What We Suffer For

And why I'm still writing.

I’ve been writing about fifteen hours a week for the past fifteen years, and I go back and forth on whether this has been a positive way to spend my “one wild and precious life.”¹

Most of the time, I am grateful to have a passion that pulls me out of bed in the morning and provides an outlet for my most concentrated spiritual energy. Other times, I worry that writing is a veil that holds me at arm’s length from the world, a self-imposed imperative that diverts my attention from areas it would be better spent. I could see more clients, for example, or spend more time with my wife, friends, and family. Even stopping to smell the roses, or stare blankly at the sky, often seems better than scurrying to my office to adjust commas.

A good friend once told me: “You know, nobody cares what you think.” I know it sounds mean, but it wasn’t said meanly. And all I felt at the end of his words was relief. My legs grew weak and I thought for a moment that I might explode in tears. His comment had released me from my daily burden.

I spent the rest of that day light as a feather…and then woke up at 6am the next morning, got to my office, and began writing.

Tradeoffs Abound

We have discussed tradeoffs in a number of contexts on Living Fossils, the most important of which is probably in terms of evolutionary design constraints. An organism, or feature of an organism, cannot be optimized for everything. For example, so-called “premature ejaculation” prioritizes the expedient transfer of genetic material at the cost of partner pleasure. (Or so I’ve read.) The size of the human brain accords numerous advantages at the cost of increased caloric needs, risky birth, and a lengthy period of infant helplessness. In short, evolution doesn’t make sense without understanding that a better design for X often means a worse design for Y.

The concept of tradeoffs can be applied to many more contexts than evolution, though, and in my opinion is central to living the good life (especially in the modern world). Someone who wants to be—insert your favorite word for happiness—must in some way internalize the fact that they cannot, in the words of Liz Lemon, “have it all.” For example, a life of meaning is often bereft of money. Sometimes you just can’t have both.²

In my work with clients, I have seen the conscious acceptance of tradeoffs bring various forms of suffering more squarely into the realm of choice. (Close readers will know that I’m not a fan of having to make decisions, but if we are to spend our decision budget on anything, it should be this.) People are often surprised by their true motives—by what aspects of life they are willing to protect at large costs.

Over the years, I’ve been able to put together a list of what people are willing to suffer for.

To fit in.

“What’s the point of doing anything if I can't write about it?” – David Sedaris

Back to this writing tick of mine. Why do I do it? So many good conversations and meaningful moments in my life are undercut by the itch to capture them artistically. While one part of me is focused on the conversation or moment, the other part is chewing on how to share it. This is the classic double-life of the artist, the creator’s chosen way of ruining experience, which David Sedaris captures (lol) elegantly in the quote above.

The solution to my problem is obvious. If I quit writing—which I’ve considered, oh I don’t know, about a million times—I could go back to a singular existence. I could stop undermining my experience. So why haven’t I?

In Creed II, Adonis Creed’s wife asks him why he wants to return to the ring after being nearly beaten to death. He responds that he wouldn’t be “good to anybody” if he didn’t box. Being a boxer is who he is, in other words, to himself and others.

“Hey, there’s Donnie!”

“Who?”

“You know, the boxer?”

“Oh, snap!”

Identity is how we fit in and add value to the social group—how we are recognized as a unique contributor. Of course we are reluctant to give it up. When I look in the mirror, what would I see if not a writer? Something much blurrier, that’s for sure. And so would everyone else.

Similarly, a client recently toyed with the idea of unsubscribing from her various news sources. “It just makes me so unhappy,” she said, “and it’s only going to get worse. Plus, it’s not like I can solve the problems I read about.”

“Why not give it up, then, at least for a little while?” I asked.

“Because,” she sighed. “It’s part of who I am. In my group of friends, I’m the informed one.”

I’m tempted to say that this question—Who would I be if I didn’t do what I do?—is the most common resistance to change in my practice. People understandably fear going from “who’s who” to “who’s that?”

In the West, we have a habit of thinking of identity as something that exists outside of the group. “Be yourself,” “you do you,” “don’t care about what others think.” This is so stupid. Identity is nothing other than finding a unique, individual way to fit in and provide value to others.³

Why does being valuable to the group—having a place in it—so often take priority over the misery it requires? Because evolution doesn’t care about our experience; it only cares about our genetic outcomes. So if carving out a niche in the group causes suffering, too bad. Our genes are saying: “This is good, so suck it up.” That’s why I’m here at my office, adjusting commas, and not eating croissants across the street.

but one form of the misery that fitting in requires

Not having a good enough reason.

