Self-help book addicts, self-improvement seminar
addicts…. Ostentatious happiness seekers….they all look like gym rats to me. They try hard. But, they serious efforts and
investments do not seem to have traction.
In their strenuous efforts to improve themselves,
they also make great investments, financially and emotionally. They constantly
buy popular self-help books, sign up for and attend self-improvement seminars
and so forth.
They usually feel “good” about buying these books
and attending these seminars. They also
like to talk about the books and the seminars with friends and even posting such
their experiences on their Facebook pages, as if simply buying famous self-help
books and attending popular self-improvement seminars would make them already
happy enough to boast about. Worse yet, some are even narcissistic, as often observed
in some bipolar disorder patients, especially during their manic cycle.
According to Stinson et al. (2008), “Prevalence,Correlates, Disability, and Comorbidity of DSM-IIV Narcissistic Personality Disorder:Results from the Wave 2 national Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and RelatedConditions” (Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 69(7):1033-1045), a notable comorbidity
is found across narcissistic personality disorder, bipolar disorder and
substance abuse. In my clinical
observation, elements of these psychological disorders can be found among the
happiness seekers, especially those whose seeking pattern resembles drug
abusers – indicating a significantly restless and insecure state of mind.
Because of this, they tend to become more ecstatic to find another self-help
book and to attend another self-improvement seminar, similar to how a manic
phase of bipolar disorder patient may feel.
Usually, the euphoric sensations these happiness
seekers experience in purchasing new self-help books and attending high-power
self-improvement seminars doe not last long. It’s like that “buzz” drug users
get. So, these happiness-seekers need to get another dose of “high” sensation.
Sadly, what they are getting by investing in
self-help books and self-improvement seminars is not happiness but an ecstatic
sensation, which does not last long. I
am afraid that they tend to live in an illusion to confuse such a sensation
with happiness.
Similar to drug addicts, they keep pursuing another
dose of euphoria after another. But, sooner or later, fatigue and exhaustions
set in. They will also run out of money
to buy self-help books and register for self-improvement seminars. Then, they tend to feel that there were no
happiness for them. It’s like a dead-end feeling that severe drug addicts often
experience.
If these hard-working happiness seekers’ efforts were
rewarded as they desire, everything would be fine. But, the problem I often see
as a psychotherapist is that many of them don’t. So, after failed efforts to be happy, they find
themselves unhappy. Some of them present
symptom of major depression. Not just unhappy,
but often frustrated, disappointed, and depressed, they come to me for
consultation with a big “why” question – “Why can’t I be happy even though I
have been trying so hard?”
This makes a classic case of frustration with
paradoxical nature in their happiness illusion.
Another aspect of their problem is that these
happiness seekers in an illusion tend to be too busy seeking happiness. But,
they rarely have time to practice what is really necessary to be happy. Seeking happiness and doing what needs to be
done to be happy are not the same thing. By becoming too busy seeking
happiness, they have gotten too busy to practice what is actually necessary to
be happy.
Their purpose, “to seek happiness”, has clouded
their visions of distinguishing what a purpose is and what necessary actions to
take. This is like putting the cart
ahead of the horse, as a result of their obsession with their purpose of
pursuing happiness.
This obsession-confusion leads to an illusion to
regard a mere ecstasy as happiness, like mistaking pleasure for joy. This obsession-confusion-illusion pattern
makes them too busy chasing their purpose of “to be happy”, making them neglect
what they need to do at the very present moment. This is also like driving a car while
daydreaming about where you want to go.
I said earlier that self-help addicts, who are too
busy buying self-help books and attending self-improving seminars are like gym
rats.
Chances are – many gym rats just love a false sense
of satisfaction by simply going to the gym.
They often feel as if they had gotten in shape – though they are not
really – simply by going to the gym. But,
the level of their commitment to what they should be doing in the gym is questionable.
I often tell – if their real purpose is to get in
shape, going to a gym is not necessary as there are many opportunities around,
other than expensive gym, to get in shape and stay in shape. But, these gym rats’ typical excuses are, “I
get a really good coach to help me motivated”.
They are right to say about good coaches in a fancy
gym. That’s their money’s worth. But, like those who keep buying self-help
books written by “good” authors and like those who keep attending
self-improvement seminars hosted by famous life coaches, they get a good
“buzz”.
