America's Favorite Pastime: Judgment

Every animal has its specialty.  Birds have mastered flying.  Bees have mastered honey.  Dogs have mastered smelling (you might say they specialize in both forms of the word).  Human beings have mastered the art of judging.  We can judge, evaluate, and compare literally everything.  Take a minute to look over the room that you are sitting in right now and see if there's a single object that you can't evaluate and critique.  "This chair could be more comfortable, that printer got jammed last week, my cell phone is already outdated, this carpet has a stain over there in the corner..."

If it were only objects that we judged, there might not be any downside to it.  After all, it is this skill of judging and evaluating that has allowed us to create better tools, build better shelters, and eventually take over the planet.  But it doesn't stop with objects.  If you try the exercise above using people, instead of objects, you'll find it's just as easy. "He's too fat, she's not very smart, I don't like his voice, she's nice but she has that weird thing above her eye, those people are lazy, that guy is just a BAD person...."

And lastly, it doesn't stop with other people.  Try turning your attention inward for a moment and asking "What don't I like about myself?" And watch the judgment flow. No one knows you better than you, which means you have far more material to judge yourself with than any one else.  Past mistakes, embarrassments, your appearance, life-goals that you've come short of...  All of this can be immediately brought to the surface for evaluation.

Modern behaviorism has something to say about how our use of judging has become so widespread.  At the core of human language and thinking are a set of skills called  "relational skills."  This refers to our learned ability, as human beings, to respond or react to anything around us based on its relationship to other things.  The first type of relational skill we learn as young children is to respond to spoken words as though they are the same as the things they refer to.  For example, learning to respond to the spoken word "apple," as though it is the same as a real apple, and vice verse.  We can think of this as learning the relation of "the same as."  As we develop, we learn a variety of other relations besides "the same as," such as "different from,""the opposite of," "behind/in front of" and many others.  And somewhere along the line, we learn the relational skills that are seen in judging, such as "better than / worse than," and "more than / less than."

What makes relational skills so remarkable, is that once we get good enough at this skill, we can begin relating anything to anything, and by doing so, we can learn incredibly quickly and without relying on trial and error.  For example: If a child doesn't know what a ship is, the parent can simply take something that the child does know, and relate a ship to that: "A ship is THE SAME AS a boat."  Just like that, the child now knows what a ship is, and she didn't have to go see a real ship in order to to learn it. This is the same with judging/evaluating relations as well.  Someone trying to teach their child the merits of good hygiene can say, "Being clean is BETTER THAN than being dirty," and this child now knows that cleanliness is preferable, assuming that they were in the mood to listen on that particular day.  By relating to dirtiness as being "bad," the child avoids having to get ill on multiple occasions just to learn that cleanliness works better.

This ability to master relational skills, and then apply to them to virtually everything around us allows us to exponentially expand our understanding of the world around us by naming and categorizing, and by relating the things around us to other things in increasingly complex ways. The relational skill of judging helps us not only to understand the world around us, but to improve upon it and navigate through it more effectively.  If we understand that something can be better, than we can take action to make it better.  As you can see by our dominance on this planet, this works really well.  So well that we soon find ourselves applying it to everything that we come across. Then one day, we wake to find that judging and evaluating has become as automatic as breathing or blinking your eyes.

One last feature of judging that we can notice is that it tends to be biased towards the negative.  To understand why this is the case, we can simply ask the question "Which would be more likely to help early humans survive: Judging the majority of things in a positive manner? Or judging the majority of things in a negative manner?"  It seems to make sense that if 2 cavemen heard a growling, rustling noise in a nearby bush, and one of the cavemen judged most things positively - "It's just the wind. I love the wind!" - and the other judged most things negatively - "It's probably something that wants to eat me." - one of those two cavemen is going to live longer than the other.

So here we are today, the descendants of critical, negatively judging ancestors, able to apply our negatively biased judgment to literally anything that we come into contact with.  Some of our most popular forms of entertainment play on this relentless urge to judge.  Ridiculing contestants in the early episodes of "American Idol," and laughing at the extreme behavior of cast members on the "Jersey Shore" has become an American pastime.  Our cars, our phones, our houses, our TVs, our jobs - none of them are good enough.  There's always something better.  And if we look beyond these more obvious examples, we can begin to recognize that we are walking around judging the value of other human beings on a nearly constant basis.

