- Resist happiness leeches
- Dig deep
- Respond to the spirit of a gift
- Abandon my self-control
Stores played Christmas carols over their loudspeakers, the trees in the Park Avenue median flickered with twinkle lights, electric menorahs glowed in shop windows, and my daughters were contriving what to wear to their school candle-lighting ceremony: It was holiday time. As the weather became colder and drearier, our sturdy, snug apartment seemed even more comfortable. Sitting inside the warm, pleasant kitchen while icy rain beat against the window, I felt the wordless contentment of a horse in a stable or a wren in a birdhouse.
As the outside weather became more inhospitable, I turned inward, to my own inner design. For the month of December, I wanted to address more directly my interior experience and attitudes. As Simon Patrick wrote, “If better were within, better would come out.” What could I do to renovate myself from within? To make my home happier, I needed to demand more of myself.
First of all, I wanted to furnish my own happiness. I often recalled a passage from Bob Dylan’s odd, brilliant memoir, Chronicles: Volume One, in which he wrote about his wife: “The one thing about her that I always loved was that she was never one of those people who thinks that someone else is the answer to their happiness. Me or anybody else. She’s always had her own built-in happiness.”
That’s what I wanted: my own “built-in happiness.” I wanted to be emotionally self-sufficient, so I didn’t depend on other people or circumstances to boost me up, and didn’t let them drag me down. When I felt unhappy, it became too easy to suck happy energy from others; or to demand constant praise, affirmation, or reassurance; or to neglect to do the tasks that made me happier (exercising, clearing clutter, singing in the morning). I wanted Jamie, Eliza, and Eleanor to be happy, but I couldn’t make them be happy, and I didn’t want to take my happiness entirely from them. One study showed that people who agreed with the statement “For me to be happy, I need others to be happy” were more apt to be depressed, anxious, and to binge eat. At the same time, having my own built-in happiness would not only make me happier, but it would also contribute to—though it couldn’t assure—the happiness of others. (Second Splendid Truth, Part B: One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy myself.)
While I aimed for my own built-in happiness, I knew that relationships mattered tremendously for my happiness. Because of the psychological phenomenon of “emotional contagion,” I “caught” emotions from other people. Even strangers catch emotions from one another, after just fleeting contact, and people can catch emotions through a phone conversation, a person’s silent presence, or even a glance at a picture of a happy or angry face. The more emotionally expressive people are, the more infectious their emotions, and in one study, when one team member was secretly told to be overtly positive, that person’s mood spread throughout the team, and as a consequence, overall performance improved, with less conflict and more cooperation.
People in close relationships tend to experience more similar emotional states. When college freshmen were assigned at random to roommates who were mildly depressed, over the next three months, they, too, became increasingly depressed. A significant increase in one spouse’s happiness boosts the other spouse’s happiness, while a drop in one spouse’s happiness drags down the other.
I’d felt this effect in my own marriage. During a heart operation when he was eight years old, Jamie had picked up hepatitis C, a chronic viral infection that surreptitiously attacks the liver. So far, so good: Jamie has no apparent symptoms and lives a perfectly normal life, but the virus still lurks. Last year, after two unsuccessful standard treatments to eradicate the virus, Jamie went on a year’s experimental course of a high level of the drug interferon. This (also unsuccessful) treatment meant that he felt more or less sick and exhausted all the time; it was like a flu that never lifted. He never complained or slowed down, but he wasn’t himself, and I felt a drop in my own temperature. When Eleanor was three and four years old, and still in her fearsome tantrum-throwing stage, her bad temper made a huge dent in my daily happiness. On the other hand, when Eliza was excited to show us the crazy new video effects she’d learned, or when Jamie was in high spirits after a tough deal finally closed, their happiness lifted me up.
My family’s happiness mattered so much to me; realistically, if they weren’t happy, it was very hard for me to be happy—but the truth was, I couldn’t make them be happy, no matter how fervently I desired to, and they couldn’t make me happy, either. We all have to find happiness for ourselves.
