of your personality because you want to be happy, you will not be as successful as your peers who take advantage of them.”
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Finding Your Own Inner Joy
At the happiness program Kimer attended last weekend, they preached a similar message: One of the five tenents of its own brand of happiness was “accept people and situations for what they are.” Another was, “Don’t be a football of other people’s opinions.”
The course, which was sponsored by an organization called the Art of Living Foundation, included games, dancing, meditation, breathing techniques and yoga — designed to literally stretch people into well-being. Many of the 25 participants came in looking work-weary, city-stressed or lovesick, but following the four-day retreat, they were smiling and laughing, or at least notably more relaxed.
What happened?
“We help people go inside,” says Avinash Tiku, the course instructor. “Most of the time, we think of happiness by satisfying outer senses, but it’s an internal quotient. The quality of your mind determines the quality of your life, and we help people learn how to change their state of mind.”
The philosophy hinges on breathing techniques that induce meditation, which helps filter emotions. “We have so many emotions that are stuck inside us,” Tiku says, adding that as you meditate, your outlook naturally becomes more positive. And importantly, along the way, he adds, “You have to accept states of unhappiness.” That doesn’t mean overindulging unhappiness, however, for the coolness factor it can invoke or the creativity it inspires. But rather, learning to be centered through varying states of happiness.
That’s where the “art” part of the group’s name comes from. Like all arts, the art of living well involves discipline. For Kimer, the daily breathing and meditation exercises that he’s been doing for an hour each day since he took his first happiness course last February have paid off.
[Read: 8 Ways Meditation Can Improve Your Life.]
Before that, he’d absorbed a cultural message saying ” you should be happy” without any guidance as to how, he says. Now he feels he has the tools to access his own happiness — and be comfortable with his unhappy moments. “What I thought was happiness before pales in comparison to what I feel now,” he says.
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The Happiness Racket: When the Pressure to Be Happy Makes You Miserable originally appeared on usnews.com