Related to the desire for identity is the desire to explain ourselves. Often, my clients want to do something but can’t think of a way to justify it to others, so they stay put and continue to be miserable.

Misery in and of itself is not always a valid (social) reason for change. You can’t just say that you’d like to work less because working makes you sad or tired.⁴ This is why a diagnosis can be so relieving. It’s a socially-acceptable excuse, a hall pass for being who you are and doing what you do. “Sorry for missing last week’s appointment. My ADHD was at it again.”

I find this impulse, to justify behavior, operating in all sorts of scenarios in my practice. I once had a client who wanted to leave her partner because the relationship wasn’t good…there just wasn’t anything to it anymore. But because she didn’t think that was a good enough reason, she confessed to wanting him to cheat on her. Then, with this certificate in hand, she could break up with him. When she told people why, they would nod in understanding—if not approval. “How awful, but good for you.”

To avoid a loss.

People are willing to suffer great things in anticipation for a better future—or, even more so, to avoid a dimmer one.

Vacation is an easy example of the first. The stress of the week before is tolerable in light of the upcoming week off. Golden handcuffs are an example of the second. Many of my clients know they would be much happier if they quit or changed jobs, but they cannot overcome the mental block of being responsible for a loss in status, finances, or what have you—even if this loss is likely temporary.

My first boss, Tim, for example, had been in textbook sales for over twenty years when I first met him, despite annually flirting with the idea of becoming a financial advisor. But he never followed through because he knew he would make less in his first year of being a financial advisor than if he remained a sales manager. He recognized that within a few years, he would be better off financially—but he could never stomach the initial setback.

This can be explained by prospect theory, which makes two basic claims. The first is that people do not respond to absolute conditions as much as they do changes in conditions, meaning a person who goes from $75k to $100k is likely happier than someone who goes from $150k to $130k. Second, people are loss averse, responding more negatively to losses than positively to gains. So if quitting your job has an equal chance of working or not working, the possible loss looms larger than the equal-sized possible gain, meaning you’re likely to soldier on.

Just as people want to maintain their identities and have a socially-valid reason before they act, they are willing to endure much suffering to avoid a loss, even if on the other side of that loss is a potential gain.

To maintain a relationship.

Here’s an obvious one. We all know someone, probably at this very moment, who is keeping a relationship intact that makes them deeply unhappy. This situation is much more common in the realms of romance and family—particularly children—than friends and colleagues. There might be nothing more painful than having to consider cutting a child loose.

Generally, the more evolutionarily-important the relationship is, the harder it is to let go. You and a friend need only support one another in the social realm, but you and a romantic partner need to make and raise a family together. And your children, well: they determine if you are an evolutionary success or failure.

To meet expectations.

Having expectations is a trap, a casino game in which the house always wins.

When you form an expectation, one of three things can happen. First, reality might exceed your expectations. Bully for you! Second, your expectations might be met. Nothing to write home about. Third, reality might fall short of your expectations. Now you’re sad.

All this would be fine and well if the distribution of these outcomes were equal. But, at least in my experience, it’s not. For example, I write a daily plan every day. How often do you think I check off everything on my list? Literally never.

Why haven’t I made my plans more realistic? Why do I continue to overpromise and underdeliver? Because I never foresee anything going wrong.

This is a classic example of the availability bias. When I think of doing a task—writing an article, say—I see in my mind’s eye everything that needs to happen. I more or less accurately predict how long each of the steps will take. What I don’t foresee are the thousands of ways life will interfere, from my computer shutting down for no reason, to receiving a call from a client, to being lazy. These obstacles just don’t come to mind.

You might be wondering why I write a list at all, especially after such repeated failure. Why do I participate in making my days worse? Because I get more done than if I didn’t.

Indeed, although it may not be clear at first blush, forming expectations is part and parcel of what makes humans successful. Our ability to simulate the future enables us to show up prepared, whether excited to see what has been touted as a good movie or in a bathing suit to the beach. However, this simulating ability causes us to form expectations for how things will turn out, a slight deviation from which makes us happy or—more commonly—sad.

