A Happiness Paradox

So I’ve been pondering this state of affairs.  I keep saying that I want to become a planner and not a dreader, proactive and not reactive, caught up and not catching up.  What if by making these changes I’m becoming less happy?  So instead of coming home and flopping on the couch, just so glad that whatever-it-was got done and I don’t have to worry about it any more, I’m coming home and saying to myself, ‘That was so much fun!  I wish we could do it again!’  Relief vs. regret.  Which is better?

One way to answer that question is to compute how much time is spent agonizing beforehand vs. regretting afterwards:  a simple ratio.  Another, more nuanced, comparison has to do with the quality of the emotions involved.  Maybe that relief I feel isn’t all that positive:  it’s simply the cessation of dread.  Maybe the regret isn’t all that negative:  I’m sorry it’s over because I enjoyed it so much.  Surely it’s better to take pleasure in something as it happens than to rejoice only when it ends.  Does all this sound crashingly obvious?  Well, it is.  But only recently has it become obvious to me.

I’m still working out my analysis on this subject.  But it seems to me that the concept of the “finish line” plays a part here, too.  The tendency is to flop and stop when you get to the end of a big effort.  (My statements here are further refinements on some Gretchen Rubin ideas.)  So . . . there I am, on the couch with my feet up, totally spent, after an anxiety-ridden event.  I’m not very likely to get going on what now needs to be done because, after all, I’ve reached a goal.  And getting there was very unpleasant.  I just want to revel in my freedom from worrying about it.  But–stick with me here, because I think I’m on to something–even if I’m sorry that the finish line is past, but I enjoyed getting to that line, then (after a suitable period on the couch, preferably watching America’s Test Kitchen) I’ll be much more willing to get started on the Next Big Thing.  And there’s always a NBT.  Or at least there had better be.  We think that it would be great to have no responsibilities and no deadlines, but in reality that’s just another way of saying that we have nothing to look forward to.  Relaxation for a time is great, but there needs to be something on the calendar to get us going again.

I saw this need for new challenges in my mother back before my wedding.  She’d had some episodes of true clinical depression in the year or two before that, but now, suddenly, she had to get things done.  Teal plastic forks and napkins.  A suitable dress for her to wear.  (She brought home four.)  Punch ingredients.  The very best roasted nuts from Jerry’s Nut House. On and on.  I don’t know how long she could have kept up the pace, and I do know that clinical depression is very unpredictable.  But the day after the wedding she crashed.  It was all over, and I was going off to a new life in Chicago.  I can still picture her huddled on the couch when Jim and I came by to see her before we got on the plane.  She had nothing lined up to turn her attention to.   That was the very worst thing that could have happened to her, and that’s true of the rest of us, too.

I explore the issue of procrastination and its adrenaline junkie aspects in my book.  If you’ve read it and liked it, please take a couple of minutes to review it.  Just scroll to the bottom of the Amazon page and click on the “write a customer review” button.  Couldn’t be easier!  (Ordering yourself a copy is easy too.)  Watch for the notification on the sidebar of this blog that it’s available on iTunes if you’d rather read it on your iPad.  Coming soon, I hope.  My IT guy (otherwise known as my husband) is working on it.