There’s a certain anxiety when you haven’t blogged in awhile, like your next post better have been worth the wait. I recently switched from Blogger to WordPress and I’m still adjusting to this new relationship, but today I downloaded the WordPress app on my phone, and it’s waaay more lovable than the actual site. So here I am blogging on my phone, deciding to just be casual and conversational and not let the blogger bogeyman get me down.
It’s Sukkot, and Sukkot is about joy. The Torah actually says “Be happy!” So yesterday we were lunching in our sukkah with friends, discussing to what extent is happiness a choice, and we came up with a few ways unhappy people deal with their unhappiness.
1. Wallow.
On this level, the unhappy person sinks into his unhappiness with self-pity. There’s envy of others, blame, anger. The unhappy person either can’t or won’t see a way out.
2. Distract.
Here the person engages in behaviors to move his attention away from the source of unhappiness.
This can be healthy or unhealthy, depending on the method of distraction and the extent to which it impairs the person from facing the issues. Vacations, outings with friends, food, alcohol, drugs, consumerism, hobbies all fall into this category.
To some degree we all engage in some of these, and to some degree we should. I think people going through a rough time should remember to take care of themselves, buy themselves something nice, get out with friends, even have a glass of wine. But when distraction becomes the main way of life, we have a problem.
3. Count the blessings.
On this level, the unhappy person, perhaps after the appropriate time spent going through whatever grieving process is necessary, recognizes that while sad and bad things happen, they shouldn’t obscure his vision from all the things in his life that are working.
Marriage, kids, job, health – you probably can’t have all of these, but when one or two aren’t working, it’s way too easy to forget about what is. On this level the person draws joy and comfort in the blessings he does have, while acknowledging what’s not working. This is the level I believe most people should aspire to.
4. Celebrate the pain.
This is a very high and difficult level to attain. It’s like being an elite athlete. Not for everyone but cool to know they exist. On this level we forgive G-d for the pain and acknowledge that pain is the most powerful way to spur us to reach our potential.
Pain, because it also has the power to break you, is like the Mt. Everest of spiritual growth. It might kill you, or you’ll become the greatest achiever. Pain also allows you to become more compassionate, more humble, more kind, softer, more mature. Nothing can do this to you as much as pain. So if the pain itself can be celebrated, and again, this is a process that takes time and constant coaching, a person knows that he can be happy no matter what happens.
Pretty sure this is why Gallup Poll discovered awhile ago that, on average, religious people are happier than non-religious people – they believe that there’s meaning in the pain, which makes it surmountable.
Great to see you back here with, YES, a great post as always. Hey guess what? I’ve never blogged from my phone. You’re so techy!
Thanks Nina 🙂 Happy sukkot!
Can’t help but notice the paradox in the title of your post and the name of your street lol 😆 enjoy the rest of yomtov
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It seems to me that people often can move between all four of these stages, going up and down the list from day to day. Or even in the same day.
Lovely thoughts here, and I miss the blog-chat, especially where it gets “complicated”.
To wit: I don’t know about #4. Several bones to pick with this, especially the “celebrate the pain” part and even more “a person knows that he can be happy no matter what happens”.
1. Isn’t there a big difference between “accepting that the painful experience did change me in significant ways, some of which are positive” and “celebrating” it? I agree that pain can be humbling, shaping, educating and strengthening. But I don’t think that we should (or can) celebrate the pain even if we can find some pride (good pride, not hubris) and comfort in how we see a painful experience has improved us.
2. Pain CAN be humbling, shaping, etc. BUT it can also deform and misshape people. It can make them overly defensive, anxious, even cruel. It seems like there is “the right amount of pain” that can be shaping and the wrong amount that can be misshaping, each depending on the constitution and support systems of the sufferer. So I don’t think pain is per se worth celebrating. Maybe “surviving adversity well” is, though. Still, pain and response to it seems volatile enough that it isn’t celebration-worthy.
3. Don’t know about the “happy whatever happens” conclusion you arrive at. I think after lots of terrible pain it might be more like, “can keep going no matter what happens”, which is not as cheerful. Overwhelming pain would, it seems to me, be damaging in a way that means that you CANNOT be happy no matter what happens–even when everything that happens is good. Or maybe I just don’t believe that there can be thoughtful people who can be happy no matter what.
4. I have no doubt that religious people have a baseline resilience that might be less present in non-religious people, for exactly the reason you say. They believe there is a meaning to the pain, so it is more bearable. I actually have much greater respect when a genuine religious faith stands behind that sense of meaning than when people offer from a non-religious perspective some platitude like, “Everything happens for a reason” or “It all turns out well in the end”.
I relate this to the futility of regret. If only X had been different … But then how many other things would have been different as well? If the horrible experience hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have met so-and-so or done such-and-such, etc. Who knows if things would have been better or worse? So in that sense, the belief that everything happens for a reason and is for the best can help you assume that things ARE better the way they turned out even if it didn’t seem that way. Just as an example, let’s say someone is in an abusive marriage and the abuse spurs her to get a divorce. Then she remarries someone wonderful and has children whom she loves dearly. Without the abuse she would have stayed in the first marriage and never had the second marriage or the children. so was the abuse worth the pain? (Obviously, that doesn’t excuse the abuser.)
