ON A POSITIVE NOTE

When there are things that I don’t understand about Monkey Nature, I go and ask the other monkeys. I, of course, have many experiences in common with other monkeys, but once in a while I run into one that I have never personally experienced, so I go out and start asking others.

Recently, my friends and I were having a discussion about a wide-spread characteristic of the human monkey which we still cannot completely figure out. It is the propensity toward negativity which many of them seem to have in particular conversational contexts, the purpose of which still baffles me.

It was something that I had certainly noticed off and on throughout my life, but which seemed to become more frequent while I was pregnant and now that I have a child. Another friend noticed a high incidence of this behavior since she has become pregnant as well. When discussed in a group, it was decided that any time one’s life situation becomes conspicuous (pregnant, getting married, having or adopting a baby, etc.,) that it leaves one open to particular kinds of comments, often from people who don’t even know you at all.

The interactions we discussed go something like this:

Person A: “I’m really enjoying being pregnant.”
Person B: “Just wait until the third trimester – then you’ll be miserable.”

Person A: “We’re getting married next month.”
Person B: “You think you’re happy now, but it won’t last.”

Person A: “I’ve decided to have a natural childbirth.”
Person B: “As soon as you go into labor you’ll be begging for drugs.”

Person A: “I feel so well-rested.”
Person B: “When your baby arrives you’ll never sleep again.”

Person A: “Our baby hardly ever cries.”
Person B: “That will change soon.”

Person A: “Our baby is so laid back and happy.”
Person B: “Too bad she’ll hate you when she’s a teenager.”

The list goes on and on, but the dynamic is the same. Ironically, at least among the people in the above mentioned discussion, the predictions of the Doom Sayers rarely ever came true. Of course, the DS never came back to say “oh, maybe I was wrong.” In fact, when met with the obvious evidence that their former predictions had been incorrect, they would often just predict something else negative for the future, insinuating that though the doom hadn’t befallen just yet, it was inevitable.

What is this? Why does suffering seem to be the assumption for so many of life’s big transitions? And what is the motivation to offer a negative prediction when presented with a positive outlook?

In discussing it with several different people, I heard many possibilities…

1) We live in a culture where suffering is given elevated status, i.e. the whole “if you suffer now you will be rewarded later, ergo suffering is good.”

2) Things achieved while suffering are perceived as being “worth more” than things achieved while happy.

3) If you’re too happy about something it will be taken away, i.e. it’s bad luck to articulate one’s good fortune so they are doing you a favor by tempering your positive statement with a negative one.

4) Conversational scripts which dictate that a “don’t get too happy about it” response is what is socially acceptable.

5) People respond based upon their own experiences, i.e. if they suffered than suffering must be inherent to the experience. They may be trying to help you avoid disappointment when your good situation inevitably turns bad.

6) If they suffered and you didn’t they may feel as though they did something “wrong” to cause the suffering they experienced.

7) Conversely, if you didn’t suffer in that situation, then you may be secretly insinuating that they did something wrong, so they will retaliate by wishing suffering upon you.

8) If they suffered then by god you’re going to, too.

I still can’t say that I totally understand the dynamic… Ok, I don’t understand it at all, but at least I have some working explanations.

One person I asked noted that very few people these days seem to have a positive outlook about life in general. She claims that twenty or thirty years ago, it was much more common to find people who were really positive about life’s experiences and transitions, but that now more people tend to be negative. She postulated that it is because, nowadays, people are so busy working, spending, worrying that they don’t have time for the things which actually lead to happiness, i.e. suffering has become the norm.

Then what are we / they doing with our / their lives, I wonder? Does anyone notice that people tend not to be happy these days? Does this seem to be the preferable method for living? Is anyone questioning these choices? Just curious…

I recently saw a movie called Thirteen Conversations About One Thing. The theme of the movie was happiness, what caused it and how it was defined by different people.

One of the interactions portrayed in the film had to do with a man who was always happy. No matter what happened, he could find a positive spin, a way to look on the bright side. The film watches him at work as an insurance claims adjuster, and although it is not a particularly glamorous job, he is always happy and cheerful anyway.

