Clicks Away from Happiness

By Sam Watermeier

In his book, "The Paradox of Choice," psychologist Barry Schwartz perfectly summarizes the way I'm sure we all feel when we park ourselves in front of some form of media to find fulfillment. "We are free to be the authors of our own lives, but we don't know exactly what kind of lives we want to write," Schwartz states.

Media gives us writing prompts, so to speak — and enticingly simple, easy prompts for that matter. Countless commercials tell us, “Do ____, and you will be happy.”

In other words, the media — particularly self-help media — has turned us into satisficers, leading us to settle or tunnel-focus on one path to happiness rather than embrace the multitude of routes to it (like maximizers). At least it has had that effect on me. 

When it comes to how I can feel better about myself, I tend to focus on big, tangible goals rather than taking each day at a time and being the best I can be from moment to moment. In other words, I don’t do what maximizers do in terms of considering all possible aspects of my life that I can work on to improve my well-being. Over the past five years or so, I have been almost entirely focused on three goals — getting published, losing weight, and establishing romantic relationships.

In my pursuit of these goals, I basically did what Schwartz suggests in “The Paradox of Choice” — focusing my time and energy on choices in my life that mattered most to me and thereby letting many other opportunities pass me by. However, in hindsight, I think I let too many opportunities pass. For example, when I dabbled in newspaper work, I sacrificed my personal life for a professional one, even to the extent that I took my work with me everywhere, talking about almost nothing but my writing with family and friends.

Although this complete focus on my professional identity was a comforting distraction from my less comfortable personal identity, it prevented me from engaging with other aspects of myself and those around me. Friends’ eyes glazed over when I spoke as if I was dictating an article. “Sam, relax. You sound like a newspaper,” they often said. And they seemed even more frustrated when I beat myself up over not meeting expectations with my writing. I wasn’t myself around people; I was always rehearsing to be the ideal form of myself. And that rehearsal, that distance from the moment, made connections difficult.  

Losing weight isolated me more. I put so much time into shaping up to be more socially confident that I forgot to work on actually socializing, which would have helped even more when it came to starting romantic relationships.
                                                                                                

After all this work — building my creative, professional identity, improving my appearance, etc. — I'm finally in the position I thought I needed to be in to successfully establish romantic connections. But during all this time spent on doing what I thought would make others approve of me, I forgot to explore what I approve in myself. And it's quite difficult to form strong connections with people when you don't feel comfortable connecting with yourself.

I didn’t realize that people already saw good in me, that I had intangible qualities. I thought I needed some tangible thing to be happy with myself and other people. (At least that’s what I thought when I saw ads for eHarmony and Special K.) Those ads create too much pressure and unrealistic expectations. A self-esteem boost from some product or endeavor should be a secondary side effect, not the primary motivation for jumping into anything. We need more ads like the one below, ads that remind us of our inherent potential and encourage us to embrace it rather than making us feel like we have to construct it.

While satisficing may be a good way to avoid the stress of excess choice, I’ve realized that it can also be detrimental. We live in a world that tells us all we need to do is find a career or lose weight or get a girlfriend to make us happy. It’s not that simple. The key to happiness is much less tangible. It’s about feeling comfortable with yourself first, even before you head over to eHarmony or hit the gym. But learning to love yourself isn’t as easy — or marketable — as popping a pill or the notion of quickly choosing a flattering outfit. When those actions don’t work, it’s a relief to know that there are other choices out there, other paths to happiness that we can traverse. What the media doesn’t tell us is that it’s a hard road. Happiness is not just a click away.