Tag Archives: psychology

Learning How to be Happy

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I’m going to go out on a limb and criticize something even more popular than the things I usually criticize–my school’s Happiness Club.

The Happiness Club is a prominent student organization at Northwestern that aims to increase happiness by planning all sorts of activities for the campus, such as kite-flying, free hot chocolate, water balloon fights, “silent” dance parties, and so on. In other words, all fun and exciting activities.

So what’s the problem?

The problem is that it’s not “happiness” that these activities are promoting; it’s momentary joy. Momentary joy is an important component of a happy life, but it’s not even close to all you need.

Let me explain. Most Northwestern students have been fed on a steady diet of stress, sleep deprivation, and SAT prep classes since before we hit puberty. The kinds of effects that such a diet inevitably has–for instance, perfectionism, fatigue, anxiety, and depression–are things that no amount of kite-flying will cure.

To put it bluntly, most people I know here (myself included) are simply not capable of living our lives in a way that’s conducive to long-term happiness and well-being. We suck at prioritizing–academics and extracurriculars come before friends and family, every time. We demand perfect grades from ourselves. We apply to only the most prestigious internships and burst into tears when we inevitably fail to get those positions. We fill our schedules to the point that we have to schedule in shower time. We don’t pause to relax, think, or meditate.

In other words, the skills that we lack–balance, mindfulness, perspective, and a healthy amount of compassion for ourselves–are exactly the things that are not being taught to us here. These are the skills that lay the foundation for a happy and meaningful life.

Of course, there are resources. CAPS (our psychological service) offers workshops, and RAs are encouraged to emphasize the need for balance and stress relief to their residents. But the people we look to and trust the  most–our peers–are often more of a negative influence than a positive one. (For instance, how do you think I feel about my own study  habits when my friend tells me she stayed up till 4 AM studying, slept for two hours, and got up at 6 to keep going?)

That’s where a group like the Happiness Club should, theoretically, come in. In addition to the undoubtedly fun activities that they already plan, why don’t they offer workshops on stress relief, meditation, or yoga? Why don’t they bring in speakers who talk about how one can be both productive and happy in college? Why don’t they encourage greater awareness of things like perfectionism, anxiety, and depression?

We need to start up a campus dialogue about these things, because there isn’t one right now. Occasionally, late at night, one of us will admit to a friend that we’re just not living the right way. But this conversation needs to happen on a larger scale. There is too much misery here. I don’t doubt that many Northwestern students are happy in some sense of the word, but they’re not as happy as they could be, because while all the adults in our lives have taught us how to live a successful life, nobody’s taught us how to live a happy one. Maybe it’s time to teach ourselves.

Preventing Depression

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I love it when people who actually know what they’re talking about confirm something I’ve believed for ages.

In this case, a study at the Feinberg School of Medicine (that’s Northwestern’s med school) showed that one out of every four or five college students who come to their school’s health center may be suffering from depression. The study also recommended that colleges should start screening students for depression. This way, they might even be able to pinpoint students with minor depression and help them get treatment before their depression worsens.

Ever since I’ve started seriously reading about psychology and depression, I’ve felt that we should start taking a preventative approach to it–not just in colleges, but everywhere. Depression tends to worsen with time, and even when it does remit on its own, it usually comes back later, with more intensity. Furthermore, distorted thinking patterns seem to precede the development of a full-blown depressive episode, so why not address those earlier rather than later?

For instance, parents take their kids to the doctor to make sure that they’re growing at a normal rate and developing the cognitive abilities they’re supposed to develop–why not also check to make sure that kids aren’t developing negative and maladaptive thinking patterns that could increase their risk for becoming depressed later?

You might think that kids are too young to show definitive patterns, but I think that’s false. My own little brother, who’s eight years old, constantly complains that he’s fat and needs to exercise, despite being underweight for his age. He also says that everyone at school hates him (they don’t) and that his school is awful and should be burned to the ground (and various other sentiments that have gotten him sent to the principal’s office before). Perhaps most importantly, he also has a pervasive family history of depression.

The unfortunate truth is that society views mental illnesses as fundamentally different from physical illnesses. One is a straightforward matter–you go to a doctor for checkups, and if something is wrong, you receive treatment. The other is for some reason shrouded in mystery, and people generally don’t go seek help for it until they’re already barely functioning.

As recent scientific developments are beginning to show, however, it may be that all mental illnesses actually have a physical basis. More and more psychologists and psychiatrists (notably, Peter D. Kramer of Listening to Prozac fame) are starting to take this view. If they’re right, it follows that we should try to take a preventative approach in treating mental illness, not a palliative one.

