In every life things happen that are very unpleasant. We can become ill, waste chances, fail in front of a huge audience or have an accident. Our loved one can leave us for another person; we can be fired and become unemployed. Our parents die, a friend passes away and we ourselves are facing a serious depression.
Other things are less easy to point out, develop more gradually, have more of a stealthy nature but are also really very sad. We are not ill, but we do not feel well either. We don’t waste chances, but we do not do anything really well either. We never fail publicly, but only because there is no audience. We do not have an accident, but are we so happy? Our loved one is still around, but we talk less to each other than we used to and if she left us it would not be the end of the world. And so on: work that could be more pleasant, parents with whom we might have better contact, friends we hardly see any more and the idea that if we died now, we would not have made the most of our life.
Ĺ To what degree do you admit to yourself that some things can be improved?
Ĺ Are you completely honest in this respect?
Ĺ When you realized that you could do better on one of those points, what did you think?
Ĺ What did you tell yourself then?
Such questions evoke all kinds of answers and most of these imply that we are not planning to do much about it. A corny joke about this is that civil servants rise to their creative peaks when they make up reasons not to do something. The joke is primarily corny because the same principle applies to almost everybody.
An important category of such answers consists of arguments that the present situation may not be ideal, but that it is good enough. Good-enough solutions frequently occur elsewhere in nature (see the story of the duck and the cormorant in Chapter 1).
However, good-enough solutions are sometimes good enough indeed, especially when they are consequences of a deliberate choice. We can choose a car that performs badly because we find it so beautiful, a poorly paid job because it offers us much freedom, an incompetent lover because he is so rich and generous. It also can be that we really don’t care.
We don’t need a beautiful house; we are never in it, after all. We look terrible, but we don’t go out anyway. We would like to think that this ‘functionally’ applies to all good-enough solutions, but unfortunately that is not the case.
Go back to the list of imperfections again. Wouldn’t we really prefer to feel better?
Wouldn’t it be pleasant to be a social success now and then, when we feel like it? How would it feel to be really happy, enjoy the company of our lover, have a job that is a real treat and live to the full?
Often, however, this triggers thoughts such as that would be all very nice indeed, but that is not how things are arranged; we should remain realistic; our path is just not strewn with roses; there are no peaks without valleys. Moreover, having it all would be damned egocentric and egoistic as well.
To start with the last concern: who would suffer as a result of our being happier? Who would gain something by that, for that matter? And further: of course our life cannot be composed of mere peak experiences and happiness, but it could be better, at least a little better, somewhat more adventurous, somewhat less dull. Apparently, something is pulling us back. There is some reluctance to bring about a change for the better. What underlies this reluctance?
Why don’t we put in more effort to get a more pleasant and more meaningful life than the one we are living now? To answer this question, it is worth having a look at the positive outcomes that our present way of living apparently offers us. This refers to the positive outcomes of the collection of good-enough solutions with which we have reconciled ourselves. What could these outcomes be?
First, it is a matter of avoiding risks. We know what we have; we do not know what the future will bring us. Think of everything that could go wrong: the same list of imperfections again. After all, it is very possible to waste chances, fail in front of everybody important, get injured, find out that our relationship with our lover is based on a misunderstanding, be reduced to beggary because we quit our present job, have an accident and lose our friends.
And yes, then a deep depression becomes a feasible option.
Thinking about the consequences of a radical change provides sufficient material to easily fill several evening-long disaster movies, especially when we wake up at night. However, how realistic all those doom-laden thoughts are remains to be seen. Their main purpose probably is preventing us from changing something or preventing us from doing something.
This mechanism can be clarified somewhat by the following story about Nasrudin, the legendary character from many eastern stories.
A neighbor wants to borrow Nasrudin’s clothesline.
‘I am sorry,’ says Nasrudin, ‘but I’m drying my flour on it.’
‘Your flour? On a clothesline? How can that be?’
‘You don’t understand that? As it is, it is not so complicated at all when you don’t want to lend out your clothesline.
(based on Sjah, 1969) Those scenarios may be not very realistic, but we can learn about their lack of validity only by making some attempt. To start with, we can thoroughly examine the change we want to make. Do nothing yet, but just let your thoughts wander over the different possibilities. If we don’t explore the different possibilities, these ghostly disasters keep us grounded. Lying flatly on the ground is an excellent way not to fall.
As it is, we can better forgo some risks, as long as we are not suicidal. Russian roulette, welding without goggles, smoking too much, unprotected sex with a hersin prostitute, picking a fight with a street gang – these all are matters of very unfavorable ratios between possible costs and gains. Here, however, we are not talking at all about such risks. Here there is a world to win and the risk that everything turns out badly is relatively small.
Avoiding the risks related to change is really a strange form of cowardice. In everyday life we take all kinds of risks without giving them a thought. How about learning to walk?