I summed up this long argument in another Splendid Truth, the tripartite Seventh Splendid Truth:
Happy people make people happy, but
You can’t make someone be happy, and
No one else can make you happy.
I knew, however, that by working to maintain my own built-in happiness, I’d be better able to help my family to be happy.
December, the month of Interior Design, was aimed at bolstering this built-in happiness. First, I would “Resist happiness leeches” and free myself from the nefarious influence of anyone who was sucking the happiness out of me. Even more, I wanted to expect better from myself, to behave with more good humor when I felt annoyed or frustrated, so I resolved to “Dig deep.” Because this was the month of gifts, I wanted to remember to “Respond to the spirit of a gift” rather than to the gift itself. Finally, because December offered so many temptations—from sneaking bites of candy cane ice cream to losing my temper in an airport security line—I vowed to bolster my self-control, paradoxically, with the resolution to “Abandon my self-control”; I’d make changes to external conditions so that I wasn’t dependent on my unreliable self-restraint.
I also promised myself that I’d drive a car every single day when we were in Kansas City for Christmas.
RESIST HAPPINESS LEECHES
Happiness has a surprisingly mixed reputation. There’s an assumption that happy people strike others as annoying and shallow, but in fact, they tend to attract others. Happy people are more likely to be energetic, sociable, enthusiastic, and optimistic, in contrast to the unhappy, who are often apathetic, more likely to complain, and sap others’ energy. Studies of social networks by Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler suggest that the happy cluster with the happy, and the unhappy with the unhappy, and that the unhappy are more likely to be on the edge of a social network.
Because happiness and unhappiness are catching, a potent source of unhappiness are the happiness leeches who suck away the lifeblood of happiness from others. After reading a fascinating paper about “bad apples” by Will Felps, Terence R. Mitchell, and Eliza Byington, I considered the three major types of happiness leeches:
• The grouches, who are chronically unhappy, pessimistic, anxious, irritable, or needy. Because negative emotions are more catching than positive emotions, and persist longer, one grouch can drag down a whole group very quickly.
• The jerks, who show no respect for others, who constantly challenge or find fault, behave rudely or cruelly, spread malicious gossip, embarrass others, indulge in mean teasing or pranks, boss others around, unfairly claim credit, withhold necessary information, or dominate the conversation. Their behavior undercuts trust and makes people feel belittled, defensive, and resentful.
• The slackers, who don’t do their fair share of the work. This unequal effort makes others feel resentful and ill-used. Sometimes slackers practice intentional incompetence, when they do a bad job on purpose, or postpone undertaking a task to force someone else to take over. One type of slacker constantly demands attention or assistance—“Could I get your help on this one thing?”—so that he or she distracts and exploits others.
Not only do happiness leeches behave badly themselves, but they also spread their bad behavior. Because of the “spillover effect,” when we see others act like grouches, jerks, or slackers, we’re more likely to imitate them—both because that kind of b
ehavior is on our minds, and because our inhibitions have been lowered. Research shows that the group member who scores lowest on conscientiousness, agreeableness, and emotional stability often sets the tone for a whole group.
In my experience, the grouch is the most common form of happiness leech. Is grouchiness a temporary state, for most people? Do they snap out of their negativity? Often, they don’t.
An unhappy truth about happiness is that one of the best predictors of whether a person will be happy in the future is whether he or she has been happy in the past. This observation has always struck me as singularly unhelpful for someone working on being happier—like telling someone that the best way to avoid being overweight is always to have been thin. However, it’s helpful if you’re trying to evaluate the likelihood that someone else will be happy in the future, if that person’s happiness will matter to you. If you’re interviewing for a job with a boss who seems generally dissatisfied, you might decide that this boss wouldn’t be happy with you (and vice versa). If you’re thinking of sharing an apartment with someone who is very downbeat all the time, you might want to choose a different roommate. If you’re considering marrying someone who has a lot of negative emotions now, you can expect that person to have a lot of negative emotions in the future.
