Mindless unhappiness

Sunday's On Being broadcast with social psychologist Ellen Langer concluded with an important Happiness lesson, on the day of yet another tragic church massacre:

Ms. Langer: Yeah, interesting. Well, I was going to write a mindful Utopia at one point, and eventually, maybe I will, and give this sort of question real thought. But I think that most of the ills that people experience as individuals, in their relationships, in groups, in cultures, globally — and that’s a very big statement — virtually all of the ills are a result of mindlessness, one way or the other, directly or indirectly, and so that as the culture becomes more mindful, I think all of these things will naturally change.

On the cultural level, people are fighting over limited resources, but resources are probably not nearly as limited as people mindlessly presume. People’s egos are at stake, even while they’re negotiating on the level of countries, and they’re not looked at in that fashion and approached in that way; that when you have people going to work feeling good about themselves, and the work life is exciting for them, fun for them, nurturing for them, they’re going to be doing more work, and they’re going to be less evaluative of other people. And once we all start feeling less evaluated, that allows us to become more creative, mindful, take more risks, because they’re not very risky, and to be kinder in our views of other people.

Ultimately, I think that for me, what it means to be human is to feel unique, but to recognize that everybody else is also unique. And I think that people — right now, I think people feel that being happy, really happy in this deep way that I’m referring to, not that you’ve just won an award or bought something new or whatever — that they think that this is something that one should experience sometimes; maybe if you experience it a little more than other people, you’re one of the lucky ones — where I think it should be the way you are all the time.

Ms. Tippett: And that — but so you said a while ago, “Most things are an inconvenience, rather than a tragedy.” There are tragedies. So what is this happiness? How does this way of being function in those moments?

Ms. Langer: Well, it’s interesting — let me give you an example of something. Many years ago, I had a major fire that destroyed 80 percent of what I owned. And when I called the insurance company, and they came over the next day, the person, the insurance agent, had said to me that this was the first call he had ever had where the damage was worse than the call. And I thought of it, and I thought, “Well, gee, it’s already taken my stuff, whatever that means. Why give it my soul?” You know, that — why pay twice, which is what people so often do? Something happens, you have that loss, and then you’re going to now throw all your emotional energy at it, and so you’re doubling up on the negativity.

And interesting — to go back to how would you take a tragedy and see it? because we can say the fire was not a simple little thing — that I stayed in a hotel for a little while; I had two dogs with me, so I was a vision as I walked through the lobby every day while my house was being rebuilt. And it was Christmas when this happened, a few days before Christmas Eve. On Christmas Eve, I left my room; I come back many hours later, and the room was full of gifts. And it wasn’t from the management, it wasn’t from the owner of the hotel. It was the people who parked my car, the chambermaids, the waiters. It was marvelous. When you strip away all the mindless insecurity, people are quite something. And so I reflect on that. I couldn’t tell you anything that I had lost in the fire, but at this point, I have that memory that was more than positive. So sometimes the ways that things unfold can take place over a longer time.

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