The secret to unhappiness

A couple of weeks ago I read an article that suggested that the source of human unhappiness was comparison.  When we compare our bodies, our spouses, our incomes, our jobs, our(insert your own subject) with others, we almost always find them wanting and then we feel unhappy.  On the other hand, if we refrain from setting people and events in a wider context, but just take them on their own merits, we’re more likely to be happy with what we have.

Fair enough, I thought at the time.  Better not to make comparisons.   *Must remember to avoid that in the future.

Recently I had an experience that brought this idea home with horrible clarity.  For about six weeks, it appeared that some benevolent hand had turned off the pain switch in my brain.  No reason.  Utterly bewildering.  In more than 25 years, it’s never happened before to the same extent.  And it was as terrifying as it was exhilarating.

Life was unbelievably easy.  I got up in the morning without pain, and I went to bed at night without pain.  My painkiller count went from 4-6 a day to virtually nothing, I worked and played and slept in a bit of a euphoric daze.  And I told only a few people because it was a wildcard that couldn’t possibly last.  Could it…?

It didn’t.  The pain is back. 

The comparison between life with constant pain and life without it is shocking.  And since returning to status quo, I have felt unhappy.  Deeply unhappy.  Sad not only to be in pain, but also because I now know what it’s like to be without it.

Yes, comparison is a cause of deep unhappiness.  Point proved.

So keeping one’s head down and looking straight ahead is the way to go, then?  Is ignorance bliss?  For millions of people living in poverty- better for them that they never know what they’re missing out on?

Naturally, no sooner had I decided from experience that yes, comparison is the source of all human misery and it should be avoided at all costs than I felt compelled to analyse it a bit further. 

Because of course it’s not possible to lead lives where we can avoid comparison.  We’re surrounded by it.  When you’re single, you’re bound to be seated next to a necking couple on the train.  When your own career is going down the toilet, it’s inevitable that your best friend will get the $50K bonus, and if you’re feeling like a beached whale the only person you’ll ever be seated next to at your School Reunion is the Back To School Class of ’89 ShowGirl.

So it's unrealistic to think we can avoid making comparisons. Yet comparisons so often make us unhappy. What’s the solution?

Comparisons show up two things- difference and deficiency.  One is genuinely a problem- the other not so much.  Confusing the two is probably where a lot of the unhappiness lies. When you live or work with someone, it’s easy to compare your own communication styles and decide that your partner or colleague is deeply deficient in some area when perhaps it’s just a different way of communicating.  When you travel overseas it’s easy enough to compare cultures and decide that certain features are deficiencies when again, they may just be differences.  When your child becomes a teenager and their character appears to change beyond all recognition, again it’s probably tempting to decide that they’ve become deficient- but again, perhaps it’s just a difference that can be adjusted to. 

Deficient, or just different?

Of course there are comparisons that highlight genuine deficiencies.  Compare the percentage of girls who attend high school in Australia (99%) to the number of girls who attend school in Pakistan (29%) and you come up with a deficiency.  A white middle class man growing up on the North Shore of Sydney is likely to live almost 30 years longer than an Aboriginal man growing up in a remote area of Australia.  And there are times when relationships and characters and careers are clearly deficient too.  Probably not as often as we think, but when the deficiencies are genuine and we can see a better model at work, we should be motivated to work toward change.  In some cases if we don’t make the comparisons, we don’t see the extent of the need.   And change never takes place.

But what about those things that fall into the category of deficiencies that we may be powerless to change?  These are the disappointments.  At times, of course, there’s just going to be a huge gulf between what we want and what we get, a gulf that endless comparison can only make more painful.  I’m single and I want to be married with children. I’m strapped for cash and I’d prefer to be heading on a Caribbean cruise.  I’m married with children, strapped for cash and I’d prefer to be single and heading on a Caribbean cruise…   I have pain and it sucks. 

Well, what can I say?  Life is disappointing.  We don’t get what we want.  But that’s not what defines us.  The secret to being unhappy is dwelling on what we don’t have rather than on what we do.   The secret to being unhappy is feeling as though we got ripped off in the great game of life and we deserved better and everybody else won the hand.  Actually, they probably didn’t.  Surprisingly enough, a lot of people probably feel a bit the same quite a lot of the time.  And we all just get on with it, and concentrate on what we’ve got, and what we love, and hope for the best, and hang on. 

We change what we can and live with what we can’t.

Making comparisons is inevitable.  It’s what we do with the information that determines how happy we are.