I resolved to “Resist happiness leeches” and to avoid contact with grouches, jerks, or slackers as much as I could—or when I couldn’t avoid them, to deal with them more sensibly. And almost as soon as I’d made this resolution, I had the opportunity to act on it. Just in time, I passed on the chance to collaborate with someone on a tempting project, solely because I’d detected strong evidence of happiness leechiness (my diagnosis: grouch with a touch of jerk). The project would have been fun, short-lived, and not much work, but each short encounter with this person leeched away a small but noticeable measure of my happiness. I followed my resolution, and the minute I hit “send” on my “Thanks, but no thanks” email, I felt a big wave of relief.
Of course, it’s not always possible to avoid a particular happiness leech. One acquaintance shook her head and said, “I can’t avoid my happiness leech—she’s my mother, she’s eighty-one years old, and she lives with me.” What are some strategies, then, that I could use as protection against a person who is a constant negative influence? I came up with a list:
• Avoid being alone with the happiness leech. The presence of other people often dilutes his or her power.
• Communicate through email, if possible. I find it much harder to control my emotional reactions to people when I’m face-to-face with them. Email allows me to react more calmly.
• Keep a sense of humor. Over and over, I see that levity helps diffuse practically any difficult situation—which is too bad for me, because my sense of humor is the first thing that deserts me in a trying situation.
• Instead of contradicting pessimistic or negative statements, acknowledge them. Happiness leeches are often less emphatic when they feel that others recognize their views.
• Act the way I want to feel; behave the way I want to behave. Too often, when I find myself around a happiness leech, I ape that behavior—complaining more, making sharper criticisms. I want to live up to my own standards.
• Most important: Mind my own business. It’s tempting to try to cheer up a grouch, but instead of trying to fix someone else’s mood, I repeat the Seventh Splendid Truth:
Happy people make people happy, but
I can’t make someone be happy, and
No one else can make me happy.
When I was thinking about happiness leeches, an old friend happened to visit from out of town. “Do you see much of your in-laws now that you’ve moved?” I asked. I remembered that they were difficult.
“Luckily, we see them much less!” She sighed. “The thing is—and even my husband admits it—my in-laws are like horrible characters from a play. Every time we see them, I take pages of notes about the unbelievable things they’ve done and said.”
“You actually write it down?”
“Absolutely,” she answered. “That way, their nastiness doesn’t bother me nearly as much. The worse they are, the more fodder I get.” This struck me as a brilliant strategy for cultivating detachment. “I couldn’t actually publish anything about them,” she added, “because they’d sue me immediately, but it’s fun to fantasize about it.”
DIG DEEP
During my research for my first happiness project, I worked for many months to come up with my Twelve Personal Commandments—the twelve overarching principles that I use to guide my thoughts and behavior. I reflect on my personal commandments every day, whether because I’m living up to them, or failing to live up to them.
1. Be Gretchen.
2. Let it go.
3. Act the way I want to feel.
4. Do it now.
5. Be polite and be fair.
6. Enjoy the process.
7. Spend out.
8. Identify the problem.
9. Lighten up.
10. Do what ought to be done.
11. No calculation.
12. There is only love.
(I was considering making “Choose the bigger life” the thirteenth commandment.)
“I read your personal commandments,” a friend told me. “I came up with my own commandments, but I only have four.”
“Oh, what are they?” I asked. I loved hearing other people’s commandments.
“ ‘Reach out,’ ‘Love your mother,’ ‘Show and tell,’ and ‘Dig deep.’ ”
“Those are really good,” I said admiringly. “I especially like ‘Dig deep.’ I’m going to adopt that resolution myself.” I needed to dig deep with my children. Too often, I spoke sharply, lost my patience, or made my mean face.
