Rethinking the Pursuit of Happiness
Rethinking the Pursuit of Happiness
Notes on "The Antidote"
I’ve thought a lot throughout my life about happiness. What it means as a state of being, a state of mind, a destination, a slippery, ephemeral, momentary snapshot of perfect alignment or calm. This word - “happiness” - is certainly a loaded one. It is generally accepted that it encompasses both a subjective emotional state and a general feeling of well-being about one’s life as a whole. But, beneath this is the connotation of the word, linked etymologically to “luck, chance, favored by fortune” that implies joy, exuberance, an ecstatic high that proves difficult if not impossible to sustain.
As a person born and bred in the United States, and having come of age in the 1990s, I was acculturated into a society of pervasive optimism. I remember well the frenzy over The Secret and other contemporaneous village industries of self-help that promised just the right visualization exercise, gratitude journal, prosperity affirmation or book, tape, card deck, would “attract” money, ease, options. I spent a good deal of my teenage years watching infomercials for get-rich schemes (buy this VHS series to find out how!) and TV evangelists late into the night, selling the promise of prosperity. As a kid without means, it was all too alluring to believe that with my mind, I could change my circumstances. I just had to stay positive.
Of course, the inverse of this was terrible. When I inevitably failed, I figured I alone was to blame, that I had succumbed to dark thoughts, that my pessimism had done me in. I hadn’t been happy, grateful, positive enough. I am still working to unlearn some of my knee-jerk reactions to life’s misfortunes (namely to blame myself entirely for the lack of faith I must have demonstrated somewhere along the way). I think the discussion of what happiness is and how to achieve it presents a truth about what is valued in this country and what is not. Realism, skepticism, and objectivity are not prized virtues while positivity, goal-setting, and relentless optimism are richly rewarded.
The connection between positive thinking and personal happiness is disentangled in Oliver Burkeman’s The Antidote: Happiness for People who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking. In it, he dissects the reasons why our current age of unprecedented prosperity and abundance (relative to that of our ancestors) doesn’t seem to have made us happier. Neither, for that matter, has the self-help industry, the technological conveniences of modern life, the ubiquity of motivational messaging all around us. Rather, he argues that our very drive to find happiness, and the desire to eliminate anxiety, pain, insecurity, failure, and sadness from our lives, is what ultimately makes us miserable. There’s a lot to process in this one, so you can see my initial takeaways below.
As always, if you like these “Book Notes,” you may want to look up some more I’ve done on my website.
1️⃣ Sentence Synopsis
Burkeman argues that our very efforts to find happiness are “often precisely the thing that makes us miserable;” he draws a throughline from the calm indifference of Stoic philosophers, to the Buddhist concept of “non-attachment,” to 20th-century psychological research to build the case for a collective re-thinking of happiness and how best to achieve it.
🖼️ Contexts
I enjoyed Burkeman’s other book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, and thought I’d check this one out from my local library because of the blurb on the cover by Héctor Tobar (whose writing I also enjoy). It took me a few chapters to get into but, as always, I appreciate this author’s ability to weave together interesting research (so many Brain Tickles!) and self-deprecating anecdotes to good effect.
🔑 Key Takeaways
All our attempts to be secure result in more insecurity; this is the law of “reversed effort” or “backwards law” as coined by Alan Watts (echoing Aldous Huxley) in The Wisdom of Insecurity. The “cult of optimism” is based on security-chasing which is one of its great flaws.
Self-sabotage through self-monitoring. When we resolve to “think positively” we must continuously scan our minds for negative thoughts; this only amplifies them through the processes of metacognition and can trigger shameful feelings. This is why affirmations, 10-point plans and other one-size-fits-all positivity tricks fail—they usually only highlight a cognitive dissonance that makes people feel worse about themselves and their condition.
For Stoics, the ideal state of mind is tranquility, or “happiness through negativity,” that is, confronting the reality of limited control.
