Category — Uncategorized

It feels like I’m being told with increasing frequency that I’m unhappy.  The more I dive deeply into happiness research, the more I find studies charting our underlying unhappiness.  Not as individuals, but collectively, as a member of humanity.

We’re not operating a peak happiness.  We are in an unhappiness epidemic.

Except… they’re two very different things.  I mean, I could be averaging a B+ in happiness, and that is still a damn good grade, even though I could clearly put in a little more self-reflection and gratitude practices and boost my happiness grade to an A-.  Or I could be getting a D in happiness, barely passing this life lesson.

I read that article linked to above because I was interested in the connection to screens and whether social media contributes more positive than negatives to my life.  I wanted to know what is the right amount of non-work-related screen time (since all of my work takes place on a screen).  It turns out the amount is about an hour a day.  More than that and your happiness decreases.  No screen time at all and your happiness decreases, too.

But, again, increases and decreases are very imprecise terms.  Are we talking about a 1% drop in happiness?  Did I drop from a 98% happiness level to a 97% happiness level, and would I really be able to discern the difference between the two levels?  Or did I drop from a 98% happiness level to a 56% happiness level, and it’s so noticeable that I need to fix this situation?

I am fascinated by happiness research and the general sense of whether it is measurable when our memories are so faulty.  How can I compare my happiness level today to my happiness level from yesterday when I only have a vague sense of yesterday?

I guess that’s really where I’m interested; the intersection of memory research (and how accurately we remember things) and happiness research.  Can we really tell our happiness levels?

Infertility feels like those people you’re connected to on Facebook who are part of a different period of life.  You rarely interact with them, but because you’re connected, they sometimes pop up in your feed and you think, “Oh, right, Infertility.”

I was seeing a new doctor, and her first question was “how many pregnancies?”

“How many children?” I asked.

“No, I asked you how many pregnancies.”

It wasn’t unkind; it wasn’t thoughtless.  It was just the question she needed answered in the moment, and I fumbled through it, feeling like my body was being judged even though I could tell from her expression that it wasn’t.  It was just a fact.

Afterwards, I was in a different waiting room, standing behind a woman with a gurgling baby.  The baby was fussing but stopped to smile at me because I was smiling hugely at her, making funny faces.  The mother noticed and nodded as if to say thank you for the distraction, and I wanted the universe to note that I do that well when it comes to kids.  I may suck at creating them or internally growing them but I rock at interacting with them.

That should count for something.

So yesterday I asked the first part of the question: “What the difference between who you are and what you have?” or “What’s the difference between who you are and what you do?”  Do we define people more by what they have (born into or worked for) or what they do?

The next part also occurs on page 79.  The texting conversation continues and the boy gives new parameters to setting the definition of the self: “Maybe you are what you can’t not be.”

Not what you are, but what you can’t choose not to do and still be yourself.  Meaning, I couldn’t be a meat eater and still be Melissa.  Being a vegetarian feels like something I can’t not be.  I couldn’t not be Jewish.  I just wouldn’t feel like myself if I didn’t have that cultural touchstone anymore.

But… then I wonder if there’s anything we can’t not be.  We all know from infertility that we hold beliefs about what we can’t not be (a parent).  But at the same time, we rationally know that life would continue, we would exist, even without reaching parenthood.  I was still myself even when I wasn’t achieving what I couldn’t not be, and I was still myself after reaching it.  You are/were yourself even when you aren’t/weren’t reaching what you want/wanted to be because we are more than a single facet of our personality.

Even our personalities aren’t one thing.  I’m a worrier, but I’m also organized, empathetic, and circumspect.  I can’t not be worried, can’t not be organized, can’t not be empathetic, and can’t not be circumspect, even though I also know that there are times when I’m calm, disorganized, and thoughtless.

Is there anything you can’t not be?  And what do you think would happen if you were not that thing?

A few months ago, I read John Green’s new book, Turtles All the Way Down, and I’m still thinking about it. There were two questions that I’m turning around from the book, so I’m posing them to you to crowdsource your thoughts. You don’t need to have read the book in order to talk about this.

In fact, the two questions barely need any context. A boy and a girl are texting each other. The boy was born into a wealthy family and doesn’t know if people who befriend him like him or like the fact that he has money. He asks, on page 79, “What’s the difference between who you are and what you have? Maybe nothing.”

Meaning, he’s a rich boy. He can’t separate out his self from what he has.

The question stood out to me because — and I don’t know if this is adulthood, my personal experience, or being a product of where I live — but I would ask it differently: “What’s the difference between who you are and what you do?”

I don’t think about people based on what they have, but I definitely think about people in terms of what they do.  I knew someone who worked for an ethically questionable organization that I believed was hurting people despite the organization’s claims that it was helping people.  How could I not associate him with the fact that he was a cog in that machine?

And then there are the associations we make due to individual actions.  That person is nice because they treat me well.  That person is a rude because they’re thoughtless.  That person is smart because they are a doctor.  That person is lazy because they weasel their way out of helping out.

Are people defined more often by what they have or what they do?

Part two tomorrow after you give your thoughts on this first part…

The Wolvog bought himself a virtual reality set-up.  He has wanted one for a long time, and the price finally dropped on one that would work with his computer.  He researched the equipment, tried it out first-hand, priced out the whole thing on his own.

We negotiated an addendum to our screen contract with specific rules governing VR, which set time limits (one hour on to two hours off), types of games (no shooters or multiplayer online games), and a “carbon offset” clause which states that to counterbalance screen use, he needs to read a books like Chade-Meng Tan’s Joy of Demand or Mo Gawdat’s Solve for Happy or listen to the new Science of Happiness podcast in order to train his brain to be equally happy in the non-virtual world.

This decision to bring VR into the house filled us (and by “us,” I mean Josh and me) with equal parts pride and dread.  I was excited that he found something that made him this excited.  He blisses out when he talks about VR.  It is cool to see someone find something that consistently brings them this much happiness.  And dread because… well… there is something a little isolating about VR.  How can reality compete with the perfection and wonder of a virtual world?  It seems ripe for creating sadness.

But the equipment arrived and he took so much care setting it up, passing it around for everyone to try.  Is it emotional to stand in the virtual White House and look around, feeling as if I’m in the actual space?  Yes; I cried watching a VR movie with Obama and let out a long string of wonder-laced expletives seeing China.

And at the same time, it has been a first-hand lesson in tempering expectations.  There were set up woes where he had to troubleshoot things that he hadn’t expected to have to troubleshoot.  There were unexpected lags and flickering that he didn’t see when he tried out the equipment in the store, probably because he was trying it out with a newer, more powerful computer.  We had warned him that it might not work as he wanted it to work, and he was dismissive of facts when they didn’t fit what he hoped was true, but he has slowly been shedding the disappointment over expectations and fitting his brain into being satisfied actuality.

And maybe that’s the best lesson learned from this; that initial disappointments or frustrations may melt away over time because humans are excellent at realizing actuality is sometimes okay once expectations are dropped.  In fact, actuality, in this case, still makes him pretty damn happy.