Don't Worry, Be Happy

Since I will not be going up to my cabin for the entire month of December I have been forced to score my weekly dose of therapy by other means.  To that end I am currently reading a self help book on how to stop worrying.  While I would not go so far as to say I have GAD (a diagnosis with its own ICD code)  I have always considered myself a worrier.  And after reading this book I have been left with absolutely no wiggle room to escape this disconcerting conclusion.  One of the signs of being a chronic worrier is that fretters are actually not anxious about the major catastrophes like terrorist attacks, earthquakes, falling off a cliff while climbing, or drowning during the swim leg of a triathlon. But rather things like the trash men maybe not emptying the trash can since your wife overloaded it and it weighs 51 pounds, or your dental practice will fail if patients have to wait more than ten minutes for their appointment, or maybe the fact that you won't be able to have cereal for breakfast if your wife doesn't immediately go to the store to restock the milk.  I, in fact, have always worn my "I DO sweat the small stuff" attitude as a badge of honor.  This is not a new revelation as I have previously  covered the topic in my "What if" discussion groups of mid 2010.  And by discussion groups I mean the stony silence that usually follows what I consider to be my very insightful blog posts.

This is not the first self help book I have read.  And it has been my experience that unless one is born naturally content, becoming well adjusted is not an end point.  It is, in fact, a never ending struggle to overcome your own intractable nature.  Drugs help for a while as they combat the chemical source of your malcontentment.  But stop taking them and your worries are back.  They have therefore not cured anything; they have just made you dependent on drugs (disclaimer for the NJ State Dental Board; I am not now, nor have I ever been on antipsychotic medication).  And reading one book on "The women who love men and the men who hit them back" is not going to stop you from being attracted to bad boys.  Most people who are trying to improve their outlook on life never stop with one or two books.  They must constantly return to the self help section for the newest fad in self actualization.

And the reason is quite simple.  Every self help book begins with the same basic assumption;  the world is not going to change so you have to change the way in which you react to it.  Well I immediately reject this concept.  All of the Ph.D. authors are well aware of the fact that it is almost impossible to change one's basic nature, yet they expect you to change just from reading their book.  Every one of these books acknowledges that yes, life is very unfair.  Even religion offers no immediate solution as their ultimate answer to life's hardships is paradise only in death.  Turn the other cheek is the best advice they can offer here on Earth.  And that is why melancholy people will always be melancholy.  Because one can work and work and work at being well adjusted but after the dopamine  built up from reading a meaningful book has dissipated, the possibility still remains that your cat will topple the Christmas tree and start a fire while you're  at work.