When frustrated, engage in “premeditation of evils”: what’s the absolute worse that can come from this? (And note, there is both the bad and the awful; even if the first happens, the second is likely not going to transpire).
We are not necessarily the “thing” we think ourselves to be: the voice inside our head judges and interprets reality, thus determining our emotional states, and is so loud, so persistent that we imagine ourselves to be that voice. We identify with the voice completely; some characterize this as “ego.” And the “optimism-focused, goal-fixated, positive-thinking approach to happiness is exactly the kind of thing the ego loves.”
Happiness can only be found in the present; the “cult of optimism” promises a happy future, but this only fuels dissatisfaction with the now.
The characteristics, personalities, and skillsets of the “successful” may very well be the same as those who are “failures”—why? Because management scholars rarely interview or survey those who failed in their case studies of success. This problem is known as “undersampling of failure” or “survivorship bias.”
“Failure” as applied to the individual was rare before the 19th century; it occurs with the emergence of credit-rating agencies that determined the risks banks would be taking in issuing loans to borrowers, according to research by Scott A. Sandage in Born Losers.
💯 Strong Lines
On the connection between positive thinkers and Stoics: “The idea that it is ultimately our beliefs that cause our distress…is a perspective shared by Stoics and positive thinkers alike. Beyond this, though, the two traditions diverge utterly – and the divergence becomes most baldly apparent when it comes to beliefs about the future.”
On pursuing security: “We have seen how pursuing our desire for a feeling of security can lead us badly astray; and that vulnerability may be a precondition for the very things that bring the greatest happiness – strong social relationships above all.”
On the denial of death (summarizing Becker’s argument): “…all religions, all political movements and national identities, all business ventures, all charitable activity and all artistic pursuits are nothing but ‘immortality projects’, desperate efforts to break free of death’s gravitational pull…Immortality projects may be the cause of plenty of good things – great architecture, great literature, great acts of philanthropy, great civilisations – but in Becker’s view they are simultaneously the cause of the worst things, too.”
On not seeking closure: “Sometimes the most valuable of all talents is to be able not to seek resolution; to notice the craving for completeness or certainty or comfort, and not to feel compelled to follow where it leads.”
On the point of meditation (via Barry Magid): “the idea of using meditation to make your life ‘better’ or ‘happier’, in any conventional sense, was a misunderstanding. The point, instead, was to learn how to stop trying to fix things, to stop being so preoccupied with trying to control one’s experience of the world.”
Jiddu Krishnamurti on the “monkey mind”: “…one’s brain is constantly chattering, constantly planning, designing: what it will do, what it has done, the past impinging itself on the present. It is everlasting chattering, chattering, chattering.”
Erich Fromm on the importance of uncertainty: “The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning…Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers. Uncertainty is where things happen. It is where the opportunities – for success, for happiness, for really living – are waiting.
On what we choose to value: “The problem is that we have developed the habit of chronically overvaluing positivity and the skills of ‘doing’ in how we think about happiness, and that we chronically undervalue negativity and the ‘not-doing’ skills, such as resting in uncertainty or getting friendly towards failure.”
On promising the future: “Ultimately, what defines the ‘cult of optimism’ and the culture of positive thinking – even in its most mystically tinged, New Age forms – is that it abhors a mystery.”
🧠 Brain Tickles
“Conscious Autosuggestions” or “positive affirmations” (as we know them today) have a single origin point as a form of self-hypnosis. Emile Coué (1857-1926), a French pharmacist, is credited with the technique and the first famous one: “Every day in every way, I’m getting better and better.”
Gabrielle Oettingen’s work on motivation, specifically the finding that spending time and energy visualizing how well things could go in the future reduces most people’s motivation to actually work towards those outcomes.
The ideology of positive thinking has its roots in 19th century teachings of the New Thought movement—the belief that one can achieve happiness, and cure ailment, through the power of the mind alone.