However, many people still have negative attitudes about the idea of psychological screening. One of the students quoted in the article linked to above said that these screenings are a bad idea because someone could just “be having a bad day” and–oh, the horrors–get recommended for counseling. First of all, however, counseling isn’t exactly the same as taking antibiotics or getting a spinal tab. Second, that just means that we need to develop better depression screening tools, not that we shouldn’t screen for it at all.

In college especially, conditions like depression can take a turn for the worse rather quickly, as evidenced by the several suicides we’ve had on campus while I’ve been a student here. Every time a tragedy like that occurs, friends and family are often quoted as saying that they “never saw it coming.” Maybe a professional psychologist would’ve.

No More Lonely Nights

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[This was originally a Facebook note that I posted right before New Year’s Eve. It got a lot of positive attention so I figured I’d repost it.]

[TMI Warning]

Normally at this time of year, I like to write a long note about what I’ve accomplished during the past year, what it all means, what my New Year’s resolutions are, how my love life is progressing, all that type of stuff. New Year’s Eve is an important night for me for many reasons, most of all because it just gives me a great opportunity to reflect on how my life is going.

Ordinarily I make a list. A big long list. Everything will be on there–breakups, revelations, other transitions of various sorts. A lot of stuff has happened to me this year. A lot of it was important to me.

But I’m not going to make a list this year, because this year, there’s really only one thing that I want to write about. It’s the biggest, most important thing. This year, I recovered from depression.

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On Ambition

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I used to be what most people would call an ambitious person. That is to say, I knew exactly where I wanted to go in life, and it was a place that everyone respected. I was also willing to do everything necessary to get there–the perfect grades, prestigious college, and on and on.

What my actual ambition was doesn’t matter, because I had several phases that I went through. I remember at one point I wanted to be a psychologist. Then an architect, then a physicist, then a lawyer, then a statistician, then an economist, then a sociologist, and then, finally, a journalist. That was the dream that ultimately led to the breakdown of all the other dreams.

My parents were always very proud of me for being so ambitious, even if what I actually wanted to do was always changing. That, after all, was only natural, and it was clear to everyone that I had what it takes to get to the top of any field I chose. My parents were certain that once I started college, I’d immediately settle down with whatever major happened to be conveniently available to me and begin the process of climbing up the totem pole like a good little girl.

Well, what they forgot to tell me was that it’s pretty damn hard to be ambitious when you no longer know what the hell you want to do with your life. Journalism sucked, sociology might as well have been Political Correctness 101, and I’m terrible at science, so I picked psychology. But then I started having doubts. What if I’d make the most amazing computer programmer in the world? Or photographer, or novelist, or graphic designer, or architect, or engineer?

But all of these paths were closed off to me, because most of them don’t even have departments at my school, and those that do are special programs that one needs to apply for (much like my nemesis, journalism). Furthermore, I could no longer afford to take any more random classes if I wanted to graduate on time (which I must, given the cost of attending college). The uncomfortable truth was that you really can’t be whatever you want to be. If I wanted to study architecture or engineering, I should’ve thought of that earlier. But I didn’t, and besides, there was still no guarantee I’d like any of those, either. I was now, I realized, completely and inexorably stuck. And that’s when I lost my ambition–and my faith in myself.

I don’t know how, at 18 years old, I was supposed to just magically know what I want to do for the rest of my life. I certainly didn’t get any room for experimentation. I spent freshman year slaving away in the name of journalism and ended up choosing psychology because it seems to be the only subject I’m good at. But as for architecture and other subjects not even offered at my school, who knows? Maybe in a parallel universe, I could’ve designed a revolutionary green skyscraper or the next crazy-popular Apple gadget, or coded a new Google project or a better version of Windows. Not in this universe, though.

Life without ambition is a new experience for me. These days I couldn’t care less about my future. I don’t really try that hard in my classes, and I avoid internships like the plague. All I want to do is read books and lie by the pool. After all, if I’m going to get trapped into a life I never wanted anyway, why bother working hard for it? Might as well enjoy whatever freedom I have left.

If that seems nihilistic, well, most people hate their jobs. This is nothing unusual. I’ve just realized earlier than most people that all that bullshit they tell you about how any dream is achievable is really just bullshit. It’s really all just a matter of luck. Some people get lucky and happen upon the right calling, and others don’t.