Considering our ability, and our predisposition to judge everything around us, I think that we as a species need to begin asking:  When does judging and evaluating work well, and when does it not?  And more specifically: Does it work well for us to judge the value of other human beings?  I'm going to suggest that it doesn't, for a few reasons:

When we judge the value of another human being, we are neglecting the incredible fact that a human being is more than just the thing that you see in front of you.  They are the culmination of millions and millions of past experiences.  Their history is more complex than you could ever imagine.  And that history is intertwined with the history of countless other people that they have connected with over the course of their life.  That person has hurt, has doubted themselves, has suffered, and might even be suffering right now as you look at them.  The act of judging the value of another person is an arrogant one.  It oversimplifies the complex, historical nature of human beings and neglects far too many factors.  And because of this, it doesn't WORK well.  It leads to fear, prejudice, and hate, and it leads us to behave towards human beings as though they are objects.

Another problem with judging stems from the fact that our self-awareness is inextricably tied to our awareness of other people.  To put this another way, in order for you to become aware of the fact that you are you (which usually occurs around age 4-5), you must also become aware that the person across from you is their own person.  It's kind of like the way you need to experience darkness to understand light.  When it comes to judging, what this boils down to is that the more critical and judgmental we are towards others, the more critical and judgmental we will be towards ourselves, and vice verse.  Check this out for yourself.  See if it isn't the case that many of the things you hate most about other people are the same things that you hate about yourself.  I & You are 2 sides of the same coin, so not only is judging another human being an act of arrogance, it is a self-destructive act.

For the reasons above, I'd like to humbly propose a way of reining in our skill of judgment.  I'd like to propose that human beings be taken off the "approved list" when it comes to judgment.  Human beings are not objects to be judged and evaluated, they are complex, intricate, and constantly changing - like naturally made pieces of art - something to be appreciated.  We can judge their actions in terms of effectiveness, we can assess whether or not a person's behavior is dangerous to others around them and protect ourselves accordingly, but to judge the person themselves should be off limits.

Now this is easier said than done.  And if you've read any of my previous blogs (particularly "Positive Thinking, and Other Harmful Advice") then you'll know that I'm not going to simply suggest that we stop thinking judgmental thoughts.  It's not that easy.  As I explained above, the skill of judging is incredibly advantageous for us.  This means that it is incredibly difficult, if not impossible, for us to shut it off.  Instead what I would suggest is an increased awareness of judgmental thoughts, and a conscious effort not to act on them when they are targeted at other people.  It's difficult, but it is do-able.

As an example of how you could try this out, my wife and I have spent the last month or so attempting to go on a "judgment-free diet" (I have to give her credit for the name).  This has consisted of simply catching ourselves when we are acting towards others in a judgmental way, and consciously choosing to stop.  Sometimes, on a good day, we are able to mindfully observe judgmental thoughts and refrain from ever acting on them in the first place.  But that's on a good day.

Try this out, and you'll find that it is a HARD game to play.  If you make a conscious effort to observe just how frequently you are judging things and people, you'll be astounded by what you find.  You'll suddenly become aware of just how much of your time is spent criticizing others.  You'll notice how quickly you give in to the lure of gossip.  You'll notice the tone of disgust in your voice as you describe someone's flaws, or talk about the stereotypes of a particular group of people.  And if you try this out, what you might also find is that when we begin to catch our own judgments in flight, and choose not to act on them, some space starts to open up for compassion and forgiveness.  You'll find that you are better able to appreciate the suffering of others around you.  You might even notice yourself feeling love and compassion for complete strangers.  You'll become aware of the fact that they are not objects or things to be judged.  There are people behind those eyes, and those people are not much different than you.  And as you begin to forgive others for being human, you might find that it becomes a little easier to forgive yourself as well.

Good luck.

Misguided Compassion

In recent years, there has been a significant cultural shift in our stance on mental illness.  There are an increasing number of mental health advocacy groups, support for mentally ill returning veterans is higher than ever, and in general there seems to be more compassion and less blame placed on those suffering from mental illness.  Yet, right inside of this newfound compassion, I believe there is something that might be equally as harmful as blame and stigma. 