For the moment, they get so motivated – kind like
getting on high for drug addicts. But, the problem is that the “buzz” they get
from a self-help book, from a life-improvement seminar, and from a good coach
in the gym, often fizzles rather quickly. So, they keep going back. And, this tends to formulate an end-less
cycle, if not necessarily a vicious one – an endless cycle of getting a
“buzz”(motivated), then fizzled (feeling down), seeking the “buzz”, and on and
on. This is like being in a vicious karmic cycle.
A way to free themselves from this vicious futile
behavioral cycle is to just forget about happiness – to let go of their
thinking about happiness. Instead,
simply focus on here and now – living the very present moment fully.
No fancy agenda. No fancy plan. Just live each moment fully.
The truth is that happiness is not something we
chase. It is not an object of our
pursuit.
Happiness is a natural consequence of living each
moment fully and mindfully.
Such a life style leads us to be more content with
our lives – because living each moment fully and mindfully inevitably helps us
recognize what we have better, rather than worrying about what we do not. Such a life style does not prompt us to
compare ourselves with others only to become jealous and envious.
The more we become aware of what we have, by simply living each moment more fully and
mindfully, we become more content of ourselves and our own lives. After all,
experiencing this contentment is happiness.
But, living in an illusion, these happiness seekers
in an empty cyclical behavioral pattern, like drug addicts, tend to think that the source of happiness is
outside of themselves. That is why they tend to seek happiness, become so busy
chasing it but forgetting what really they can and should to in order to be
happy. It is not to buy these self-help
books. It is not to attend these self-improvement seminars. It is simply to live each moment as fully as
they can so that they will not regret later.
Happiness will follow those who always live each moment fully.
Perhaps, these Henry David Thoreau’s words say it
all: “Happiness is like a butterfly; the
more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention
to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.” Of course, our attention shall turn each
given moment and what we have within ourselves, by being more mindful.
In order to mask this “dukkha” , a person tends to seek happiness more consciously with a great propensity to become obsessed with seeking happiness – or rather “chasing” happiness, to a point of neglecting what matters most at each moment. Because of this blindness, due to “tanha”-induced blindness, these happiness seekers become negligent about the importance of each moment, unable to live each moment fully. Thus, they slip into a vicious endless cycle of seeking happiness, experiencing a temporary ecstatic “buzz”, mistaken for happiness, and disappointment and depression.
This Buddhist teaching on the problem of “tanha” also corresponds to the Suscipe prayer of St. Ignatius of Loyola: “Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, All I have and call my own. You have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace, that is enough for me,”(Spiritual Exercises 234).
The Suscipe prayer is about disciplining our desire so that it will not become like “tanha”. “Sucipe” means “to receive” in Latin. It is not about seeking and chasing something outside ourselves. Instead, “Suscipe” is about making conscious efforts to be more mindful about what we already have – what is given, which is grace in Catholic theology.
Grace is all we need to be content. And, this realization leads to a sense of happiness, according to the Ignatian spirituality in the Catholic spiritual tradition.
So, when I treat restless happiness seekers, experiencing disappointment and depression, I invite them to reflect on their “tahna” or whatever its equivalent that drives them into an endless vicious cycle of seeking of happiness and constant experience of unhappiness.
Until they come to realize that happiness is not something they seek…unless they understand the importance of mindfulness of here and now in light of the mindset like the St. Ignatius of Loyola’s “suscipe” prayer, they will never feel happy.
Here is a god joke about these happiness seeking “addicts”.
A customer at a book store asked a store clerk.
“Excuse me, could you please tell me where the self-help section is?”
The clerk responded.
“Sir, I think you should not ask me. You should help yourself!”
Freud said, “Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar” in regard to an infant sucking his or her mother’s breast, in regard to how breast sucking can formulate a prototype of love object relations. Now, I say, “Sometimes, a joke is not just a joke!”, because this joke about self-help book seeker makes an important point of teaching on the problem of happiness seekers. This joke also points out to a problematic relationship with self that the happiness seekers tend to have – the problem of intrapsychic inconfidence and insecurity.
As the self-help book seeker in this joke has forgotten the most important thing: doing what he or she can do for himself or herself, the happiness seekers who are too busy seeking happiness have forgotten what they should be doing – living their each present moment fully – rather than wasting their energy and money for seeking happiness externally.
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