Are We Meant to be Happy? No. Are We Meant to Have a Life of Meaning? Funny You Should Ask ...

Very quick piece. Last night, I gave a talk at NAMI San Diego. I had no problem picking a topic, as we would be holding our annual Inspirational Awards Dinner the next evening (tonight). We are honoring six local heroes, so I focused on connecting the dots - from values to a life of meaning to happiness.

I really don’t know too much about happiness, I confessed to my audience. I haven’t experienced it that much, and neither, I suspect, have you.

I spotted the heads nodding in agreement, and knew I was in for a good evening. Call me a killjoy, but there is something about demonstrably “happy” people that doesn’t ring true with me. They come across as fake. There’s a whole lot of personal unpleasantness that I know they are covering up. They are not being honest, with themselves or others.

Okay, that’s just my opinion, but my audience seemed to be validating it.

We’re really not built to be happy, I went on to say. Happiness is not well-suited to survival. Think about it. Imagine one of our distant ancestors - a happy caveman - merrily waltzing his way to the local watering hole, delighted to strike up an acquaintance with a saber-tooth tiger.

That caveman is not going to live long enough to pass on his happy genes.

Depression, of all things, is much better suited to survival. The rose-colored glasses come off. We see things as they really are. We make wise decisions. There is even a name for it - depressive realism. Too much depression, of course, like too much of anything, is not good. Nevertheless, I trust you get the point - we are wired to be depressed for a reason. 

But, yes, we would all like a bit more happiness in our lives. A number of enlightened thinkers have written on happiness in a psychological context, including George Vaillant, Martin Seligman, and the Dalai Lama. One common theme is that those who serve others are far more satisfied with their lives than those who are out for themselves.

One thing for sure, these people are not alone. Are they happy? Who knows? But they certainly have meaning in their lives.

Service to others is one characteristic all our six Awardees tonight share in common. To a person, they are on a mission, they have a calling.

How about you? I asked my audience. How many of you have a calling? A number of hands shot up. This was, after all, an audience of people involved in mental health, whether as advocates or caring for family members. One man mentioned facilitating a support group. I pressed him on this. Can you describe a satisfying moment for you? I asked.

Yes, he said. When a new member of the group hears other people’s stories and she realizes she is not alone. The look on that person’s face.

I used to facilitate a support group. I could well relate. It kind of makes showing up early to turn on the lights and arrange the chairs in the room and lay out the brochures on the table worth it, I suggested.

There were a lot of nodding heads in the room.

Did Steve Jobs have a calling? His passing the day before was fresh on everyone's minds. I pulled out the script of a 1997 Apple ad. “Here’s to the crazy ones,” I began. “The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. ... They push the human race forward.”

By rights, NAMI San Diego should be the most miserable place on earth. We have been through hell and hell again. But everyone there has a calling. To a person, their lives have meaning. No surprise, when I walk into NAMI these are people I want to be around.

One member of the audience raised the point that happiness is not a goal. That we should be striving for something else. This is a person who has collected quite a few awards of her own over her very meaningful career.

Ah, a life of meaning.

A few seconds later, my iPhone went off. I had forgotten to mute it. In full view of the audience, I pulled it out of my jeans pocket. I know somewhere up there Steve Jobs is smiling.

Happiness, Meaning, and Service to Others: Part II

It’s been a very busy week or two for me. We’re putting the final touches together for our annual NAMI San Diego Inspirational Awards Dinner next week, plus I’m preparing for a talk I will be giving the night before. Thankfully my work on the Dinner gave me the starting point for my talk. Following is an edited extract from the draft I’m working on ...

I’ve been on the planning committee for the Dinner three years straight. Over that time, I have been involved in the selection of a total of 18 Awardees. I can assure you, this has been one of the most gratifying tasks I have ever been associated with.

Think of it - a bunch of us sitting around the table having discussions about people we all look up to, doing things we all admire.

A few weeks ago, one of my fellow committee members Julie Benn and I worked on preparing bios of our six current Awardees for press releases and for the Dinner program booklet. The exercise got me thinking - what do all these Awardees have in common?

Father Joe - our Inspirational Person of the Year - needs no introduction (in San Diego, anyway). But I am trying to imagine, to cast my mind back to many many years ago. Here is a young priest who has taken a sacred vow to devote his life to God. And the first assignment he draws?

Making peanut butter sandwiches.

Trust me - I’m bipolar. It’s very easy for me to connect God to peanut butter. But for the chronically normal? Well, it turns out that Father Joe made that connection through a lifetime of service to humanity. The forgotten, the down-trodden, the outcast, those we turn our backs on - Father Joe was there.

