Mental kung-fu: resistance is futile

"Resistance is futile." - The Borg, Star Trek.

Many years ago, I was at war with myself and my circumstances. That's an idea I learned from Nathaniel Branden, a psychologist who has researched the attitudes of people who thrive. I felt like I'd come up against a brick wall - and I was pushing. I was relatively depressed, and I felt completely unable to change the landscape of my life, which I didn't want to accept. I'm going to share with you here one of the key realisations that helped me get out of that time. It's about acceptance.

Like plenty of other people, I used to think that the opposite of acceptance, which I'll call resistance or rejection, is important to 'get ahead in life'. If we just 'accept our fate', the idea goes, we'll be resigned to whatever badness is in the present. So we push against what we do not like, and wage war against ourselves and our circumstances. The problem is that such a struggle isn't very useful. It tends to foster negativity, and digs us more into the situations we don't like. Why? Well, there are many things that we just can't quickly change, and some things we can't change at all. If we chose to wage war with these things, we ruminate over them. They dominate our thoughts as we think about them again and again, wishing that things would were different. We think about all the reasons we don't like things the way they are, and we justify to ourselves our discontent with our past and our present. We regret our past decisions and feel a sense of loss from 'if-only' scenarios. We justify feeling bad, feeling sorry for ourselves, and getting no-where - and so we feel even worse.

When I was in that situation, I felt like many other people do that it was a bad idea to simply accept the way things are. I believed that my repulsion for things I didn't like about my life was what motivated me to change things for the better. As I explained in my previous post, though, the negative emotions that mindset fostered actually demotivated me. They narrowed my mind and undermined my resources to actually change. But if I was to give up my attitude, what was the alternative?

Now I know. The alternative is to chose to not wage war, to lay down our psychological weapons, and learn to work with the way things are. It's actually OK to be at peace with them, even to feel positive emotions, despite them not being as we would prefer. Positive emotions won't make things any worse, and in fact will help you much more to improve things. That's the subtle trick about acceptance. Acceptance is not about liking the way things are, it's about choosing to be fully aware the reality of the situation, and choosing to do what you can with it. As Nathaniel Branden notes, it's basically about awareness. You don't have to like the situation, but you can chose how you engage with it, and to do that effectively you have to be aware of how things really are.

Accepting how things are means we can engage with them positively. We can do that much more effectively when we aren't trying to hide from reality, but instead stare it in the eyes and see it for what it is. In my case, I faced the fact that I was depressed. I didn't like it, but I accepted the reality of what was then my present situation. I realised that spending my energy on a mental war against my situation was not going to make things improve. I stopped mentally resisting the way things were, and decided to accept them so that I could starting doing something positive about them. Acceptance changes how we approach the present moment. The way we feel right now matters right now, but it isn't like to change our long-term circumstances. So, do we want to get bogged in negative thoughts about them, or look for ways to feel as good as we can despite our circumstances and to make the most of them? That's the choice between waging war and and acceptance.

Acceptance makes possible what I call mental kung-fu. Imagine that some enemy tries to punch you. If you shield yourself with your head in your arms you're still likely to get quite hurt. If you happen to know kung-fu, though, you can redirect the energy of their attack safely (and even use it against them). Getting punched with your head in your arms is the picture of someone who attempts to simply resist and push away the the adversities that life swings at us. The kung-fu master, though, is the picture of someone who accepts those adversities so that he can engage with them effectively, and ultimately master them. So acceptance is an important attitude, because it is a pre-requisite to effective mental kung-fu, which can increase both our resilience and our overall well-being. Resisting reality, as it turns out, is quite futile.

Make well-being a goal

If we are to become happier, it's not enough to simply know that it is possible. We could even learn all the ways in which we could become happier. The fact is, increasing our sense of well-being takes a concerted effort over a long time. So, we need to have some serious motivation toward the goal of increasing our well-being. We need what I have come to call 'the will to thrive.' So, this post will be about what gives people that will to put in the hard work.

The idea of 'getting happier' won't motivate you, and it certainly won't make you happier. Why? Because well-being is not about being fortunate enough to get happier, but instead about learning to be happier. Trying to get happier - as if happiness is something external that we somehow acquire - just doesn't work. Nor does getting your circumstances just the way you want them. Life doesn't work that way, and neither does happiness.

