I’m not a happy person, and it may be your gain

On depression | Part 1

I’m not a happy person.

I don’t much relate to happy people. But it is direr the other way around.

I see happy people as rainbows: rare and magnificent. They see me as unevolved and ungrateful.

Holidays and happiness

I chose to start this series during the holidays because even if wonderful in countless ways, holidays leave many of us feeling worse than ever. In a society obsessed with happiness, there is a sense that if you’re not knocked off your feet by overwhelming gratitude and hope this time of year, there’s something wrong with you.

My bonafides

While depression has been the default for most of my life, this is the first time I reached the end of a year heartbroken. Unfamiliar, this sensation has made me revisit and at times reconsider my views on happiness, darkness, and the cost of living with empathy.

This Substack aims to support and equip changemakers worldwide for their vital work of remaking the world for the better. Having identified that changemakers are a unique new psychological profile, I have discovered that my experience is, sadly, quite common. Many changemakers grapple with burnout, darkness, even despair. Until there is research into us as a population (I’m working on that, join me!), here’s my series. I hope it reaches those who don’t identify as changemakers, also.

If you or somebody you know is familiar with depression, I hope this brings a little understanding and kindness. Please like, comment, and share.

Image credit: Sabine from Pixabay.

Let’s define happiness

Merriam-Webster defines happiness as “a state of well-being and contentment; joy.” I was twenty-two when I first experienced this state, and it has remained elusive.

Happiness vs optimism

Many happy people I know believe that “everything will be okay.” I don’t believe that. In fact, I find that belief irrational. That said, I do believe that we can make things better. I see possibilities for that even where others can’t and have dedicated my life to solving entrenched problems that plague our world. In a way, I am so relentlessly optimistic that I make my living from it. How could I shape and launch transformational solutions if I weren’t? I’ve even been told that my clients pay me for hope and optimism, knowing that mine won’t run low even when theirs inevitably does.

At least in me, happiness is not the source or the product of optimism.

We depend on unhappy people

Let me ask you: how happy do you really want your surgeon to be? If they even had to tell, “We did everything we could,” are you prepared for them to qualify it with, “before the yoga class”? Would you rather know that your surgeons’ neuroses compel them to withstand the pain and hunger demanded of 16-hour surgeries? That they value their personal comfort — boundaries — self-care — less than defying the odds of your survival? Or are you truly prepared to settle for “good enough”?

How many happy people would put themselves through what it takes to become a virtuoso musician who moves millions? To make scientific discoveries? To invent solutions to stubborn problems?

Heck, why would a happy fourteen-year-old have taken the myriad steps necessary to get into university half-way around the world?

I’ve been fascinated by this paradox of Western culture: we glorify achievement while demonizing the darkness it depends on. Contentment is a steady state. It is discontent that fuels the drive to make things better.

After my first bout with chronic fatigue and anxiety, I refused to share my resume for years. Our collective dishonesty already graded on me more than two decades ago. On the one hand, I would be praised for my hard work and determination (many a friend has joked that if the dictionary had a picture for “reliability,” it would feature my mug). People would volunteer me for the hardest and least popular tasks because I would deliver even if it meant pulling an all-nighter. On the other hand, I’d be told to “lighten up.”

When I was younger, it stung. Later, it got confusing because I would be told about boundaries by people who expected to trespass mine. Anger-infused defiance is a blessing of middle age. Today, I just won’t hear that I’d be happier if I just worked on it: whatever else anyone can say about me, I’ve got work and discipline down pat.

There has got to be another way. As an optimist, I insist on that. A bit of appreciation for the benefits that the less-happy among us deliver for all to enjoy could be a start.

Don’t you just want us to be happy?

Our children asked me this years ago, and their jaws just about hit the floor when I said, “No.” “Just” has always been the operative word for me in this phrase. I proceeded to add, “Happiness is like the horizon. If you chase it, you may never experience it. I want you to contribute and to be fulfilled. That’s the best chance of becoming happy.”

Probably like yours, our children are the product of a society that has idolized and commercialized happiness, and where “I just want you to be happy” is what parents are expected to say ad nauseam if they love their children. So, no, it did not go over well.

Don’t unhappy people do terrible things?

Yes. I am not aware of research on this, but unhappy people may be responsible for as many atrocities as breakthroughs.

What I wonder is whether we’re making more destructively unhappy people if we make each other feel like even fleeting unhappiness is a failure? If we shame depression rather than cultivate the skills and social safety nets for living with the darkness that is a part of each of us, even if in varying proportions?

In upcoming posts (subscribe, engage, and stay tuned!):

• Depression is stigmatized in mental health, and I don’t like it.

• Am I ungrateful if I am sad?

• Is darkness like mine innate?

• My heartbreak: why now?

• Is depression a professional hazard of changemakers?

• Cliches that hurt our changemaking (and our changemakers).

• How to support to a changemaker through “dark nights of the soul.”

Resources

In the meantime, I find the work of Dr. Mariana Alessandri incredibly poignant. It is captured in her book, Night Vision: Seeing Ourselves through Dark Moods (2023). I also really enjoyed her discussion with Sean Illing on Vox’ The Gray Area podcast.

Now, over to you: what resonates? Anything you’d like me to explore in a future post?