Beth was tall and athletic, with brown hair and a serious attitude that belied her clever sense of humor, which could catch you off guard at any moment. We were track friends on our college swim team, commiserating during practices and hanging out at the pool as friends.
I didn’t have many lessons with her and I was grateful. She was taking 21 credits per semester and seemed determined to take the hardest classes possible – biochemistry, neurobiology, genetics – all with mountains of homework. It was a mind-boggling workload to manage while also training to swim twice a day. She managed to get straight A’s, but every time I saw her, the stress and exhaustion were written on her face.
Even when we met on the sidewalks in DC (we were at George Washington University), she couldn’t pause for two seconds to talk – as I usually did with other friends. I once saw her approaching and waved as she power-walked toward me, accelerating like a Grand Prix car, her backpack full of thick books to memorize.
I planted my feet as we reached each other, “Hey Beth, what’s going on?” She flew past me, grimaced and barked, “No time. I’m in a hurry, Sean. Sorry.”
“It’s okay Beth,” I said with a smile and waved back at her, “Hello Beth.”
“Hi Sean,” she said, breathing heavily as she turned to the street corner and disappeared from view. I took a bite of my bar and continued my walk to my lame geology class or, as we called it, “Rocks for jocks.”
I felt bad for Beth. She never seemed happy and I saw this pattern in so many high achievers who struggled to manage their stress, clinging to their goals at the expense of everything else. I’ve often wondered if it was all worth it. Once you get to the promised land, does the stress finally disappear? Can you finally relax and enjoy your life? Or is misery the real goal, a vampiric force that is revived after every achievement.
Beth and I were having breakfast one day after practice. In a nice, spirited way I asked, ‘You too to have to get a 100 in biophysics and nuclear engineering? For example, why not get a 98 and catch up on some sleep?’
She stared at me and thought about the question for a moment. Then she let out a big yawn and said, “Um. Sleeping is overrated.”
And more power to her – but that was such a different mentality than mine. From my earliest childhood, my parents encouraged me to work hard and held me to the fire when I didn’t. But my mother always emphasized, “The ultimate goal is for you to be happy.” That was the ace card that could justify everything else. Or so I thought.
As I entered the workforce and saw the world around me shift and change, and felt the looming weight of performance reviews and mortgage payments, and felt the call of ambition to relieve that pressure, it was clear that happiness and achievement were at first glance were palpable. chances. My adult life became so different from college life, where it was all about having fun and doing just enough work to get by.
Scientists call the pursuit of happiness to the exclusion of all other goals psychological hedonism. It results in choosing low-risk, low-challenge endeavors while choosing fleeting pleasures. It causes people to flee discomfort and sadness and robs them of the opportunity to grow, evolve and learn things about themselves. And it turns out that being sad in short bursts can be beneficial for us.
Evolutionary psychologist Dr. Paul W. Andrews discovered that sadness can help promote problem solving. And to be clear, he is not claiming that depression is good, or should be pursued, because it can have debilitating consequences. Through the ‘analytic rumination hypothesis’, which has considerable evidence to support it, Andrews proposes that being sad makes us think more about complex problems and seek solutions to them. In short, sadness increases complacency (while extreme sadness leads to passivity).
For example, I had been talking about going to college for years, but often felt shy about taking the first step. I knew I wanted to do it, but was afraid of the workload, being rejected by schools, and performing poorly on my GMAT because I hadn’t taken a standardized test in years.
Finally I realized, ‘I’ve been talking about it for so long, but I still haven’t taken action. Why not now?” In the time I spent talking about my studies, I could have completed two studies. I was disgusted with myself for becoming the flaky person I swore I would never become. The sadness made me restless and drove me to action.
In turn, I became just like Beth. I studied like a maniac for my GMAT, stressed about applications, finally went to school and endured two years of hard studying and classes. while working 40+ hours per week. Still, finishing and achieving that goal was one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done. By pushing through that hesitation and enduring the workload, it turned out that I was capable of more than I thought. Was it difficult? Absolute. Was it torture? No. But there was a definite dip in my happiness during that period – and maybe that’s a good thing.
Carl Jung argued that happiness loses its context without some degree of sadness and disruption. In his words: “Even a happy life cannot exist without a certain amount of darkness.” Just as you can’t appreciate a sunny day without it raining every now and then, you can’t appreciate the true depth of joy without experiencing sadness and hardship.
Sadness, even in the moment, has been shown to help with cognition and improve attention to detail. It even reduces stereotypical and overly judgmental thoughts about others.
The happiness zeitgeist has stigmatized the idea of being sad and implicitly invalidates the value it can bring. Worse, it can lead people to label themselves as broken, when in reality grief is an essential and necessary human experience, such as divorce and the loss of a pet. Eternal happiness is considered unrealistic and maladaptive, such as parenting – when children are protected from difficult experiences, rather than given the opportunity to learn from them.
Today Beth is a successful radiologist and we are still friends. She is married to another doctor and has two children. She is very happy and although she is still Type-A (and funny), she lives a much quieter life, with more free time and leisure than the years I spent with her. She’s exposed the fruits and babies of her labor, and I suspect she’s glad she ignored my party boy suggestion to take it easy. If anything, I stole from Beth’s playbook and learned to endure hardship and heartache for the good it brings.
Remember that sadness is not depression. The sadness passes. It can be beautiful and meaningful, but it shouldn’t leave you feeling stuck and unmotivated. It should be a source of learning, processing and inspiration. It can improve your decision-making and undo the thorns of complacency. Don’t grieve over these moments when they happen.
I wish you all the happiness the world has to offer. But more than that, I wish you resilience, because sadness will surely come. Here’s to making the most of it.
