No Suffering?

[wlotus]

In her diary, Anaïs Nin opined Americans seem to believe anything less than a suffering-free existence is intolerable, while Europeans seem to accept suffering as a normal part of the human experience. To her Americans seemed far more bitter and angry than Europeans. I don't know if that is universally true, but her opinion has made me question my view of suffering and its place in my life.

As I ponder various personal issues and attempt to free myself from all anxiety and self-doubt, I wonder if that goal is realistic. Is it naive to think I will ever reach a point in my life where I do not doubt my abilities and feel no anxiety about my ability to perform certain tasks? People whom I admire don't appear to have the self-doubts I have, but some of them do when I am able to talk to them privately. So should I work on accepting my self-doubts and continuing my life despite them, or are my anxieties and self-doubts a sign there is something amiss within me which I need to continue to work on?

What do you think?

Comments

[untied.livejournal.com]

i've actually seen a lot of this lately. i wasn't able to find the article i read yesterday, but the gist is that americas youth are being pushed to mediate genuine feelings with pharmaceuticals. things like breaking up with a significant other, personal loss, death of a loved one or any other occasion that warrants genuine grief and sorrow are now seen as abnormal. parents of college students urge them to seek counseling and prozac to "deal with their problems" when those same problems used to be dealt with by a brief period of indulgence, some personal reflection and a period of solitude.
instead we are pushed to be "happy" to be "positive" to smile on the outside until it creeps into our insides. i think we've forgotten how to FEEL. that feeling bad is just as valid and imperative as feeling good. somewhere we've started to short circuit the full range of human emotion, and we've begun to legislate a culture of stepford kids. all this talk of happy, productive citizens likely has the opposite effect- how can ANYONE live up to this inflated cultural ideal we've created? our sense of failure is heightened, and the cycle starts over.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

I think my belief that I am supposed to be "happy" all of the time comes from a background that pushed that idea. My grief was inconvenient for certain people, so the least bit of sadness from me was harshly criticized, and my religious background pushed the view that if one was sad/depressed, one must not be focusing enough on God. I've internalized that, and now I need to shift to a more realistic understanding of myself and life.

[untied.livejournal.com]

becoming self aware is a long process, especially after decades of familial and religious indoctrination. at least you can trace your beliefs and feeling back to the source- you're leaps and bounds ahead of most people for that alone.
i've spent a lot of time in the mental health system after being raised in a very right wing southern baptist environment (which was a laugh and a half when i came out of the closet, let me tell you...). all of these influences push and pull at different parts of me, but the one thing i've taken from all of it is the notion of listening to what i truly want, and holding myself to a standard of achieving that. if what i want is to stay home and watch movies instead of going to class, that's what i do. if i want to get a job, i look for employment. if that job becomes a burden to my mental health, i give notice.
i'm sure it sounds simple, but i was taught (and adhered to) the idea that responsibility to others comes before responsibility to self. i still believe this in a way, but not when it comes to my health and well being.

[iswari.livejournal.com]

Do you mean the Newsweek cover story from a few weeks back?

http://www.newsweek.com/id/107569

[untied.livejournal.com]

yes! thanks :)

i saw it elsewhere and didn't know the source (which can make googling difficult at best)

what did you think of it?

[kyra.livejournal.com]

I've been on the receiving end of that kind of urging, and it really is astonishing how we've become a culture of "reach for the pill". After college, I got hit with two major kicks to the nuts, one right after the other, and it was just beyond my ability to handle.

After two months of crying all the time and not feeling like it was getting any better, I made the decision to seek out personal counseling because I recognized that I wasn't getting over the hump of actually dealing with my grief and sense of utter helplessness in both situations. I had a family member, for whom the prozac approached worked, tell me that I should "go get medicated". Baffling. I tried to explain that this was a situational, not a chemical, problem, and I just needed some help from someone with more experience who could advise me on working through my grief instead of medicating overtop of it. "Just go on it short-term, then, to help you deal." Er. No?

It's as you said, negative feelings are pathologized to the point where people medicate their feelings, hide their feelings, and do everything but actually live their feelings in some sort of natural modulation between the highs and lows.

I'm curious about the chicken-and-egg of this kind of "persistence of happiness" and the ideal of relentless romance, because they surely do seem to feed on each other. An ex of mine got way more stressed about the fact that we fought than about the topics of our fights. In his worldview, there was something wrong with our relationship because we fought. It blew my brain apart, because - in what kind of world is anything happy fun times all the time? And, honestly, how boring is that?