Ordóñez, et. al’s takedown of goal-setting in “Goals Gone Wild: The Systematic Side Effects of Over-Prescribing Goal Setting.”
Sarasvathy’s distinction between “causally minded people” (who will choose whatever means necessary to reach a goal) and “effectually minded people” (who examine what materials and resources are available and imagine what possible ends or next directions those means might lead to).
Gfk’s Custom Research Storehouse, or the “museum of failed products.”
The Japanese concept of “mono no aware” (pathos of things), or “a sensitivity to ephemera”—the transcience of physical objects that mirrors the greater transience of life.
Kevin Dunbar’s research on how scientists respond to failure: first, blaming equipment/techniques, then repeating the experiment hoping the anomaly will disappear, and—if that doesn’t work—setting the experiment aside (i.e., focusing on successes and avoiding examining failures—just like the rest of us!)
Perfectionism is, at bottom, the fear-driven striving to avoid failure at all costs (and research suggests there is a greater correlation between perfectionism and suicide than feelings of hopelessness and suicide). This made me think of the Failure Lab.
The analogy of life as a meal at a very nice restaurant (LaurenTillinghast).
Paul Pearsall’s concept of “openture” as opposed to closure—living an “awe-filled life” that exposes us to lower lows but also higher highs of existence.
🍎 Ideas and Excerpts for Teaching and Learning
There are some activities and concepts Burkeman suggests to help everyone—students included—grapple with happiness, failure and the reality of our limited lifespans:
Ultimately, he prescribes the “negative path to happiness” which means living into and practicing concepts such as moment mori, non-attachment, and the “Stoic pause”:
Russ Harris’ simple exercise for momento mori: imagine you are eighty-years (if you are already 80, pick an older age!); complete the following sentences: “I wish I’d spent more time on…” and “I wish I’d spent less time on…”
5-10 Minutes of vipassana meditation each day. A simple prompt to offer students is provided via Burkeman’s description of his time at the Insight Meditation Society: “‘Sit comfortably, gently close your eyes, and notice the breath as it flows in and out. You can focus on this sensation at the nostrils, or at the abdomen. Physical sensations, feelings and thoughts will carry us away into distraction. In meditation, when we notice that happening, we don’t judge. We just return to the breath.”
Eckhart Tolle’s question (when you’re stuck in anxiety about the future): “Do you have a problem right now?” or “What’s the worst that can happen?”
Keat’s concept of “Negative Capability” and Burkeman’s incisive definition: “The phrase ‘negative capability’ also helps to clarify a subtle double meaning in the word ‘negative’. It refers both to a set of skills that involve ‘not-doing’, as opposed to doing – a negative kind of capability – as well as to the fact that this skill involves confronting negative (as in ‘unpleasant’) thoughts, emotions, and situations.”
Shoma Morita’s insight on procrastination: there is no need to “get motivated” before you can act…the feeling/emotion of wanting to do something is not actually a prerequisite.
I also just loved how Burkeman summarizes Alan Watts’ description of non-duality (or, boundary-less-ness):
The argument goes as follows: that no matter where you draw the boundary – even if we could agree on a place at which to draw it – you would not really be drawing a boundary in the conventional sense at all. Because (here it comes) the very notion of a boundary line depends on it having two sides. When you think about it, it doesn’t make much sense to describe a boundary as something that keeps two things apart. It makes more sense to describe it as the place at which they meet – or, more accurately, the place at which they are exactly the same thing. The inside of the boundary relies for its very existence on the outside, and vice versa; they are, inextricably and by definition, part of the same whole. You simply can’t have the peak of a wave without the trough, or darkness without light. This is the insight behind the ancient Chinese symbol of yin and yang, but there is nothing religious or even especially ‘spiritual’ about it. It is merely the conclusion, Watts argues, to which rigorous thinking must lead. There cannot be a ‘you’ without an ‘everything else’, and attempting to think about one in isolation from the other makes no sense.
See you next Friday!
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