Much of the time, not having any expectations would make for a better experience. If I never wrote a plan, I might be impressed by what I managed to accomplish. If I never thought the movie was good in the first place, then I might be pleasantly surprised by how good it was. The problem is that not having expectations leads to bad decisions and leaves us vulnerable to bad outcomes. So, our evolved minds have put a ceiling above our positive experiences in order to have a floor beneath our negative ones.

Indeed, the “house” in the casino analogy I made above? It’s evolution. It’s our genes. And the house doesn’t care about the currency of our lives, otherwise known as our experience, otherwise known as our happiness, peace, and contentment. Good feelings only exist, in fact, to motivate us to act adaptively. If a conflict arises between adaptive action and positive feeling, the pull toward adaptive action will be stronger.⁵

Just quit, why don’t you?

Life is chock-full of tradeoffs. Because we can’t rid ourselves of all suffering, we must choose which kinds to endure.

Competing forms of suffering often crop up along the fault line between experience and (genetically-relevant) outcomes. The latter are often prioritized for the simple reason that genetic transmission is where the rubber meets the road. It’s the bottom-line, the common denominator of life. Everything else, including experience, is subservient.

Does this mean that someone who wants a better experience should give up evolution’s checklist? On the desire for a better future, an established place in the group, a justifiable reason for their actions, and other outcomes? Yes! But it also means that doing so will be incredibly hard. People are born into this world with a vast engineering history to them. This history ensures that they feel a strong pull toward that which has worked well for their genes so far.⁶

That said, there is some research to suggest that retreat is viable. In particular, Dan Gilbert has shown that people typically underestimate their ability to cope with, say, quitting a job or getting divorced. People adapt. They just don’t think they will. (Thanks, once again, to the availability bias.)

My experience resonates with Gilbert’s findings. Frankly, most clients are much happier after they give up—whether some aspect of their identity, a bad relationship, part of their progress, or what have you. For example, the client who is worried that she won’t be known as “the informed one” if she stops reading the news? I’m willing to bet my next year’s salary that a) she’ll be happier if she quits the news and b) her friends will barely notice. (Or, if they do, that they won’t care.)

That said, whenever I grow annoyed with my clients and begin fantasizing about telling them all to quit everything—especially those who come in week after week with the same complaints—I remind myself that here I am, still writing.

On Remaining the Same

What’s a therapist to do when most people don’t really want to change? When most have already made up their mind about which form(s) of suffering they are willing to endure?

In The Fall, Camus says: “We merely wish to be pitied and encouraged in the course we have chosen.” In The Iconoclast’s Notebook, incidentally my favorite article about therapy, Kenneth Fisher writes: “Therapy then is, firsthand, not to solve [the client’s] problems, but to make them colorful and worthwhile.”

A therapist’s job is much less about changing clients than you might think. Despite what clients say, they don’t often want to back down from what is causing them suffering. There is some elemental instinct that whatever is causing their suffering might be holding a worse form of misery at bay—or, on the other hand, allowing for a joy that is maybe worth the cost. It’s the therapist’s job in these instances to soothe; to pity the client and encourage them to keep going; to make their problems colorful and worthwhile.

Too often in mental health, we think of life as a room: if we can just arrange everything just-so, then everything will flow. There is undoubtedly truth to this perspective, but it must be balanced by the lesson of tradeoffs. Otherwise a person—or a person’s therapist—can waste their time looking for a perfect arrangement that doesn’t exist, and feel that it is their fault for not finding it. In fact, sometimes the only “solution” a problem needs is to be recognized as a tradeoff between two important things that cannot coexist. In these instances, the suffering itself takes center stage, not what is causing it.

So I continue journeying to my office to write, occasionally lamenting that I am not smelling roses or eating croissants. (It’s much worse in the summer.) Other times I close my computer and go spend time with my wife, family, and friends, fully aware that I am depriving the future of my brilliant thoughts. I suppose not even the future can have it all.

1. Which, by the way, is not really a question humans were meant to ask or answer.

2. Hell, even individualism is a tradeoff. Being “one-of-a-kind” plays well at funerals, but exerts considerable tax upon the day-to-day.

3. You can find Tooby and Cosmides’ characteristically-brilliant take on the matter here.

4. Although, interestingly, “mental health” has become a somewhat valid shield, e.g., “Coming in on Mondays isn’t good for my mental health.”

5. By adaptive, I mean in environments of evolutionary adaptedness, of course.

6. In my opinion, this is the genius of Walden. Thoreau gives up on as many outcomes as he can in order to prioritize his experience.