Inspirational? Don’t get me started.

(In my talk, I will include the other five individuals being honored.)

Six people. Very different. What, I wondered, did they all have have in common? What qualities did they possess that we at NAMI San Diego found so uplifting, so inspirational?

It turns out I didn’t have to think too hard. It came down to two things: Commitment and dedication to serving others. These are values that we here at NAMI San Diego can especially relate to.

So as well as six people tomorrow, we will also be honoring a set of values.

Now let’s connect values to a life of meaning to happiness. I really don’t know too much about happiness. I haven’t experienced it much, and - I suspect - neither have you. We’re really not built to be happy. Happiness is not well-suited to survival. Depression is much better suited. I experience a lot of all that, and - well here I am - a depressive realist, able to see the world as it is and adapt.

But yes, a bit more happiness in my life would be good. So where can we find people who practice happiness?

That is the question.

In May 2009 I joined the board of NAMI San Diego. I was a bit hesitant. I had had a very bad experience with a mental health board I was on back east. These were miserable people who made the lives of everyone around them miserable, including my own. That was the last thing I wanted. But I was a glutton for punishment and I signed on.

Funny thing about NAMI San Diego. Talk to almost any staff person or volunteer or board member and you will encounter an individual with personal experiences that would tear your heart out. That’s what living with mental illness does to us. Consumer or family member or both, we have been through hell and through hell again.

So - by any standard, NAMI San Diego should be the most miserable place on earth. But that is not the case. Far from it. What is going on?

So, I decided to check out this thing called happiness. As it turns out, I had already written four articles on the topic, so I didn’t have far to look. My first article focused on a study which tracked the lives of a group of Harvard men over a period of six decades.

The man who kept this particular study going for four of those decades, George Vaillant, noticed that those he categorized as “happy-well” were those who adapted in healthy ways to their surroundings. One of these healthy adaptations included altruism - service. Service to others.

But wait, happiness is not as simple as all that. One of the things that Dr Vaillant also found out was that positive emotions make us more vulnerable than negative ones. We’re setting ourselves up for rejection and heartbreak.

We seem to like to be stuck where we are, says Robert Cloninger, one of the leading authorities on personality and well-being. Life sucks. We get depressed. Psychiatry calls it a success when they get us back to our normal “life sucks” state.

Has anyone here read the Dalai Lama’s book, “The Art of Happiness”?

The Dalai Lama's message is simple. In essence, says the Dalai Lama, we're unhappy because we excel at all the stupid people tricks. We're attached to our own idiotic desires and fears and anxieties. We can't let go.

The way to get over this - out of ourselves - is by paying attention to others. We signal a willingness to put their needs before ours. We cultivate loving kindness. Next thing we're establishing connections and intimacies. Next thing, we're not as absorbed in our own destructive thoughts and feelings. Next thing we're not alone. Next thing, maybe, there are periods in our life where we are experiencing happiness.

I’m not there yet. I’m still working on it.

Says Martin Seligman, who founded “positive psychology,” we may recraft our jobs to deploy our strengths and virtues. This not only makes work more enjoyable, but may transform routine work into a calling.

Okay, I’m no expert on happiness, but I think you see where I’m going with this. Here I was, working on bios for our six Awardees for tomorrow’s dinner. People we look up to. Achievements we find laudable.

Commitment and dedication to serving others.

Serving others - altruism, putting others first.

Commitment - the courage to change things, to take risks and not just settle for good enough.

Fold our strengths and virtues into it, and suddenly we are talking about a life with meaning. Maybe that is what happiness really is. Are the people we will be honoring tomorrow happy? I have no idea. Do they live lives with meaning?

Maybe this is why those of us at NAMI San Diego can so relate. As I mentioned before, by rights we should be the most miserable people on earth. But you know, when I talk to the staff and volunteers, I hear a lot of stories in common.

People tend to first come to NAMI in a state of need. They are often desperate. They feel alone and isolated. Soon, they may find themselves in a Family-to-Family class. Or a Peer-to-Peer. Or one of our many other programs. They get something out of the experience.

And something seems to happen - they want to give back. They volunteer for NAMI. Suddenly, their life has meaning. They have a calling. It doesn’t stop there. If I’m not mistaken, most of our staff started out as volunteers.

I’m not going to pretend we are all happy and that our lives are going great, but I can tell you this much - when I walk into NAMI I’m with people I want to be around.

Commitment, service to others - funny how we’re drawn to people with meaning in their lives.