Fortunately, research has also shown that our sense of well-being can be increased and sustained. Well-being is more like a skill, that can be developed over time. It is the skill of 'being' well - being in this present moment in a positive, constructive, and effective manner. People who cultivate the skills of 'being well' do quite predictably increase their levels of happiness. But it takes hard work. So, here are some reasons why it's worth cultivated the skills of how to 'be' well:

1. It's good to feel good. Enough said. In fact, many thinkers have suggested that having a sense of well-being is the goal from which all other human goals originate.
   
2. Positive emotions have a profound effect on us. They broaden our mind and help us to build our resources for the future. There are countless flow-on effects. Let me list some of them. In general, happier people are more intelligent, creative, and focused. They are better at solving problems, achieving goals, and coping with stress. They tend to be more successful by almost any measure. They have stronger, deeper, and more fulfilling friendships and relationships. They have a greater sense of meaning and purpose in life, and find their lives more fulfilling. Physically, their immune systems are stronger, their physical injuries heal faster, the age better and they even live longer. They are a less risk of all manner of diseases, from Alzheimer's to heart disease. Studies have shown that positive emotions actually cause all these positive effects, they are not merely consequences. In almost every domain of life, a sense of well-being itself has a hugely positive effect.
   
3. People with a greater sense of well-being influence in the world in more positive ways, and can often be of greater benefit to others. There are several reasons. The broaden and build effect of positive emotions spills over to benefit other people too. Happier people are kinder and more altruistic than unhappy people. They are more effective at doing things that benefit others. Not only that, a sense of well-being has a direct positive influence on those around you as well, since happiness is contagious. The people who spend time with you benefit from your happiness too. Making your own well-being one of your important goals is far from selfish, since it is an important resource through which we can benefit others.
4. Life is difficult, bad things happen, and you have to cope with it. It is healthy to feel negative emotions. But some people become crippled by them. Others a resilient, and able to 'bounce back' from even the greatest tragedies. It just so happens that the same skills that cultivate our sense of well-being also build our resilience against adversity. When adversity strikes, you'll deal with it much better if you've already developed those skills.
5. There seems to be no other way to get a deep sense of well-being. Happiness doesn't happen by accident. There are people who have everything they could want and yet are miserable. Conversely, there are people who have nothing (materially) and yet have a strong sense of well-being. How can this be? The reason is that the world we really experience is not the world we see physically, it is the world of our mind. So if our mental world is in disarray, nothing we change about the outside world will lead to happiness. The only way to have a sense of well-being is to get our mental worlds in order.
   

So, it really is worth making well-being a goal, and being willing to put in some serious effort to increase it. Fostering a heart-felt will to thrive is the most critical foundation. It provides the necessary motivation to learn the skills that take us toward that goal. Without the will to thrive, those same skills of well-being seem ineffective and trite. It is the not the desire to simply change our circumstances, it is the will to engage with them in a more positive, constructive, and effective way.

Regaining hope: the starting point on the path to feeling happier

During depression, most people feel like they are passive victims of life, powerless to change their circumstances or more importantly, stem their tide of emotions. They feel helpless. They lose hope. According to some researches, that feeling of helplessness - and it is just a feeling - is what lies at the heart of depression.

From my study of positive psychology, is seems that regaining a sense of hope is also the starting point for anyone who wants to learn to thrive in life, rather than languish. Hope is what you get from combining a goal with motivation and some realistic pathways to get there. People who are depressed tend to feel hopeless because they believe they have no available paths to become happier. So, they also have no motivation, since they believe that trying is futile. In time, they give up on the goal of being happier (by 'happier', I mean having a greater love of life), since why have a goal without any motivation or pathways to achieve it?

So how do we regain a sense of hope? No amount of wishful thinking or 'positive affirmations' will do the trick. It all hinges on what we know. Let me explain...

Imagine you a suddenly transported into the wilderness. You're alone, and there's no one else near for hundreds of miles. There are all sorts of dangerous animals. You can't see much food. You have no means of help, and there's no one for hundreds of miles. On what grounds could you have hope to survive such an ordeal? You could reasonably have hope if you knew how to survive in that kind of wilderness. You would know how to get food. Know how to make shelter. Know what poisonous plants to not eat and what dangerous animals to avoid. Knowledge would give you hope. If you didn't have the necessary knowledge and skills though, you might well feel hopeless and helpless.

Take another example, one a bit closer to home. Imagine you plan to grow a vegetable garden. Would you hope it to flourish if you stayed ignorant of how to grow vegetables? You'd probably learn about how to grow vegetables, and that knowledge would be the basis upon which you'd hope your garden to thrive.