[autodidactic.livejournal.com]

First, I love the Anais Nin paraphrase. I'm going to have to go look that up. Secondly, I agree with her. Since I started taking the approach that sometimes Bad Shit Just Happens and that my responsibility was to just deal with it as best as possible and try not to make it worse, I've been freed a bit from the toxic expectation that Someone Owes Me Something.

"If you're going through hell, keep walking."

[mahogany.livejournal.com]

I think most people struggle with self-doubt to a certain degree. I don't belive that the doubt in iteslf is problematic. I believe that it only becomes a problem if we allow the doubt to paralyze us, and keep from forging ahead. One of the best ways to overcome self-doubt is to be sucessful in something we ourselves questioned we could do.

[rockbirthedme.livejournal.com]

You took the words right out of my mouth. Self-doubt is a problem when it shackles us. The rest of the time, it's just something we have to deal with. If self-doubt is a real problem, it pays to explore why those doubts are so strong, but I don't think anyone is totally confident. And people who think they are scare me.

Here's how it slows me down...

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

http://wlotus.livejournal.com/1089717.html?thread=4616629#t4616629

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

My self-doubt doesn't completely paralyze me, but it sure does slow me down! The interesting thing is that I don't have any doubts about myself when it comes to doing new things. I know I can learn and do anything I set my mind to. However, if my doings must be evaluated and validated by others, like when I am doing work for someone or trying to meet someone's expectations, in come the self-doubts full force.

[ladyofthelog.livejournal.com]

Well, I have always thought this, but that largely comes from my reading and spiritual experience with Buddhism, and not being badass and European.

One of the most healing parts of going into therapy was finally allowing myself to feel all of the negative emotions I'd denied myself for years. It was almost overwhelming. But they passed, and I feel more at peace than I have in a long time. I feel okay about feeling angry or sad or self-doubting because I know those feelings are part of life, and they will pass in time.

[rockbirthedme.livejournal.com]

As someone who's been in the morass ... I value the times when I am sad or angry. It's such a novel thing to feel those emotions and have them be functional, rather than due to neurochemical disturbances. I love being happy, but I actually like being able to experience the full range of normal emotions. There are times when sadness or anger or frustration are the appropriate reactions, and I think I would lose a lot of richness in my life if I didn't have that.

Self-doubt, I think, is part of the furniture we take on when we rent the apartment. Self-doubt frustrates me right now, because it really is limiting for me. I want to climb far enough out that I can function better. But I don't think I need to eliminate it completely. Assuming I could, which I doubt.

I think self-doubt keeps us smart. Too much confidence, and we'd be rushing in where angels fear to tread. Too much self-doubt, and we don't move at all. A happy medium is the way to go, I think.

[tively-split.livejournal.com]

I think that the most horrible acts have been perpetrated by those who never entertained any doubts about their own correctness or moral superiority. I think it's healthy to have self-doubts, at least then you have a chance of catching your own mistakes and maybe even learning from them. No one is perfect, so I don't have to be, either. Which is a thought that helps me forgive myself for my own imperfections. I think someone might have once said that suffering causes growth of character, but you know, I'd be happy to have less character... Ah, but to get back to the question, I think it is on the unrealistic side to believe you could do away with all your own self-doubts, so: you'll have to live with them. And I don't think having self-doubts means there's anything wrong with you! I think anyone who *doesn't* have them at all is more inhuman and to be feared than anything else...

[far-gone.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of the story of when my dad came home from college (first ever to go) and said to his dad - "I'm thinking about leaving, I'm not happy." And my grandfather, a man of few words, responded - "who the hell is *happy*". Point being that in other generations, they didn't have the same expectations that we have.

But W, I don't think you have unrealistic goals. You don't seem to me like someone who wants nothing but sunshine and rainbows. You just want to wake up most mornings feeling good and looking forward to the day. That said, we all have times (sometimes stretches of time) when we don't feel that great about things. I'm in a bit of a crappy spot at the moment, but I know that that's job-stuff, day-stuff, nothing fundamental, so I keep muddling through. Though I do wonder if I could find a better fit in certain areas...

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

You just want to wake up most mornings feeling good and looking forward to the day.

Very true. I think that is reasonable. An adjustment to my expectations of myself might help that, though. I have a history of being too hard on myself. Thank goodness for knowing better, now; that's half the battle. :-)

[czaria.livejournal.com]

I think it would have been more accurate for her to say that public suffering is intolerable in America. We (speaking generally) always expect everyone else to be happy and sunny and we're repelled by someone who'd dare to answer "How are you?" with a truthful response. That sort of repression is bound to make one bitter and angry. It's why we love guns! ;)

I'm the wrong person to give anyone my two cents on anxiety and self-doubt at this point. I could ask you the same question. I suspect a certain level of anxiety and self-doubt is normal and those who are completely without it are psychopaths.