A life of meaning. What a difference ...

***

Save the date:


My Talk
Thursday, October 6, 2011, 6:30 p.m. (Meeting starts, I talk at 7:30)
University Christian Church
Friendship Hall
3900 Cleveland Ave.
San Diego

Details on NAMI SD page

NAMI San Diego Inspirational Awards Dinner
October 7, 5:30pm
Catamaran Resort Hotel
3999 Mission Blvd
San Diego
$75 per person

Details on NAMI SD page

Happiness, Meaning, and Service to Others

I'm working on a talk I will be giving next week to NAMI San Diego. This will take place the night before our annual Inspirational Awards Dinner. What, I wondered did the six individuals we will be honoring have in common? Ah, topic for a talk. A lot of my talk will focus on the connections between service to others, a life of meaning, and happiness

Anyway, I didn't have to go far researching happiness. The following is a snippet from an article on mcmanweb, which in turn is based on various blog pieces here  ...

In July 2009, on my blog, Knowledge is Necessity, I ran a poll asking readers how their last seven days went. What a miserable bunch we turned out to be. Only three in a hundred replied, "couldn't have gone better." Added to those who said the last seven days went "pretty well," only one in five - 20 percent - had a positive week.

Maybe we're simply not meant to be happy, and the sooner we acknowledge this the happier we'll be. Maybe our perception of happiness is totally wrong, and we become miserable chasing after the wrong things. Maybe life is all about successfully negotiating its special challenges, instead. Maybe the best we can hope for is quiet acceptance.

One of my readers, Louise, offered this explanation. "Rarely," she said, "do we experience events that we think are our peak experiences in life. By contrast:

"Totally sucked" events are as common as rain. People die tragically. People die from totally normal reasons like old age. Spouses leave you for someone else. Your company is bought out and half the workforce fired. Stocks plummet (goodbye retirement!) Children total your car.

I think Louise is onto something here. If we invest our happiness in seldom-occurring peak experiences we are setting ourselves up for endless rounds of disappointment. The trick to managing life, then, is how well we handle those "common as rain" let-downs and total bummers.

It turns out one man has been on the case for the last four decades. A feature article, by Joshua Shenk in the July 2009 Atlantic Monthly, What Makes Us Happy, explains:

In 1937, what was to become an epic longitudinal study was launched. The study would follow the lives of a cohort of Harvard men (including JFK). The original funding came from department store magnate WT Grant, and hence became known as the "Grant Study."

Harvard psychiatrist George Vaillant took over the Grant Study in 1967 when it was on life support, and kept it going another 42 years. According to Shenk:

[Valliant's] central question is not how much or how little trouble these men met, but rather precisely how—and to what effect—they responded to that trouble. His main interpretive lens has been the psychoanalytic metaphor of 'adaptations,' or unconscious responses to pain, conflict, or uncertainty.

For instance, as Shenk describes it, when we cut ourselves, our blood clots, but a clot may also lead to a heart attack. Similarly when we encounter a life challenge - large or small - our defenses "float us through the emotional swamp," ones that can spell redemption or ruin.

An unhealthy response such as psychosis may at least make reality tolerable (but at what cost?), while "immature adaptations" include various form of acting out (such as passive-aggression). "Neurotic" defenses such as intellectualization and removal from one's feelings are quite normal.

Healthy (mature) adaptations include altruism, humor, anticipation, and other behaviors.

According to Mr Shenk:

Much of what is labeled mental illness, Vaillant writes, simply reflects our 'unwise' deployment of defense mechanisms. If we use defenses well, we are deemed mentally healthy, conscientious, funny, creative, and altruistic. If we use them badly, the psychiatrist diagnoses us ill, our neighbors label us unpleasant, and society brands us immoral.

As the Harvard men grew older, they increasingly favored mature defenses over immature ones. As well as healthy adaptations, other reliable indicators for happy lives included education, stable marriage, not smoking, not abusing alcohol, some exercise, and healthy weight. As Shenk puts it:

Of the 106 Harvard men who had five or six of these factors in their favor at age 50, half ended up at 80 as what Vaillant called "happy-well" and only 7.5 percent as "sad-sick."

Those who had three or fewer protective factors were three times as likely to be dead at 80 as those with four or more factors.

And this sobering finding: "Of the men who were diagnosed with depression by age 50, more than 70 percent had died or were chronically ill by 63."

Ironically, according to Vaillant, positive emotions make us more vulnerable than negative ones. Whereas negative emotions tend to be insulating, positive emotions expose us to rejection and heartbreak. Perhaps, then, it takes a brave individual to be happy. Perhaps happiness does not elude us so much as we elude happiness.