When we witness another human being suffering psychologically, and ask ourselves why they are suffering, we tend to assume that there are two possibilities.  The first possibility is that the person is responsible for their suffering and they could easily make it stop, but they are choosing not to.  The second possibility is that the person has no control over their suffering and they are a helpless victim.  If it seems that the person’s suffering falls under possibility #1, then we blame them for their suffering and say things like “He just wants attention” or “She just needs to get over it.”  If the suffering seems more severe, or too complex for us to easily figure out, we often go with possibility #2 and say things like “He can’t help it, he’s got something wrong with him,” or “It’s not her fault, she’s got Disorder of the Month disorder.” It is a type of either-or approach that we take: Either you are choosing to suffer, and I should be angry or disappointed with you, or you have no choice, and I should show you compassion. 

Adding support to this either-or, blame vs. compassion approach, is the “Medical” or “Biological” model of mental illness.  This model tells us that mental illness is biologically caused, it is a “brain disease,” or a “chemical imbalance.” It tells us that a malfunctioning brain on the inside is causing the unhelpful behavior that you see on the outside. This model naturally steers us in the direction of compassion, because the person is seen as being the victim of a biological disorder, similar to a cancer patient.  We wouldn’t ever think to blame or negatively evaluate a person who was just diagnosed with leukemia. 

So if the medical model leads to more compassion and less blame, then why not just go with it?  Well, there are several problems that go along with treating mental illness as an out-of-your-control, biologically caused issue:  The first is that there is no evidence to support this assumption. Widely accepted “facts” like low serotonin levels causing depression are actually not facts at all.  When studies examine the serotonin levels of depressed and non-depressed people, they look exactly the same.  So in the absence of real, measurable proof, what is often substituted is: “Well the fact that psychopharm drugs work in the first place is enough to prove that mental illness is biological.” However, you can’t use the effectiveness of a medication as proof that the original cause… was a lack of that medication.  If you took an antibiotic for some type of infection, and the infection went away, you wouldn’t assume that your infection was originally caused by a lack of antibiotics.  And lastly, the effectiveness of psychopharm drugs itself is questionable.  Many studies out there show that antidepressants work no better than placebo pills, and in countries where there is no access to antipsychotic medications, many schizophrenic individuals actually make full recoveries!  That’s supposed to be impossible, but it happens.

But putting facts aside (see "When Being Right is Wrong"), another, even more important issue with the medical model is that it just doesn’t work well.  The expectation is that telling a mentally ill person that their problems are due to a chemical imbalance should remove blame and stigma, promote compassion as mentioned earlier, and help relieve some of their suffering.  After all, if you’re brain is broken then it is not your fault, and if you’ve been struggling with something for a long time, it feels pretty good to hear that it is not your fault. 

We were right about removing blame, and it does seem to promote compassion, but it turns out that the message, “you have a chemical imbalance,” brings along some unintended consequences.  What we’ve found is that people who believe they have a brain disease or chemical imbalance actually report feeling more stigmatized.  Who would have thought…. being told you have a broken brain actually makes people feel……… broken?  And when it comes to treatments that promote real, measurable change in a person’s life, we’ve found that people who are told “your depression is a brain disease” actually do worse in therapy than people who are told “your depression is a behavioral issue.” 

This medical model removes blame, allows bystanders to feel more compassion for the suffering person, yet it does nothing to help the suffering person improve their life.  In fact, the person is being robbed.  By convincing a person that their brain is causing their problems, we are essentially removing any hope of conscious, intentional change: Are you depressed? Anxious? Angry? Guilty? Addicted? Well, sorry buddy, it turns out you just have a shoddy brain. Your only hope is to take this pill and pray to the gods that your unruly brain gets its act together. 

Now we return to the alternative, which is possibility #1: The person is responsible for their suffering, and they could get better if they chose to.  The trouble with this approach is that the minute we begin assuming the individual has control over their circumstances, it becomes difficult for us to offer compassion.  It just doesn’t make sense to feel bad for someone who is causing their own problems, right?  I’m going to suggest that it does make sense, and more importantly that it works better to do so.