Consider one December morning. It started out well with the morning routine I loved: I woke up at 6 a.m. to have an hour at the computer to myself. I stretched before getting dressed. I sang out loud while I fixed breakfast for the girls.
But then it all started to go downhill.
“Hey, why aren’t you dressed?” I asked Eliza, as I stuck my head into her room. “It’s almost time for you to leave!”
“I don’t have anything to wear,” she complained.
“We just got some school clothes last week!” I said. “You must have something.”
“No, I don’t, because …” and she launched into a tiresome item-by-item explanation of what she couldn’t wear, and why.
“Figure it out,” I said sharply.
For her part, Eleanor fussed about every decision—“I don’t want to wear a sweater!”
“I don’t want to brush my hair!”—and before long, she dissolved into little sobs. “What’s wrong?” I kept asking, but she wouldn’t answer. From the way that she was crying, I knew she wasn’t really upset, just fretful.
I did not handle this well. Despite all my efforts, my fuse remains shortest in the morning. I kept reminding myself, “Dig deep!” I wanted to stay serene and helpful, and I’d take a deep breath and say something cheerful, then I’d snap again—but I did do a much better job of staying calm than would have been my natural instinct. And, more or less, it helped. Eliza did get dressed. Eleanor did stop fussing. I managed to give each of them a loving good-bye.
Just a week later, though, I faced the same struggle. Even though Eleanor had mostly outgrown her tantrums, from time to time she suffered a relapse. (The rest of us suffered more than she did.)
One Sunday afternoon, she reverted to her worst form. First she sulked, then she whimpered, then she launched into full-blown angry shrieks in her bathroom. I’d slept badly the night before, and as always, that meant my patience frayed much more quickly. As her behavior degraded, I tried to distract her, then I ignored her, then I acknowledged her bad feelings—and then I started yelling.
I bellowed outside the bathroom door, “You need to learn to get better control over yourself!” (In the heat of anger, the irony of that statement didn’t occur to
me.)
Jamie came into the room and caught me by the hand. “Listen,” he said. “You’ve got to calm down. You’re scary when you’re mad like this.”
“I’m not scary!” I protested. “She—”
“I know,” he said. “She can be really irritating. But she’s five years old. You need to calm down.”
I stared at him for a moment. Then I took a deep breath. He was right.
Controlling my quick irritation and my sharp tongue was something I struggled with every day. I knew that I couldn’t yell and snap my way toward the loving, peaceful, tender atmosphere that I wanted. Dig deep, dig deep.
RESPOND TO THE SPIRIT OF A GIFT
December is the month of Christmas and Hanukkah, and we celebrate both with traditions centered on the grandparents, to their great satisfaction—every Christmas with my family, every Hanukkah with Jamie’s. Along with those holidays, my birthday falls in mid-December, so because practically every gift I receive comes during this month, December started me thinking about gifts.
Often when I read, I’m struck by a particular passage without understanding why it has caught my attention, then over time, its significance becomes clear. I’ve read Story of a Soul, the spiritual memoir of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, several times (I’m slightly obsessed with Saint Thérèse, as demonstrated by my large library of books about her). One day in early December, I suddenly realized why I kept thinking about a particular paragraph from Story of a Soul.
Its context: One day in 1897, when she was in her early twenties, and weakened by the tuberculosis that would soon kill her, Thérèse was sitting in her wheelchair in the garden of her convent. Ordered by her prioress to complete an account of her childhood memories, she was trying unsuccessfully to write:
When I begin to take up my pen, behold a Sister who passes by, a pitchfork on her shoulder. She believes she will distract me with a little idle chatter: hay, ducks, hens, visits of the doctor, everything is discussed.… Another hay worker throws flowers on my lap, perhaps believing these will inspire me with poetic thoughts. I am not looking for them at the moment and would prefer to see the flowers remain swaying on their stems.…
Happier at Home: Kiss More, Jump More, Abandon a Project, Read Samuel Johnson, and My Other Experiments in the Practice of Everyday Life Page 11