***

Save the date:

Thursday, October 6, 2011, 6:30 p.m.
University Christian Church
Friendship Hall
3900 Cleveland Ave.
San Diego

I will be talking to NAMI San Diego on various themes of service to others, a life of meaning, and happiness.  Ask the doctors session first, I start speaking at about 7:30.

Is Happiness Possible?

Over on HealthCentral's BipolarConnect, I recently wrapped up a major series on Happiness. Four of my pieces dealt with the positive psychology of Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania. Addressing the American Psychological Society in 1998, Dr Seligman challenged his colleagues to focus on the things that go right in human nature rather than what goes wrong.

In his 2002 book, "Authentic Happiness," Dr Seligman notes that despite our vastly improved standard of living, depression in the US has increased ten-fold since 1960. Part of the cause, he suggests, may be that our society is good at building shortcuts to pleasure.

Pleasure (which is fleeting), maintains Dr Seligman, is not the same as gratification (which is long-lasting). Typically, gratification involves effort. Settling back in the warmth of our homes with the TV clicker may seem like a rational choice. But the exhausted mountain-climber freezing on an exposed ridge doesn't want to be anywhere else.

Likewise, popping something in the microwave may be quick and easy, but making a meal from scratch is going to be a lot more satisfying (as is inviting people over).

A critical key to making the effort is "flow" - literally when time stops and you find yourself doing exactly what you want to be doing, totally immersed, and never wanting it to end. Of all things, flow involves the absence of emotion.

A study that compared "high-flow" teens (who had hobbies and did their homework) to "low-flow" teens (who hung out in malls) found the high flow kids did better on all measures of psychological well-being but one. The exception? The high-flow kids thought their low-flow peers were having more fun.

But tasks are not necessarily fun, per se. Typically, they involve challenge and hard work. Instant and ephemeral pleasure, such as watching sitcoms, is a sure flow-kill. Better, says, Dr Seligman, to pursue a life of meaning - to connect to something greater than yourself.

Dr Seligman also discusses optimism, which is not to be confused with our popular notion of "positive thinking" (which may involve viewing events in ways that fly in the face of unpleasant reality). Naturally, optimists and pessimists think a lot differently. For instance, optimists tend to internally credit themselves for good things happening and write off their inevitable setbacks as bad luck. Pessimists are just the opposite: If something happened to go right, they were just lucky that day. If something went wrong, it was obviously due to a major fundamental character defect.

Not surprisingly, optimists fare better in all endeavors save law. Lawyers are paid to spot negatives that no one else sees - only pessimists need apply. But lawyers have the highest depression rates of any profession or vocation, as well. (Perhaps they are envious of those wild and wacky undertakers.)

Dr Seligman lays considerable emphasis on strengths and virtues. These are embedded in the old-fashioned concept of "character." With his colleagues, Dr Seligman explored 200 works of literature that dealt with virtue including: Aristotle, Plato, Aquinas, Augustine, the Old Testament and the Talmud, Confucius, Buddha, Lao-Tze, Bushido, The Koran, Ben Franklin, and the Upanishads. Out of this emerged six universal virtues:

• Wisdom and knowledge
• Courage
• Love and humanity
• Justice
• Temperance
• Spirituality and transcendence

From there, Seligman et al identified 24 character strengths, such as curiosity and love of learning to augment wisdom and knowledge. Dr Seligman believes that everyone has 
several signature strengths, which they can deploy in their daily lives to their advantage. (You can test yourself for your signature strengths by going to Dr Seligman's Authentic Happiness site.)

My guess is that we tend to elude happiness far more than happiness eludes us. Heaven knows, I'm an expert at that, but thankfully I appear to be losing my edge.

My HealthCentral Happiness Posts

Happiness: Life's Greatest Challenge

Happiness: The Compassion Challenge

Happiness: Is Managing Our Misery the Key?

The Happiness Challenge: Keeping it Small

Happiness - Making the Effort is Always Worth It

My Practical (and Gratifying) Experience with Happiness

Happiness, Mental Wellness and Positive Psychology

Learning Optimism

More on Happiness: Using the Flow

Happiness: Capitalizing on Our Strengths and Virtues

Happiness - Why Are We So Bad At It?

In my most recent blog piece, I touched on a topic I admittedly know very little about - happiness. The piece stemmed from my latest reader poll which unambiguously validated our expertise in its diametric opposite - misery.

