No B.S Friday: Scratch the surface, and this story is darker than you think.
When it comes to psychology the truth is sometimes scarier than you think.
Take the story of the man who was rich but unhappy.
He had everything money could buy and yet it never filled the gaping hole within him. All his money never made him happy. His velvet smoking jacket was stained with tears.
His achievements couldn't make him happy either. He was school captain, the young gun in the agency. Made a partner before he was 40. The highest paid big-wig in the office.
And this wasn't enough either.
You know the archetype. Uncle Scrooge. It’s a permanent feature in our cultural mythology.
Now, how do we understand what's going on for this man?
If we were to ask a 20-something happiness influencer on TikTok, they would say that he was simply pursuing the wrong goals. Money can't buy you happiness. Achievements can't make you love yourself. He was barking up the wrong tree.
Somehow he missed the memo. The key to happiness is meaning, service, and these supplements that are 20% off for today only. Link in the bio.
And the implication here is that if he simply shifted his focus – stopped chasing money and started pursuing meaning and relationships and self actualisation – then, THEN, he would be happy.
Maybe this is true sometimes. Maybe. It's a nice story. And it lets us feel righteous, and gives us permission to judge people who are rich and successful, so we like that. That's probably why the story is so popular.
But let me give you another story. Let me tell you what I think happens more often than not.
At some point, probably early in his life, this man experienced pain. It might not have been even that dramatic. Perhaps it was the rejection of his parents.
Perhaps it was the death of a sibling. Perhaps he was simply left to cry it out in the nursery, feeling little, abandoned and utterly alone.
At some point he experienced pain – a pain his young mind just wasn't equipped to deal with. It's a common story.
So what happened then?
Well, his young mind then figured out that if he was focused on other things, then he could fade this pain into the background.
His mind figured out it could keep the pain at bay if it just kept the boy moving. Focus on sports, focus on school, focus on girls.
None of these things could ultimately make him happy, but happiness was never the point. Busyness was the point. Distraction was the point.
And sometimes he would wonder why all his victories felt hollow – why as soon as he reached the summit, he could take no satisfaction in it, and automatically started thinking about what his next summit was going to be.
But his mind wouldn't let him probe that question too deeply. His mind kept him moving because it knew that as soon as he completed one task, it had to come up with another.
The mind believed that it had to keep the boy focused, it had to keep the man driven, or the pain would return.
So it's not that he ever actually thought that money or success would make him happy. They were simply goals he felt compelled to pursue. Compelled by that part of his mind dedicated to hiding his pain from him.
A part of his mind they got activated at such a young age, that it felt like it had always been there. It's part of the furniture. It's just what he understands the human experience to be. “Everyone is like that aren’t they?”
The way I see it, it's not a cautionary tale about a man who got confused about what actually makes you happy.
It's a cautionary tale about a man with a mind – a mind constantly holding a whip to his flank, driving him from one goal to the next, to protect him from feeling a pain he was too young to defend himself against.
That's quite a different story isn't it?
And that's why I say psychology can be scary.
JG.
Susan Johnson says
Hi Jon
Great article!
Kind regards
Susan