Assuming that the person is responsible AND choosing to show them compassion may seem crazy at first, but it begins to make more sense when we look at mental illness as being less like a disease, and more like a trap.  And it becomes easier to do once we realize that all of us step into this trap from time to time. 

Human beings, as a species, experience pain in ways that no other animal can.  Our unique ability to evaluate, remember, care deeply, and plan ahead, also allows us to evaluate ourselves negatively, remember painful events, experience sadness when we lose something we cared deeply about, and worry about a future that has not yet happened.  Emotional pain, for humans, is in fact completely normal.  It’s a package-deal.  But because this pain can hurt so badly, we often find ourselves searching for “solutions” to the pain.  And in doing so, the bait is set.  We all do small, harmless things to avoid uncomfortable thoughts and emotions, and if we do it in small enough doses we can get away with it, kind of like tip toe-ing around a trap.  But if you put enough energy and time into trying to escape your own emotional pain, eventually the trap snaps shut.  Try hard enough to stop thinking about a painful memory or a painful thought about yourself, and you will find it is all you can think about.  Try to run from anxiety, and it will begin to follow you wherever you go.  Try to avoid embarrassment and strive for perfection, and you will find that you are mortified by even the smallest of mistakes.  Try to escape your pain by having a drink, and tomorrow morning you will wake up to find that the pain has returned, and you now have a drinking problem.  These are just a few examples of the kinds of psychological traps that every last one of us, to some degree, steps into.  Many times, the only difference between you and a person with alcoholism, PTSD, panic attacks, or depression, is that they stepped just a little further into their traps, and they got stuck. 

If we approach mental illness as a type of psychological trap, the issue of responsibility becomes a little less important.  Imagine you were to walk past a person on a trail who has stepped into a bear trap (do those still exist?) and is now in a great deal of pain.  Technically speaking, that person is responsible for being in that trap.  Regardless of whether or not they were aware of the trap, they “chose” to take every single step, leading up to the very last one right into the bear trap.  Yet, nearly all of us would still show them compassion and would likely offer our help.  But for some reason, when it comes to mental illness, we change the rules.  We only offer compassion if we believe that the person had no control over their circumstances.  And if it appears that the person is responsible, then we blame them and withhold our compassion.  This would be kind of like coming across the hiker in the bear trap and saying “Are you blind? No? Are your legs weird and they don’t go where you tell them to go?  No?  Well then it’s your fault that you’re in that trap!  Good luck jackass!”  We would never treat a physically trapped person in such a way, and I don’t think we should treat a psychologically trapped person this way.

People struggling with mental illness deserve compassion, because we all suffer, and we all step into psychological traps.  They deserve the assumption that they are responsible, because to say that they are not responsible is to rob them of the possibility for change. Being responsible simply means that the person stepped into this trap, and they can actively do something to step out of it and improve their life.  Being responsible means they have the ability to respond.  Ultimately, it means there is hope, and that hope is not limited to a pill.  Compassion alone, without responsibility, can turn a conscious and capable human being into a victim.  Responsibility alone, without compassion, is blame, and that is like yelling at the hiker for stepping into the bear trap.  When we are able to offer a fellow human being both of these things together, unconditionally, we are saying, “I can see you’ve fallen into a trap.  All of us do.  Let’s get you out of it.”

When Being Right is Wrong

"I am right."

Never has there been a set of words that felt quite as good as these.  "I love you?" "You're getting a raise?" "Not guilty?" No thanks, I want to be RIGHT.  So right that the conversation now has to end, because nothing that you could say right now would even matter.  So right that I get that warm feeling of vindication throughout my body, followed by a stupid, arrogant smile on my face that says "I got you! You know I'm right."

Being right is what life is really all about.

Wrong.  Or not.  As I'm about to explain, maybe things don't need to be right OR wrong.  Maybe, through the illusion that language and our own thoughts produce, we lose sight of the fact that "right, wrong, true, and false" don't really exist outside of our own minds.  Maybe our idea of reality and what is right is nothing more than just that... an idea.  This type of philosophy talk tends to make people dizzy, including me.  So first, let's take a step back and look at some basic science.