Boy, can we do misery (trust me, I can teach the subject on a graduate level). But what about happiness? Two months ago, I came across a terrific feature article in Atlantic Monthly by Joshua Shenk (author of Lincoln’s Melancholy), entitled, What Makes Us Happy? I’d been meaning to blog on the piece ever since, so better late than never:

Mr Shenk’s article is a tribute to the dedication and persistence of Harvard psychiatrist George Vaillant (pictured here), who accomplished the impossible by keeping what had been a 30-year longitudinal study going for an additional 42 years.

In 1937, a team of researchers recruited 268 male Harvard undergraduates, a cohort that included JFK, Ben Bradlee, and other luminaries. The original funding came from department store magnate WT Grant, and hence became known as the “Grant Study.”

Longitudinal studies - ones that track populations over long periods of time - typically die of neglect. Funding sources dry up after say five or ten years, and researchers have no choice but to turn off the lights. This is one reason we know so little about mental illness. If you want to know whether, say, depression is bipolar waiting to happen you need to follow the same people around for at least two decades. Try getting funders to commit to that.

Dr Vaillant took over the Grant Study in 1967 when it was on life support, but with the best years of life just ahead. The subjects were men of privilege destined to great lives, but by 1948 twenty of them displayed severe psychiatric difficulties. By age 50, nearly a third met Dr Vaillant’s criteria for mental illness.

Dr Vaillant is no stranger to mental illness. When he was 10, his father stuck a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. His mother immediately pulled up stakes and moved the family to Arizona. A clean break. No memorial service. No seeing the house ever again.

According to Shenk:

“His central question is not how much or how little trouble these men met, but rather precisely how—and to what effect—they responded to that trouble. His main interpretive lens has been the psychoanalytic metaphor of ‘adaptations,’ or unconscious responses to pain, conflict, or uncertainty.”

Further:

“Vaillant explains defenses as the mental equivalent of a basic biological process. When we cut ourselves, for example, our blood clots—a swift and involuntary response that maintains homeostasis. Similarly, when we encounter a challenge large or small—a mother’s death or a broken shoelace—our defenses float us through the emotional swamp. And just as clotting can save us from bleeding to death—or plug a coronary artery and lead to a heart attack—defenses can spell our redemption or ruin.”

The least healthy responses, according to Vaillant, include psychosis, which may make reality tolerable to the person experiencing them. A step up are “immature adaptations” that include various forms of acting out (such as passive-aggression). “Neurotic” defenses such as intellectualization, repression, and disassociation (removal from one’s feelings) are quite normal.

Healthy (mature) adaptations include altruism, humor, anticipation (looking ahead to future discomfort), suppression (a conscious decision to address issues later), and sublimation (finding outlets for feelings).

According to Mr Shenk:

"Much of what is labeled mental illness,” Vaillant writes, “simply reflects our ‘unwise’ deployment of defense mechanisms. If we use defenses well, we are deemed mentally healthy, conscientious, funny, creative, and altruistic. If we use them badly, the psychiatrist diagnoses us ill, our neighbors label us unpleasant, and society brands us immoral.”

This perspective is shaped by a long-term view. Whereas clinicians focus on treating a problem at any given time, Vaillant is more like a biographer, looking to make sense of a whole life—or, to take an even broader view, like an anthropologist or naturalist looking to capture an era. The good news, he argues, is that diseases—and people, too—have a “natural history.”

In their youth, the men were twice as likely to engage in immature defenses over mature ones, but as they grew into middle age they were four times more likely to use mature ones, a pattern that continued into old age.

As well as healthy adaptations, education, stable marriage, not smoking, not abusing alcohol, some exercise, and healthy weight proved reliable indicators for happy lives. As Shenk describes it:

“Of the 106 Harvard men who had five or six of these factors in their favor at age 50, half ended up at 80 as what Vaillant called ‘happy-well’ and only 7.5 percent as ‘sad-sick.’ Meanwhile, of the men who had three or fewer of the health factors at age 50, none ended up ‘happy-well’ at 80. Even if they had been in adequate physical shape at 50, the men who had three or fewer protective factors were three times as likely to be dead at 80 as those with four or more factors.”

And this sobering nugget: “Of the men who were diagnosed with depression by age 50, more than 70 percent had died or were chronically ill by 63.”

Ironically, according to Vaillant, positive emotions make us more vulnerable than negative ones. Whereas negative emotions tend to be insulating, positive emotions expose us to rejection and heartbreak.

Perhaps it takes a brave individual to be happy. Perhaps happiness does not elude us so much as we elude it. Food for thought ...

Much more in future blogs ...