Culture of Pessimism

These are troubling times. Unless you have your head in the sand or make more than $250,000 per year (the current definition of rich), you are likely anxious about your economic circumstance. Of course, a certain percentage of the population is anxious because they have an anxiety disorder. They can be on the beach in Maui sipping their favorite beverage and feel horrible. Circumstances don't matter much to those folks. These times probably just add to their anxiety; but what about the rest of us? How are we coping with the edginess we all feel when we are told we are about to fall off the economic cliff of "the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression." Wow. My folks lived through that and World War II and they never talked about either very much. We usually don't like to talk about painful experiences unless we have to or need to.

So what to make of all this; how are you feeling? I, for one, keep wondering if the other shoe is about to drop even though I have no idea what that shoe is or what the drop entails. I just have this feeling of waiting for something really bad to happen. But hasn't something really bad already happened? Not to me, not yet anyway. But something bad is always happening to someone somewhere and in this economic crisis a lot more people have lost their jobs and practically everyone has lost much of their monetary worth. But there clearly are worse things than losing these things.

I think things feel worse than maybe they are (that other shoe might drop but if it is only an economic loss, meaning we have to lower our lifestyle and endure forced discipline of doing without, that might be a good thing), and this malaise has other reasons or causes. I don't pretend to know exactly what is going on or what the answers are but I can describe some of the symptoms that might help us name what is going on in our malaise. Allow me to give juxtaposition:

Stephen L Carter in his Author's Note of Palace Council , a novel set in the sixties comments "I mark the sixties as two decades, not one, the era beginning with the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, and ending with President Richard Nixon's resignation in 1974. Brown, like the Cold War and the Apollo Program, was a product of the nation's buoyant postwar optimism. Nixon's fall from power reflected the nation's newfound pessimism. The Vietnam War formed the bridge between the two. Like so many wars, Vietnam began in idealism and certainty, but ended in cynicism and doubt….The end of the war in 1975 marked the beginning of the end of rule by the World War II generation, and the dawn of modern America—the mean-spirited America of me-first, trust-nobody, sound bites, revile-anyone-who-disagrees, and devil-take-the-hindmost. All of this misbehavior is a mark of our timidity, not our confidence. Americans across the political spectrum cannot bear dissent, because we lack the courage to meet it squarely."

The contrast is from Henri Nouwen's Bread for the Journey: "Love unites all, whether created or uncreated. The heart of God, the heart of all creation, and our own hearts become one in love. That's what all the great mystics have been trying to tell us through the ages. Benedict, Francis, Hildegard of Bingen, Hadewijch of Brabant, Meister Eckhart, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Dag Hammarskjˆld, Thomas Merton, and many others, all in their own ways and their own languages, have witnessed to the unifying power of the divine love…It is in the heart of God that we can come to the full realization of the unity of all that is, created and uncreated."

Mean-spirited-me-first-revile-anyone-who-disagrees-with-you pessimism or our-hearts- becoming-one-in-love-because-all-that-is-created-or-uncreated-is-from-love optimism? Seems like an obvious choice but most of us are not mystics, we are modern or post modern everyday Americans trying to make it through. Maybe we should consider becoming mystics. Especially if it means that I can love you even though I vigorously disagree with you. Maybe then you and I will have hope and optimism not because someone promises it to us to win an election but because we become love ourselves.

If Stephen Carter is right, and I believe he has eloquently named our current condition, then this economic mess we are experiencing is only a symptom of Carter's pessimistic America. The cure then is not throwing more money to Wall Street or Ford; it is becoming the optimistic America that believes in itself because it believes in one another not as an enemy to destroy or prove wrong but as a brother or sister who needs one another. As the mystics express it, it is love that unites us, and the root of our culture of pessimism is our loss of knowing what love is and how to love. Maybe the root of our pessimism is wondering if love even exists.

Love’s Paradox

We do not usually talk about our failure in a public forum. This is especially poignant during a presidential campaign where the only failure talked about is the opponent's. Failure is understood to mean when something falls short of what is required or expected; it is unsuccessful, the desired goal is not achieved. There is something negative about failure and yet conventional wisdom of successful people is that they often learn more from their failures than their successes. I wish the political process would allow for that but in America it is all about being right and winning. American culture does not tolerate failure very well.

I am in a business where what we do, therapy, often fails; at least in the short term it appears to be a failure. This week I have seen two marriages fall apart, one that is farther down the road of divorce and one that is dangerously tittering on the precipice of divorce. One might be salvaged; one most likely will not be salvaged. So what have I learned from my mistakes, from failure? What can I take away from this that will make therapy more successful next time?

I think I am asking the wrong question and looking at this failure the wrong way. Yes, I expect to help every marriage that walks in my door. I expect success because I am trained and I have seen much success before with couples. I am trained and learning more about EFT (Emotionally Focused Therapy) which has a great research track record of significantly improving marriages 75-80% of the time. But what makes the difference? Why do some respond and others do not?

I wrote to one of the spouses who do not want to end their marriage that without vulnerability love does not happen; it cannot thrive. It is choked off in self protective armor that stifles and restricts and bounces back every attempt of love's embrace. What in the world would make someone reject love? Why would anyone do that!? Because what is offered is not perceived by the receiver as love; the source of love is seen as anything but loving. They are afraid, for whatever reason(s) to be vulnerable.

I am grieved by these couples' pain. I hate that our efforts ended in a lack of success; that love did not win the day but disappointment and rejection did. I don't know if there is anything more painful than a failed relationship except that it is tempered by the hope of finding love somewhere down the road. We are usually eternal optimists when it comes to love. In fact, many relationships end precisely because someone decides they can find love with someone else. But in divorce someone has decided that love does not happen for them in this relationship. How sad and painful is that.

I want to be honest about my failure to help and to love. It does no good to pretend we have all the answers or pretend that we will not fail. In fact, if conventional wisdom is true, failure is necessary but this conventional wisdom is only true if we do not quit trying. We are meant to love. It is what we are designed to do. We are lovers, and love is most fully realized in a monogamous relationship. It cannot be found in a series of relationships because serial relationships do not require commitment and thus avoid vulnerability. If I am never safe enough to risk being hurt, that is be open to being misunderstood, not valued, or accepted then I can never know love. This is the paradox of love; it can only happen when we are open to its failure. For us to know love, to experience love in our life we must be willing to suffer the pain of rejection, the disappointment of being misunderstood, and still hold out hope that love, in the long run, will not disappoint.