How about driving a car, bicycling in heavy traffic, eating in a restaurant, being at home alone and knowing that the chance of surviving a heart attack is much higher when we are found in the street? How about consulting a general practitioner or specialist who can make the most ghastly errors?
Compared to familiar everyday life, we evidently let ourselves be led by completely different fantasies in the case of change. Apparently, we are willing to accept these disaster scenarios as reasonable reflections of reality. At the same time we don’t take fantasies of happiness and success into consideration. We don’t even start with them.
What kind of strange anxiety is this? An anxiety that keeps you away from a fuller life, which would be more worthwhile. Maybe we should ask ourselves: where does this anxiety come from? Are we sure that this is really our own anxiety? Who may have suggested it to us? Who wants – or wanted – to keep us away from everything that might go wrong?
Or right, for that matter? Or who wants or wanted to keep us in their immediate vicinity?
Whatever the answers to these questions, realize that it is now actually your own anxiety and that you can decide how determining you allow it to be. In any case, know also that this kind of anxiety is not in itself the best possible adviser.
Risks are obviously a huge factor in resistance to change, but that is not all. Our peace of mind is also an issue. There is the comfort stemming from inhabiting a familiar reality, as well as the sense of control resulting from it. We have built our own niche, a reality that is completely ours. Also, it took a lot of work to make and keep it so ordinary and orderly. Maybe this could also be a matter of the material comfort this niche offers us, or the status that we derive from it, our prestige, our power position. This niche, our own reality, is the area in which we feel comfortable: it represents our comfort zone. When we approach its borders and threaten to step outside them, all kinds of alarm bells go off:
‘You are approaching the end of pleasure. Stop. If you still go on, we cannot guarantee you anything any more.’ Most of the time we don’t look for these limits at all. Still we are aware of these possible dangers. It is also considerably more comfortable not to put in that extra effort. Indeed, don’t we do more than enough already? How could we make time for such a change?
OK, if our days are so filled and we are deeply satisfied with that, of course we must not wrack our brains over other possibilities. Moreover, success is explicitly not guaranteed.
The only certainty is that not much will change if we do nothing. Maybe it is actually good to ask ourselves to what ends are we putting in all our effort. Is it really so worthwhile? And one other thing: What are we so busy with? What tires us so much? Something of great value must be involved! And also, if we are so pressed for time, we should think about how we can do something about that.
After avoiding risks and striving for peace of mind, a third point concerns the reactions of the people who are close to us. How would they receive attempts from our side to initiate changes? Would they welcome our efforts with applause, or would our efforts evoke a lot of ‘yes buts’? How would our partner respond? And our friends? And all the others? What exactly are we afraid of in this respect? What is the worst possible response? How likely is it? And what precisely is so bad about it? This third point is probably the most realistic one. When we actually carry through drastic changes, we may indeed expect some serious disapproval from the people around us. At the end of the day, we are also part of their life and they probably don’t want to change any more than we do.
As it is, the way we run our present everyday life gives us a strong experience of control.
We know exactly what to do and what not to do. We know the signs of potential threats and dangers and what to do to avoid or counter them. Our familiar way of living also enables us to keep our mind free for what we really find important. Moreover, as we have seen, it enables us to avoid risks and provides us with peace of mind and acceptance by others.
According to Philip McGrath (1999), better known as Doctor Phil, these outcomes form together a cocktail that is more addictive than heroin. Considering the form that many lives take, he might well be right about this. We administer ourselves a huge number of doses each day while we do not even notice that we are doing it.
The present state of affairs thus indeed provides powerful rewards and gains, which possibly hover on the borders of addiction. Perhaps it has also become clear that it is important to thoroughly examine our own life every now and then.
In the end, we are responsible for our own life, our own experiences. That is not to say that we are guilty when things don’t go well. It does imply, however, that we are responsible for making our life as valuable as we can. Making our life valuable primarily is a matter of reflection, observing ourselves and questioning ourselves.
Ĺ Am I really living authentically?
Ĺ Am I really satisfied and happy?
Ĺ To what degree am I settling for good-enough solutions?
Ĺ How strictly do I confine myself to my comfort zone?
Ĺ What do I systematically avoid?
Ĺ What am I able and willing to do that I do not do?
Answering these questions in a productive way demands honesty and tenacity. As it is, we are very good at keeping feelings and problems away from ourselves. Besides that, we probably have a strange manic side to us by which we obscure our own vulnerability: ‘That will not happen to me’ or ‘It will not happen in my lifetime’. We may be right, but that life time does happen to be finite.
When there are problems, but also when things can be improved, we have to decide what we are going to do about them. We can choose to ignore things and we can choose to do our best. In any case, we can solve problems only when we acknowledge them. A truism, but this time a very true one indeed.
These reflections become acute in times of cultural change. Do we want to face our problems? Are we willing to take risks? Do we want to give up our peace of mind for a while? Can we find it in ourselves to go our own way, without needlessly being dependent on the judgments of the people close to us? In short, can we find the courage to leave our comfort zone in order to make things better?