As a modern behaviorist, I study something called Relational Frame Theory (RFT), which is a highly supported behavioral theory that explains how human beings learn to think and use language (in this article, the word "language" is used interchangeably with thinking and cognition, and refers to language as a behavior, not language as in English vs. Spanish).  One of the things that this theory has shown us is that being "right" is something that is built right into the very fabric of language.  This is due to a couple of basic learning processes that take place when we learn to use language as children:

Part 1 is that in order for us to use words and thoughts effectively, they have to be treated as if they are the same as the things that they describe.  When a child learns that a furry house-pet with a long snout is called a "dog," over time that child comes to respond to the word "dog" in the same way that they would respond to the actual animal.  If the child were to be bit by a dog, and a few days later heard someone say the words "Hey check out that dog!" chances are the child might cower and hide in response, without even needing to see the actual dog.  Our words become more than just vocal noises and written shapes on paper, we learn to treat them as though they are the things that they describe.  In a sense, we learn to treat them as though they are “real.” By the time language is fully developed, this happens so seamlessly and so effortlessly that we forget that we are using words and thoughts in the first place.

Part II of this process is that in order for us to effectively name things in our environment, discuss them with other people, categorize them, evaluate them, and compare them, the way that we speak about these things has to be somewhat consistent.  We learn as children that we can't say that a dog is a "dog," and then turn around and say it's a "chair."  Language wouldn't work very well if we all did that.  So just to make sure this doesn’t happen, we tell children "no, that's wrong" as they are learning, and as adults we call the people who do this, "liars," and we punish them for lying.

Lastly, there is a sort of hidden Part III inside these learning processes.  It is an assumption that emerges while learning Parts I and II and helps to fuel this "being right" phenomenon.  This assumption is about reality itself.  When we claim to know that something is “true” or “real,” what we typically mean is that our thoughts and words are accurately describing “reality” - the real world that is stable and exists outside of ourselves.  This assumption about a separate, external reality lays the groundwork for the claim, "I am right." Because if reality is stable and exists outside of me, then that means I can learn to talk about reality accurately, and once I do, no one can argue with me…. because it’s reality!

We now have a complete recipe for the uniquely human ability to be …. ahhhhhhhh (church choir singing) “RIGHT.”  Once language has been established, I am no longer just having a thought in this particular moment.  What I am thinking is more than just a thought, it is TRUE (Part 1).  The words that are coming out of my mouth are not just organized noises, they are REALITY (Parts 1 and 3).  They are a perfect representation of the true workings of the universe (Part 3), which means they cannot be argued with (Part 2), and you should instead feel privileged that I chose to share them with you.  Lastly, I will defend these thoughts and words until the day I die (Part 2), because….I am right.

With this recipe, we create a creature unlike any other on this planet, that can speak about and manipulate its own environment in truly amazing ways.  However, we simultaneously create a creature that will verbally or physically fight with others, even loved ones, because they are so driven to be "right," and so fearful of being considered "wrong," or worse yet, a "liar." We have a creature that will enslave and brutalize entire populations of other similar creatures, because that is the way it’s supposed to be.  We have a creature who will hijack a plane and fly it into a building full of similar creatures because they were “wrong,” and they had to be punished.

For human beings, language is our greatest tool and our greatest enemy.  It works incredibly well, but in order for it to work, we have to agree to forget that our thoughts are just thoughts and we need to defend those thoughts and keep them consistent.  In doing so, we unwittingly give up our ability to put down this tool when it stops working well.  We instead find ourselves living lives that are dictated by what our thoughts say is “right,” and “true.” We continue doing things that are ineffective, harmful, hurtful, and sometimes violent because according to our thoughts, it is the "right" thing to do and there is no other way.  The tool turns around and uses us. 

So if this is our cross to bear as humans, how can we avoid living lives that are impaired or even destroyed by the need to be right? We can begin with one of the observations that RFT has pointed out.  I mentioned above that it is when we "forget" that our thoughts are just thoughts that we lose the ability to drop this tool that we call language.  It is this very insight that shows us the way out.  In order to put down this tool when it is not working well, we have to learn to notice when we are using it in the first place.  We have to notice that we are thinking, and that the thoughts that we are having in this moment are not the same as the things that they describe, they are nothing more than thoughts.  We have to learn to recognize and observe some of our most deeply held, basic assumptions.  Maybe even our assumptions about reality.

