Is happiness the goal of psychotherapy?---
Good question. Now, put your hand down and get comfortable while I go nautical on you for a few moments.
Some people’s boats ride high in the water, skipping over waves. Their boats don’t seem to carry much cargo. Their boats can easily capsize. They should worry about clouds or winds or high seas, but they are too busy being happy--until they’re flopped over into the water.
Some people’s boats plow through waves, steady and even. They carry as much cargo as is safe. People with such boats trust their boats to be stable. They seem happy enough, but perhaps a better word for them would be “comfortable.” They worry enough about clouds or winds or high seas to be safe, and they sometimes seem happy and sometimes they don’t.
Some people’s boats sit low in the water. They carry heavy cargo. They take on water in both moderate and high seas. They plod through the water. People with such boats keep a fearful eye on the weather. And why not? As hours go by, the horizon doesn’t seem closer. In fact, it often seems farther away. People with these boats may seem gloomy, maybe even depressed. They worry and they aren’t happy.
Enough with Moby Dick, already.
Back on dry land, it is obvious that our culture is obsessed with happiness. To make ourselves happy, we buy flattering clothes and sexy cars; we exercise, travel, take antidepressants, get facelifts and tummy tucks. We listen to perky music (like “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” by Bobby McFarrin) and read lots of books with such titles as The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama and The Conquest of Happiness by mathematician/philosopher Bertrand Russell (as if achieving happiness involves arming oneself and going off to battle).
But, it seems, the harder we chase happiness, the faster it runs away. To fight the disappointment of not capturing our fair share of happiness, many of us take alcohol and drugs. Russell wasn’t right about everything, but he was when he wrote, “Drunkenness…is temporary suicide: the happiness that it brings is merely negative, a momentary cessation of unhappiness.”
No shrink I know advocates unhappiness as a goal in life. However, what many shrinks are discovering, more and more, are ways in which to help clients learn to value both happiness and unhappiness--at the same time. As those influenced by psychoanalyst Carl Jung have long known, where there is emotional light, there is emotional shadow. And for life to be richly three-dimensional, light must play with shadow, happiness with sorrow, victory with defeat, hope with despair.
In other words, our psychological boats should carry enough of life’s precious cargo to sit securely in the water, not skipping over waves and not slowly sinking. We ride the waves up and down, knowing that after sliding down one side, a swell will lift us up. We must be as comfortable with up as with down, with unhappiness as with happiness, and as comfortable with death as with life. The trick is to find a balance between woe and joy, and to become skillful at riding out the storm when waves of one or the other threaten to sink our ships. We learn that tsunamis of joy are as destructive as tsunamis of woe.
In his book Against Happiness, Eric Wilson celebrates a nuanced and mature appreciation for melancholy. He describes this complicated state, in which worry and happiness dance together. When worry and happiness do their dance, he writes, “We suddenly feel better--not blissfully happy but tragically joyful. We die into life.”
As much as I admire the Dalai Lama, I think Buddhist teacher Ken McLeod has it right when he says, “[T]he desire for happiness itself is a form of suffering” because it cuts us off from the complexity and wonder of everything life has to offer.
Don’t worry? Be happy?
I don’t think so. Life is too short to whistle and sing a capella about it using only a few catchy notes.
