“When we lose our tolerance for vulnerability, joy becomes foreboding”
Dr. Brene Brown, The Power of Vulnerability
Sometimes it can be really hard to be happy.
That may not surprise you. But what I mean is that even in a happy setting, we don’t feel as joyous as we could. We can easily hold ourselves back from our happiness.
Perhaps we got a new position at work. Maybe we received a high grade on a test. They provide temporary boosts to our joy. But then we start to wonder. What if people think I’m incompetent for this role? What if I could’ve scored higher or need to keep up the scores on the next test? Suddenly what was a source of our joy becomes a source of our unease. What happened?
The Denial of Impermanence
Ernest Becker examines why human beings are unique in his book The Denial of Death. His observation was that humans had the ability to conjecture so far into the future to be able to realize the fact of their own mortality. And that meant, unlike other species, we had to be aware that our life was limited.
However, he noted that this observation was one we try to hide from. That is, we act in life as if we are not mortal. As if death is not an important factor for our decisions. We can simply put that aside for the time being to not worry about it.
That seems like a rational mindset. Who wants to think about death every moment? Sounds gloomy. But Becker uses this to turn to a second, perhaps more important, observation. That our denial of death also leads to a denial of life. By ignoring death, we ignore the preciousness of life in each moment. And without treating life preciously, we deny our full experience of it in the present. We don’t live each moment as if it were our last because we don’t even think about the end. And just like having unlimited time, much of our life serves meaningless pursuits.
And I believe Becker’s observations go beyond death. I believe we also try to deny the impermanence of things, most of all happiness.
We all recognize that nothing lasts forever. But that realization can be apparent especially when we are happy. We know that our joyous moments won’t last forever. And therefore we cage them off. We don’t dive too deep into them because they’ll go away. Instead we’ll worry about the things that could take them away. So much so that we never give ourselves the opportunity to be happy. What do I mean by this?
On Guard
Imagine a movie scene with a family in a car. They’re talking well with each other, cracking jokes. It’s Christmas and they’re driving back home at night after a cheerful day with beautiful snow around them. The young kids are eating some leftover cookies. The mom turns around. And the camera just sits there still while showing the whole family laughing together. What do you think will happen next?
Dr. Brene Brown found in her research, which she expressed in her audiobook, The Power of Vulnerability, that in situations presented like these, most people default into assuming something bad is about to happen, even before the question is asked. They can’t see the scene for what it is, just a peaceful family ride in a car. Or perhaps they just don’t want to see it that way. Because if they do, and if something unexpected happens, they get sucker-punched.
It seems like the baseline mindset is to always be on-guard. That means to be cool and firm. It means to be suspicious of overly happy things. It means working ourselves towards perfection so our faults don’t get noticed.
And it makes sense. If we try to open up and just be happy, there’s a high likelihood something will happen to take the happiness away. We effectively get punished for feeling joy. So we’d prefer to close ourselves off. We’d rather worry about our faults and what could go wrong because we can attempt to protect it all.
But what cost does that incur?
Giving Ourselves Permission
Dr. Brene Brown also noticed in her research that this ardent preparation was quite insignificant. Because no matter how many walls we put up, we’ll never be fully prepared for when calamities arise. It always leads to a downturn.
But she noticed something different in joyful people. Joyful people exhibited one unique trait the differentiated themselves from others who closed themselves off from happy moments: Gratitude.
In her studies, people who showcased higher levels of joy were completely open to the idea that horrible events could occur. They were aware that things could go south for them. But they used that as an opportunity for positivity. Because they were ok with that happening. Instead they were just happy that they had what they had now.
To put it another way, these people were glad to take off their armor if that meant living freely. There weren’t afraid of it at all. Conversely, most of us want to put on more armor to what we feel is inevitable. But at the cost of closing ourselves completely.
We have to be willing to open ourselves up. We have drop our guard. It’s ok if we aren’t perfect for everyone. It’s ok if bad things happen. The unfortunate situation is that they’ll likely happen anyways. And we’ll still feel as bad as if we didn’t prepare at the end of the day. We just gave up the joy of being in the present.
But you can grant yourself the permission now. The permission to be sucker-punched. The permission to be imperfect. The permission to be vulnerable. The enemy of that vulnerability is insecurity. And being secure doesn’t mean putting on so much armor that you feel like nothing can affect you. It’s being brave enough to take off that armor completely and understanding everything is impermanent and something will always attack you. But you’d rather experience the joy right in front of you while it’s there.