When we assume that there is a stable, objective reality existing outside of us, we are in fact making an assumption.  If there is a “reality” that is stable and exists independently, outside of ourselves, that means we can never directly contact it.  We can only contact what our senses of sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste tell us.  And for reality to exist as stable and external to ourselves, that means that some mysterious part of us must be separate from reality and able to observe it.  This is mysticism, and it's where we begin to get caught up in unscientific explanations like the spirit, the soul, or the ego.

So, reality is an assumption.  And as I’m about to explain, it’s an assumption that we don’t necessarily need.

Within behavioral science, an alternative philosophy is used, and it turns out to be incredibly useful when applied to life in general.  This philosophy is a pragmatic one.  A pragmatic philosophical approach means that we put our ideas and assumptions about an external “reality” to the side (since we can't prove or disprove it anyway), and define “truth” as simply whatever works in terms of moving you toward a chosen goal or direction.  Knowledge is seen as nothing more than a collection of thoughts and ways of speaking that moves us effectively towards some chosen goal.  A thought, idea, or theory is considered true, not because it represents "reality," but because it works.  William James, a pragmatic philosopher and psychologist (thought to be the “father of psychology”) explained it this way: “The truth of an idea is not a stagnant property inherent in it. Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events."

When we say that the theory of a round earth is “true,” it is true in the sense that it helps us in doing things like navigating the globe, predicting the weather, understanding gravity and earthquakes, etc.  When we say the theory of evolution is “true,” we mean that it is useful, and enables us to effectively understand and manipulate biology in ways that have advanced the wellbeing of humans everywhere.

It isn’t necessary to take the extra step and say that these things are true because they represent “reality.”  That only shackles us to these ideas and makes us less able to adjust them in the future so that they can work even better.  A pragmatic philosophical approach frees us from being slaves to our own thoughts, beliefs, and personally constructed realities, and brings us back into contact with our direct experience and what works best in this moment, in terms of our chosen direction in life.

As an example of how this might be applied, we'll say that one man, whose chosen life direction involves caring for and promoting his family's well-being, has chosen to cut ties with his son after discovering that his son was gay.  This is because his ideas about what is right (heterosexuality) and wrong (homosexuality) are more than just ideas to him, they are reality.  He relates to these ideas as being an accurate description of the one true “reality.”  They are "the way it's supposed to be."  The man's wife may see the suffering he is causing and argue with him, saying "You're wrong!” or “There's nothing wrong with being gay!" Despite where you land on this topic, the man and his wife are both making the mistake of focusing on what is true vs. false, right vs. wrong, instead of focusing on what works.  If this man were to approach life using a pragmatic definition of truth, he would instead be asking himself "Do these thoughts and beliefs work well for me in this moment to move me towards my goal of caring for my family?" The answer would be "No," and thoughts about accepting his son's sexuality would be "true." (If it is still awkward for you to think about the word "true" in this way, think about the saying "He shot the arrow straight and true."  These latter thoughts are considered "true" in the sense that they get him to his target of caring for his family.)

Now I of course recognize that adopting this type of philosophy is incredibly difficult.  By the time we are adults, we are so lost in our own thoughts and ideas of reality, that to step out of them is something that we can only do temporarily and with much effort.  But just because something is difficult doesn't mean it is not worth striving for.  It is something you can practice in your day-to-day life, whenever you find yourself sacrificing what is most important to you in order to be "right" or to avoid being "wrong."  To begin practicing, watch closely in the future as you notice that you are starting to experience some strong sense of anger, self-entitlement, injustice, revenge, deservedness, or hate for another human being - all things that result from ideas of "right" and "wrong."  Notice first that, in this moment, you are thinking, and that these thoughts you are experiencing need not be measured in terms of true or false, but can simply be observed as an experience that you are having.  Notice second that your mind will try to remain consistent and will defend your thoughts with things like, “but I’m right,” and “but it’s TRUE!”  Notice that these are simply more thoughts, more experiences that can be observed, and don’t need to be obeyed or argued with.  Lastly, ask yourself: “Regardless of whether these thoughts are ‘true’ or ‘false,’ do they work well in moving me in the direction that I want to go in life?"  If the answer is "no," then don't use them.

