Why the Happiness Zeitgeist Has Undermined the Value of Sadness

Beth was tall and athletic, with brown hair and a serious demeanor that belied her clever sense of humor, which could catch you off guard at any moment. We were lane buddies on our college swim team, commiserating through workouts, and hanging out off the pool deck as friends.

I didn’t have many classes with her and boy was I grateful. She took 21 credits per semester and seemed hellbent on taking the hardest classes possible — biochemistry, neurobiology, genetics — anything with mountains of homework. It was a mind-bending workload to manage while also training twice a day for swimming. She managed to get straight A’s but, every time I saw her, stress and exhaustion were etched across her face.

Even when we passed each other on the sidewalks in DC (we were at George Washington University), she couldn’t pause to chat for even two seconds — as I usually did with other friends. I once saw her approaching and waved as she power-walked towards me, accelerating like a grand prix car, her backpack stuffed full of thick books to memorize.

I planted my feet as we reached each other, “Hey Beth, what’s up?” She flew past me, grimacing and barked out, “No time. I’m in a rush, Sean. Sorry.”

“It’s alright Beth,” I said with a smile and waved at her back, “Bye Beth.”

“Bye Sean,” she said, breathing heavy as she pivoted at the street corner and vanished from view. I took a bite of my candy bar and resumed my walk to my slacker geology class or, as we called it, “Rocks for jocks.”

I felt bad for Beth. She never seemed happy and I saw this pattern with so many high achievers who struggled to manage their stress, and who were bolted in tight to their goals at the expense of everything else. I often wondered if it was all worth it. Once you get to the promised land, does the stress finally fade? Can you finally relax and enjoy your life? Or is the misery the actual goal, a vampiric force that gets revived anew after each accomplishment.

Beth and I were getting breakfast after practice one day. In a fun spirited way, I asked, “So do you have to get a 100 in biophysics and nuclear engineering? Why not get, say, a 98, and catch up on some sleep?”

She stared at me and mulled the question over for a moment. Then, she let out a big yawn and said, “Eh. Sleep is overrated.”

And more power to her — but that was such a different mentality than my own. From my earliest age, my parents pushed me to work hard, and held me to the fire when I didn’t. But my mother always emphasized, “The ultimate goal is for you to be happy.” That was the ace card that could justify everything else. Or so I thought.

As I entered the work force, and saw the world shift and change around me, and I felt the looming weight of performance reviews and mortgage payments, and felt the call of ambition to alleviate those pressures, it was clear that happiness and achievement felt at odds. My adult life became so different than college life, where everything was about fun and doing just enough work to get by.

Scientists refer to the pursuit of happiness to the exclusion of all other goals as psychological hedonism. It results in choosing low risk, low challenge endeavors while opting in on fleeting pleasures. It causes people to flee discomfort and sadness and robs them of the chance to grow, evolve, and learn things about themselves. And it turns out — being sad can be beneficial for us in short bursts.

Evolutionary psychologist, Dr. Paul W. Andrews, found that sadness can aid in advancing problem solving. And to be clear — he doesn’t argue that depression is good, or to be aspired to — as it can have debilitating consequences. Through the “analytical rumination hypothesis”, which has significant evidence to support it, Andrews argues that being sad causes us to ruminate more on complex problems and seek solutions to them. In short, sadness depotentiates complacency (while extreme sadness causes inaction).

For example, I talked about going to graduate school for years, but often felt timid in taking the first step. I knew I wanted to do it, but feared the workload, getting rejected by schools, and performing poorly on my GMAT, as I hadn’t taken a standardized test in years.

Eventually, I realized, “I’ve been talking about doing this for so long, but have failed to take action still. Why not now?” In the time I’d spent talking about going to grad school, I could have finished two degrees. I was disgusted with myself as I’d become the flaky person I’d vowed never to become. The sadness made me restless and drove me to act.

In turn, I became just like Beth. I studied like a maniac for my GMAT, stressed out about applications, eventually got into school, and endured two years of heavy studying and classes— while working 40+ hour weeks. Yet, finishing, and achieving that goal was one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done. Stepping through that hesitation and enduring the workload proved I was capable of more than I thought I was. Was it hard? Absolutely. Was it torture? No. But there was a definite dip in my happiness during that period — and perhaps that’s a good thing.

Carl Jung argued that happiness loses its context without some measure of sadness and disruption. In his words, “Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness.” Just as you can’t appreciate a sunny day without being rained on occasionally, you cannot appreciate the true depth of joy without brushing up against sorrow and hardship.

Sadness, even in the moment, is shown to assist in cognition, and improve attention-to-detail. It even reduces stereotypic and overly judgmental thinking about others.

The happiness zeitgeist has stigmatized the very idea of being sad and implicitly invalidates the value it can bring. Even worse, it can lead people to label themselves as broken, when in reality — sadness is a core and necessary human experience, such as with divorce and the loss of a pet. Perpetual happiness is considered unrealistic and maladaptive, such as with parenting — when children are shielded from difficult experiences, rather than given the chance to learn from them.

Today, Beth is a successful radiologist and we’re still friends. She’s married to another doctor, and has two children. She is quite happy and, although she is still Type-A (and funny), she lives a much more low octane life, with more free time and leisure than the years I spent around her. She has bared the fruits and babies of her labor, and I suspect she’s glad she ignored my party boy suggestion to go easy. If anything, I’ve stolen from Beth’s playbook, and learned to push through hardship and sorrow for the good it brings.

Remember that sadness is not depression. Sadness is passing. It can be beautiful and meaningful, but should not leave you feeling stuck and unmotivated. It should be a source of learning, processing, and inspiration. It can improve your decision making and undo the thorns of complacency. Do not lament these moments when they come.

I wish you all the happiness the world can offer. But even more — I wish resilience upon you, because sadness is surely coming. Here’s to making the most of it.