His co-workers, too, seem happier around him, though they have a difficult time comprehending the way he is always able to find something positive to see in every situation. But then there is his boss…

His boss, who is not very happy with his own life, can’t stand the man BECAUSE he is happy all the time. He makes a concerted effort to break him down, to try to crack his happiness apart, just because it makes him angry to see someone that positive.

I won’t give away the movie, but the point is this – what is that dynamic? What is it in people which compels them to try to tear apart someone else’s happiness?

One person I asked recalled a situation which had happened at her job many years ago with a very cheerful co-worker much like Mr. Happy mentioned above. Though this person’s company was welcome in the afternoons, she had a difficult time dealing with the happy person first thing in the morning. Thinking about it, she admitted that it was when she was cranky it was difficult to be around someone like that because she wished that she, too, was happy. Since she wasn’t, it was very easy to feel envious (and therefore angry) of someone who was.

I found this answer very refreshing in its honesty and very illuminating of the problem in general. Though, rationally (as this person knew as well), being angry at someone who is happy doesn’t cause happiness for anyone at all. The more angry someone is, the less happy they are. And, if they are “successful” in their endeavor, the happy person might end up unhappy in the end as well. Who, exactly, does this serve?

Some would say that this is just human nature, but I don’t believe that at all. I think that it is a learned response, one which is more common in some cultures and situations than others.

I remember a Russian folk story which illustrated this dynamic in that society, as told by a native Russian. Basically, a man was granted any wish that he wanted, on the condition that his neighbor would get twice whatever he got. If he wished for a herd of cattle, his neighbor would get a herd twice as big. If he wanted a prosperous crop, his neighbor would have twice as much prosperity.

So, weighing this in mind, the man made his wish – he wished to be blinded in one eye.

Ostensibly, seeing his neighbor suffer (with his one good eye) would bring some kind of joy to his life, though what kind of joy that is I have a difficult time understanding. Is it a dynamic of “I am suffering but since you are suffering so much more I can take pleasure in the sum of the difference in our suffering?” Is that why people enjoy watching the news? Is it why they slow down to stare at traffic accidents? Watch the war on TV?

I am trying very hard to understand this idea, but it is only on an intellectual level – I can, vaguely, understand the concept but can’t really wrap (warp?) my head around it.

Personally, I like the idea of sympathetic joy. I’m sure that there is some wise, pithy sounding quote about it by somebody famous, but for now I’ll just summarize the idea in my own words…

If you can find happiness in the happiness of others, then you will always be happy.

I just find this a much more refreshing drink of happiness than taking pleasure in the suffering of others. We are, evolutionarily speaking, social animals – happiness is contagious.

I’ve experimented with smiling in public places, and people will automatically smile if they see someone else doing it. When the face is smiling, it sends signals to the brain – Hey! We’re happy! – so the brain starts secreting the Happy Juices to support that. Eventually, with enough smiling, a person does feel happy – it’s chemically inevitable.

Ah ha! A wise, pithy quote from somebody famous… “Sometimes your smile springs from your joy, sometimes your joy springs from your smile.” (Thich Nhat Hanh )

However, there is that one in five hundred who will be upset or angry at someone who is happy. But as a wise and not-so-famous person I know once said, “Happiness cannot cause unhappiness.” If happiness “causes” someone else to feel unhappy, then they were unhappy to begin with.

Perhaps this seems obvious, but it took me quite a while to get it through my own head. For a few years, I struggled with the (misunderstood) observation that, sometimes, my happiness seemed to cause unhappiness in others in some obscure, complex way that I was unable to understand. I spent a great deal of time trying to pretend that I was less happy than I was, or more to the point, avoiding people completely so that I felt “allowed” to be happy without hurting anyone. I tried to do the world a favor by removing my happy ass from it, truly believing that I was, in some way I couldn’t really understand, saving other people from some unexplainable pain.

But then I had a child and went – whoa – what a dysfunctional lesson to teach somebody else. When I think about it that way, it looks totally different… Sure, it’s Ok for me, but would I want her to feel that way about happiness? No? Then I best do something different…

So my years of research and social experimentation amounted to basically this: Screw it! Be as happy as you want! The unhappy people are the unhappy people – one more isn’t going to make the world a better place. As another wise unfamous (infamous?) person noted, “Hell isn’t more fun just because one more person is in it.”

And that’s just funny enough to make me smile…