As for the overwhelming pain that you mentioned, I think the Holocaust would qualify. I also have a hard time believing any Jews in the camps were happy in the Holocaust. Maybe at certain moments, but not in general.
Sbw:
1. You say I don’t know if we can or should celebrate the pain. Is there a specific reason why not? In theory if one can, should one?
2. Specifically because it can break you, it can build you. I’m not telling anyone what to do with their pain. That would be arrogant. But I’m telling you what I’m trying to do with mine: see it as a high intensity spiritual workout that leaves me sweaty, breathless and heaving. And if I survive, amazing.
3. I don’t mean consistently happy. I think Amy’s right that we cycle through these emotions regularly. But which is where we land most of the time?
4. Everything happens for a reason IS a religious response. And I don’t think everything turns out well in the end – at least not in the way most people think. I do think there’s an ultimate benefit to everything, that we may or may not see immediately. There’s a religious principle behind this: “Everything that the All-Merciful one does, He does for the good” (Talmud).
I just don’t see pain as celebration-worthy. It is in my view denigrating of one’s own experience and integrity to celebrate what we actually suffer. If it’s suffering it seems to me more right to acknowledge it as such and not try to betray our own experience and make it a cause for celebration.
Some kinds of pain are a workout, like forcing myself to do an important task that I dread or handling some terrible task that will be important for my life or someone dear to me. And then I suppose some increased sense of confidence and satisfaction with oneself are warranted. But celebration?
Maybe my problem is with the notion of ‘celebration’, it sounds like jubilance, balloons, joyful dancing. Why should we try to be joyful about something (pain) that is the opposite of joy?
I agree that “everything happens for a reason”, which makes some sense to me from a religious point of view but irritates me to no end when it comes from someone who would not acknowledge himself/herself as religious. I’m sure everyone (like DG above) would say, “how could [name horrible thing] possibly be for the good?” I can’t believe it would be for the good, but I sure wish I could believe it.
When I say celebrate I hardly mean throw a party. Maybe I used a poorly chosen word. I meant to accept it and realize it achieves something positive.
Although there were Jews who famously rejoiced in the midst of torture because they had the opportunity to serve Hashem b’chol m’odechem and die al kiddush Hashem e.g. R’ Akiva, several Rabbis during the holocaust whose names I do not recall.
True!!!
I guess those stories are supposed to be inspiring (Hebrew phrasing didn’t fully come through for me though). I find them horrifying, for a few reasons. They make what I would consider quasi-pornographic use of the image of torture victims appreciating their torture. And they seem to be held up as a “model” for the rest of us–a punishing, guilt-inducing model. They let us feel “good” about something very very bad, making something redeeming out of it. I guess you could say that this is precisely the function of religion–to make something redeeming out of bad things (suffering, death). But the example of the joyful tortured rabbis is in my view perverse and vile.
Wow. I’m trying to figure out how to respond to your strong feelings. No one enjoyed torture. Nor is pain glorified. What’s being glorified is a greater meaning and purpose to the pain.
I don’t mean to be rude. It does, however, feel to me perverse to imagine rabbis rejoicing in the midst of torture because it’s their opportunity to serve God. And to somehow make that into an inspiration or model…yes it is repellent to me. Also to suggest that there is something higher or more meaningful or purposeful about their pain. I can see WANTING there to be great meaning there, but I can’t see how you do that without making God into a willful torturer via the human hand, which I don’t think you would do.
Also there is a difference for me between “growing/workout pain” as you described it and what I would call “obscene pain”, as with torture victims, dead children, etc. I agree with what you say about growing pain being a kind of crossroads and vehicle of positive change, even if it’s awful in the moment. I don’t see it as on the same continuum as obscene pain though.
Don’t we–and especially don’t Os–need to keep this difference in order to maintain a sense of ethics, to say, “No one should have to go through torture” and “This obscene pain is not right”? I would think that this sense of absolute wrongness would be really important in the O context–like God himself cannot justify the wrongs we humans do, so we need to do good as much as we can.
SBW, I was preparing for a class today and came across this:
“In this world we have to make the blessing ‘He who is good and does good’ over good news, and ‘The true judge’ over bad tidings. While in the Messianic Era, we will make the blessing, ‘He who is good and does good’ even for those things we previously thought bad. The punishment itself will be seen as good even though it contains elements of desecration, because the punishment and the resulting desecration show us the unimaginable mercies of Hashem, who is willing to concern Himself with the correction of such lowly and despicable creatures as we are, because of His infinite love for us. But for one who does not understand, the punishment remains a desecration, and, filled with resentment, he abandons his loyalty to Hashem.”
“But when distraction becomes the main way of life, we have a problem.” This is profound and true!