At the risk of sounding like Wayne Dyer or some other New Agey positive-psychology guru, I just wanted to share a minor revelation I had recently about the importance of being happy. Up until recently, I saw happiness as...well, not very important, in the sense that it was up to me if I wanted to be happy but as far as anybody else was concerned it was none of their business how I felt. I also felt kind of selfish about wanting to be happy, which is a feeling that quite possibly stems from my Catholic upbringing where the insinuation is that one needs to make unpleasant personal sacrifices to please a God that is superior and external to ourselves.
Lately, however, I have seen "God" in a much different manner from which I was taught in my CCD classes. With the help of the author Caroline Cory (and her book The Divine Plan: Beyond 2012) I have come to understand God as a tremendous intelligent energy that we all stem from and that we are all a part of. Every single thing in the universe is an extension of this "God" and, although we all possess our own individual free will, it can be said that WE ARE ALL GOD. As my mentor Ray Carney once said, we are "God's eyes and ears, his arms and hands and fingers, his taste buds and nostrils, his consciousness..." - in other words, our experiences and actions in the world (good or bad) comprise the massive universal experience that is God.
In this light, "happiness" takes on a whole new importance to me, because it is no longer a personal issue that only affects the individual, but it is actually something that affects God and the harmony of the entire universe. If we aren't happy, our souls are not at peace, and if our souls are not at peace then there is a small piece of God that is in pain as well, and, if there is a small piece of God that is in pain, then there is a disruption in the universe (a 'disturbance in the force' to use Star Wars terminology) and universal harmony is damaged.
Therefore, we basically owe it - not just to ourselves - but to the entire universe to be happy in our lives. Contrary to what I used to believe, it is not at all selfish for us to want personal happiness but it's actually a selfless desire to keep God and the overall universe in a state of peace. Whether it's a job we despise going to every day, or a group of friends we don't feel comfortable being around, or a marriage we don't feel is right for us, or a religion we don't really feel comfortable following, or a lifestyle we lead that isn't true to ourselves...we owe it to the people around us and every other single being in the universe to change our lives in a way that makes us more happy.
Now, when I talk about being "happy" I don't mean to imply that people should have a big Jack-Nicholson-like smile on their faces 24 hours a day. And I don't think people should spend their free time frolicking through a meadow shouting "Wheeeeeee!" All I mean when I say 'happiness' is that our souls should be in a state of comfort. We should be doing what we WANT to be doing in our lives, not what outside influences (whether it be religions, corporations, politicians, celebrities, media, family, friends, grandparents, dogs, cats) want us to do. As selfish as it may sound, we should live to please ourselves and nobody else and in doing this we are selflessly pleasing God.
I recently read a brand new book called EMPIRE of ILLUSIONS by Pulitzer-Prize-Winner Chris Hedges and it was basically about all of America's problems right now, like economical, health, environmental and yada yada yada, but one thing he focused on (which I found particularly interesting) was the new wave of "positive psychology" that has been pervading our culture lately. This is the power-of-positive-thought-type of philosophy that best-selling books like THE SECRET talk about. This type of psychology has become particularly popular during the current economic crisis when all is going to hell and people find themselves faced with nothing but negativity in all aspects of their life. People turn to the positive psychologists who convince them that they must implement the "power of attraction", think happy thoughts - like Peter Pan would say - and all the negativity will eventually disappear. Life will get much better.
Of course, all this 'power of attraction' rhetoric is all hogwash for the most part (THE SECRET, after all, was written by the same weirdo who invented the now-notorious "sweat lodge"); and such a psychology has several detrimental effects on people as well. Primarily, Hedges argues in his book that the "positivity" these psychologists preach about paradoxically has the negative consequence of deluding people from reality and, yes - despite what our 'Disneyfied' culture would have you believe - retreating into fantasy when the going gets rough is a bad thing. If we blind ourselves from life's problems, the problems only grow worse in the long run.
Hedges also argues that positive psychology has the negative result of making people passively complacent, where they end up becoming (what he calls) a "corporate collective" - that is, a mass of like-minded people who agree with everything and lose the individual capacity to question the mainstream. In other words, positive psychologists label 'dissatisfaction' with the status quo as being 'negativity', the ramifications of which are dire. After all, dissatisfaction is the emotion that influences a person to promote change, either in their personal life or in society. If people are constantly forcing themselves to be satisfied, then they no longer possess the capacity to change, which, in a sense, leads to their (spiritual) deaths.
In his book, Hedges points out that the corporate elite - in particular - are huge advocates of "positive psychology" (several major companies pay good money to have these psychologists come and speak at company conventions). The elite use the "power of positivity" to essentially trick the working class into thinking they are happier with their place within the capitalist system than they really are. Employers like a psychology that labels 'dissatisfaction' as 'negativity', because it fools exploited workers into thinking their disgruntlement with things like low wages and long hours and monotonous work and lack of good benefits and poor retirement pensions is a result of them being pessimistic malcontents. In other words, positive psychology spins employee exploitation in a manner so that it looks like it's the worker's own fault that they are unhappy. They are forced to look at the bright side of their exploitation, even when no bright side exists.
As many of you know, "Saturday Night Live" had a recurring sketch a few years back that featured a nerdy, unattractive-looking woman who turns every conversation with her friends into something negative. She always saw the glass as half empty, so to speak. She was called "Debbie Downer". Although it was rather humorous, the sketch was a reflection of a society already conditioned by positive psychology. As the Debbie Downer caricature insinuates, a person who points out the flaws in society is perceived as nerdy and unattractive - a foolish malcontent...and this is the problem. If everybody is afraid of being a "Debbie Downer" then nobody will ever admit to both themselves and to others that they are dissatisfied in life, which means that everybody will lose the capacity to become proactive, change their life, and make a positive difference.
Yes, as strange an idea as it seems, the world depends on the "Debbie Downer" in order to be saved from its downfall. People must realize that feeling depressed or dissatisfied is - in a lot of cases - actually a good thing. It's a healthy thing. Contrary to popular belief, dissatisfaction doesn't necessarily mean we should go to the doctor and be prescribed Prozac or some other anti-depressant (which is another thing the corporate elite would prefer to see you do). And it certainly doesn't mean we should read THE SECRET and learn how to attract wealth and prosperity with our happy thoughts. No...it simply means CHANGE is needed. And you need to do something in order to trigger that change.
To put it simply, positive psychology is a quack psychology. Without "negativity", there would be no positive change in the world. Without the Debbie Downer, nobody would make a difference.