The situation is not much different when it comes to our emotions. Emotions are like vegetables. You can cultivate positive ones, or let weeds grow. Just like in gardening, there is knowledge about how to effectively manage our own thoughts and emotions. People with depression tend to not have much of that knowledge. But what if they learned that knowledge? What if they understood their feelings, and understood the ways in which they could actually change them? What if they knew that it really is within their power to feel better, even thrive, and understood the steps to get there? I think that knowledge would give people hope.

If we have that knowledge-based hope, then we can see the realistic pathways to become happier. We feel more motivated, since we don't feel powerless and helpless anymore. And the goal of a brighter future is more attainable. Hope, I believe, is the first stepping stone, but that hope needs to be based on realistic knowledge of how people can thrive in life.

So, over the next few posts, I'm going to explain some of the things that really do work. The things that people who genuinely thrive in life know, usually without even realizing it. These are skills, attitudes and behaviors that hundreds of scientific studies have now shown to be effective in increasing our sense of well-being. I hope that this knowledge help you in life, just as it has helped me.

Why do many people languish in life?

As a starting point in this blog, I think it's important to give a little background on why some people languish in life. Languishing is on the negative end of the spectrum of subjective well-being. I say subjective well-being, not simply happiness, since well-being is much broader than the simple positive emotion that people call happiness. Well-being includes things like our emotions, our engagement with life, our connection with others, our evaluation of ourselves and our lives, and our sense of purpose and meaning. On the positive end of the spectrum is thriving. Unfortunately, most people don't thrive. Many people are 'OK', some 'get by', and far too many languish under the day to day adversities of life. Why?

Recent research is giving us part of the answer. It is showing that most people are very poor at predicting what will increase their sense of well-being. Western culture serves as a very poor guide. It suggests that greater well-being is to be found in greater wealth and more impressive achievements. It enculturates us to believe that possession, entertainment, luxury, and social status are the keys to well-being. It fosters the idea that we will be lastingly happier by getting what we want, by getting things like:

• A relationship
• A more attentive spouse
• Looking younger
• Losing weight
• More money
• More time
• Cure from a chronic illness or disability
• A better house
• An award or recognition

Would we not be happier to get the things we want? Yes - but only for a short time, and not nearly to the extent that we expect. The reason for this is that we humans, by nature, adapt very quickly to our circumstances. We are wired to notice novelty, but adapt to things that do not change. So when we get something we want, we initially feel overjoyed. Yet after a few months, weeks, days or even hours, we adapt to it. Our feelings of well-being return to their base level. The converse is also true, that when bad things happen to us we often do not feel as bad as we had expected to, because in a short time we adapt. In fact, research is now showing that our circumstances influence how we feel by only about 10%. People struggle to improve their sense of well-being because they pour their energy into endeavors that have only a small influence on it. The flip side is that at the same time, they fail to devote their energy into more effective pursuits.

As a society, we have lost much of the wisdom shared by those centuries ago. The consequences are stunning: despite a quality of circumstances far better than most of the world has even known before, we live in an age of depression. The rate of increase of depression among children is an astounding 23% p.a., and the average age at which depression strikes is now only 14 years old! Not university students, nor high-schoolers, but pre-schoolers are the fastest-growing market for antidepressants. In most developed countries, 15% of the population of most developed countries suffers severe depression at some stage in their life. Depression is about to become the 2nd most common health problem in the world. It is nothing short of a disaster, and not only on a personal level. People's friends and family are affected also. Depression also comes at a cost of billions and billions of dollars to the economy. We live amid the great deception, in a society that presents a facade of happiness when many people are languishing in life.

So what, then, does improve our sense of well-being? It is my purpose with this blog to share with you the newfound and rediscovered wisdom that answers that question.

Starting...

Begin to be now what you will be hereafter.

That was the advice of William James, in the 19th century. It's good advice really, and it concerns very important matter - our well-being. That's the issue around which I'm beginning a new blog about. As it happens, there is now a wealth of research on well-being from the very new and exciting new field of Positive Psychology. This research has shown that it is very possible to increase our sense of well-being, become happier and more resilient, and learn to thrive amid the ups and downs of life.

The research has also started to show how we can learn to thrive. I'm a great deal happier from developing some skills that I've learned through studying Positive Psychology. Unfortunately, very few people have heard about these skills. That's why I'm writing this blog. My goal is to distill down this information into some concise and helpful posts. I hope it will be of help to you, and I hope it will also help me to understand it better also.

I've got a whole stack of stuff that I want to share with you. As I get time, I'll share as much as I can. So stay tuned, I think it'll be good!