I’ll leave you with a saying from Zen Buddhism that demonstrates just how much we desire for things to be “right,” and at the same time, our ability to temporarily drop our greatest tool when it ceases to work well.

"The secret to Zen is two words: not always so."

Positive Thinking and Other Harmful Advice

Evolution has shaped our physiology and behavior in a way that causes us to reliably avoid things that are uncomfortable, painful, or threatening.  If one of our ancestors encountered a lion in a particular area of the savanna, a set of uncomfortable bodily sensations would be set off that would make it more likely that the individual would run or protect themselves.  If they happened to find themselves strolling near that area again in the future, those same sensations would show up as soon as they recognized the familiar scenery, making it more likely that they would stay away.  The opposite is true for pleasant experiences.  Things like food, sex, and mild temperatures set off very pleasant bodily sensations, and so we are more likely to seek those things.  These bodily processes are ubiquitous in the animal kingdom and there's a reason: It's simple, and it works.

As modern humans, along with our ability to think and speak in more complex ways, we have become increasingly more sophisticated in how we talk about and relate to our thoughts, emotions and bodily sensations.  We've given them names like "anxiety," "joy," "anger," and "sadness." And somewhere along the line, in our infinite wisdom, we declared that not only are the situations that trigger painful sensations dangerous, but the painful sensations themselves are dangerous.  Likewise, we declared that the pleasant ones are what we should all be striving for as we live our lives, they are what life should about.

The cultural message, over time, has boiled down to this:  1. Unpleasant thoughts and emotions are bad, and pleasant ones are good.  2. If you have unpleasant thoughts and emotions, then there is something wrong with you, and you need to eliminate them before you can live a good life.  3. If you are experiencing pleasant ones, then that means you are living a good life."  Boiled down even further, it looks like this: "Feeling good = living good."

This is horseshit.  But it is culturally supported, widespread, dangerous horseshit.

As you move through your day, take a look around you and notice just how well supported this message is.  Nearly every advertisement you will see promotes the idea that "if you purchase this item, you will feel good, and therefore life will be good."

Most life advice dispersed to you by experts on TV and in magazine articles will come in the form of this message.  And lastly, in the science world, we have built entire fields upon this assumption.  Most of your trusted psychiatrists and psychologists believe it so thoroughly that they don't even recognize that they are making the assumption in the first place.

From these fields, based on this "feel good" assumption, we have an ever increasing industry of phychopharmacology and the promotion of therapies and techniques that implore you to go to war with your own thoughts and emotions.

Not every culture thinks this way.  This is, for the most part, a Western, industrialized view of how life should be (or feel).  But how did this idea get to be so widely accepted by Western culture? One of the simplest and most direct ways for ideas to become widespread cultural assumptions is for them to be passed around in the form of common phrases.  So what I'd like to do now is pick out just a few phrases and pieces of advice that I find to be fairly common and widely accepted, and take a good honest look at them.  As I lay these phrases out and share my thoughts on them, see if you can put aside what you've learned about pleasant and unpleasant thoughts and emotions, and what seems to be "the right way" to deal with them, and take a look at what your experience actually tells you about them.

“You should feel happy” & “You deserve to feel happy.”

Feeling good or happy is not the natural, normal, healthy state of human existence.  In fact, feeling that way all of the time or even the majority of the time is not normal.  Look around you at other life on this planet.  Most complex organisms surrounding us live their lives one threatening, fearful experience to the next.  Why should it be the case that with all of the frightened, anxiety-laden animals on this planet, humans should be or deserve to be happy, calm, and serene.  I would argue that if anything, we should be in more distress.  We alone have the capability to imagine, remember, compare, evaluate, and to love in the way that only a human can love.  Yet, these abilities have a dark side.  If you can feel love for another person, then you will feel sadness and loss when you lose them.  If you can imagine your future, then you can feel disappointment as you look at your current circumstances and find them lacking.  No thought or emotional experience is inherently good or bad, they are simply experiences that go along with being human.  Sadness has every bit as much right to be present in your life as joy.  It is only when we declare these experiences to be good or bad that we begin to struggle with them, and it is at that precise moment that we begin to suffer.

“Do whatever makes you feel happy.” & “Do what feels right.”

However benign or positive this advice seems, to follow it literally is to walk down a dangerous path.  As I mentioned earlier, evolution has shaped our physiology in a way that makes a number of things feel very pleasant, like sex, food, and warmth.  Over the course of our species' history, this has been incredibly useful for our survival.  However,  today, after mastering our environment and gaining fairly easy access to these things (maybe wit the exception of sex), our desire for pleasant feelings remains.  And so, being the clever animals that we are, we've designed more advanced and direct ways to feeling good:  Alcohol, drugs, and cheese doodles, just to name a few.  And we now have things likes diabetes and heart disease, which appear to be found only in modern, industrialized cultures.  And we have epidemics of behavioral problems like obesity, substance abuse, and neglect.  The bottom line is this: Feeling good does not equal living a good life.  If we all did only what felt "right" or made us "feel happy," then nothing meaningful or difficult would ever be accomplished.  Check your own experience.  Look at the most rewarding accomplishments in your life and ask yourself if you felt good the entire time you worked towards them.  I'm guessing the answer is no.  Anything meaningful or difficult, by definition, will feel unpleasant at some point.

“Never regret anything that made you feel good.”

If you think this one is good advice, I'd encourage you to offer it, with a straight face, to someone who was just caught cheating on their spouse, or a CEO who just got busted for stealing millions of dollars from his employees.  I'm willing to bet that what they did felt really good at the time.  This type of pleasure-seeking, reckless, and unapologetic living is reserved for sociopaths, and the “Tanning Mom.”

"Just think positively" or "Don't think negatively."

This one seems to be the most widely accepted of all, most likely due to its simplicity.  It is so widely accepted, that it is the basis for many modern-day psychotherapies.  Negative thoughts go hand-in-hand with negative emotions, so if you just think more positively, or rationally, problem solved... right?  Let's try it out.  Take a moment, and try thinking something really positive about yourself and watch carefully what your mind does with it.  Try something like “I - am - perfect - in - every - way...”

Chances are, your mind came up with at least a few things to remind you of just how imperfect you are, just to keep things balanced.  Shit.  Well maybe the other one works.  If we have a thought we don't like, surely we can choose to get rid of it.  Let's try it with a thought that we don't really care about.  WHATEVER YOU DO... do - NOT - think - about.... a pink giraffe...

I'd bet good money that you are thinking of a pink giraffe.  And if you distracted yourself by thinking about something else, then I'll ask you this:  How did you know that you succeeded at doing what I asked you to do?  "I didn't think about a.... oh shit."

Our minds do not work as mechanically or logically as these phrases suggest. If you truly spend your day attempting to think only positive thoughts, you're mind will be sure to point out the contradictions.  If you spend all of your time and energy trying NOT to think about negative thoughts, you will find that they are all you think about.  We couldn't even make it work with something as insignificant as a pink giraffe.  How is this supposed to work with something like "I am a bad person?"  The answer is: It doesn't.

What seems to be needed here is not a new technique, a new pill, or a new positive phrase to help us eliminate painful emotions and achieve everlasting bliss.  What is needed is a more workable definition of "happiness."  Luckily, the ancient Greeks came up with one, so we don't have to.  It's called "eudaemonia," and it is defined like this: Happiness is doing what is meaningful and important to you.  It views happiness as being a verb, something that we do rather than something that we think, feel, or achieve.  This means that our thoughts and emotions are no longer the yardstick that we use to measure our happiness, they are simply along for the ride.  If you define happiness as being a loving spouse, and on this particular day you feel tired, irritable, or anxious, then happiness means bringing those experiences with you as you do whatever "loving spouse" means to you.  It places happiness directly in your hands, right now in this moment.  And guess what?  As you do happiness, and pursue the things that are important to you, that feeling that we tend to call "happiness" is likely to show up at some point.  It's a nice side effect of doing happiness, but nothing more.  Enjoy it for a moment, and then keep doing the things that are important to you.