M. Scott Peck:
“In my practice as a psychotherapist, I regularly told my patients: Psychotherapy is not about happiness, but about power. If you go the whole way, I cannot guarantee that you will leave here even one iota happier. What I can promise you is that you will leave here more competent.” And I would add: “But there is a shortage of competence in the world, and when a person acquires more of it, God or life gives them greater tasks. Therefore, it is possible that you will leave here concerned with larger problems than when you arrived. Nevertheless, the knowledge that you are worrying about important things and no longer bending your back before trivial ones brings a certain joy and peace of mind.”
— The Road Less Traveled and Beyond
Many people believe that a fulfilling life is a happy life. Secretly, they feel ashamed if they feel unhappy, thinking they have failed. This belief not only adds more suffering but also fails to correspond with the facts of life. If it were true, all those people whose lives we admire for their contribution to human progress would be failures, for their lives were not among the happiest. They were crucified, burned at the stake, criticized, lonely, and misunderstood. I think of Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa…
The line of people who have sacrificed their happiness for the common good is endless. And sacrifice always means one thing—suffering.
Therefore, it is good to know that the relationship between happiness and mental health is not directly proportional. It is possible for a person to go through intense suffering while possessing very high levels of mental health, and vice versa—to lead a light and pleasant life but have low levels of mental health.
In his book A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle writes that “many of the wisest, most enlightened men and women on the planet once had a dense pain-body.” I also recall Peter Deunov, who views the birth of the human’s new Self as a series of steps where, the further the student advances on their path, the more their suffering increases.
Beliefs are the glasses through which we view the world and interpret what happens to us. I concider that the conviction that a fulfilling life must be a happy life is one of those beliefs that cause the greatest distortion of psychic reality. If we replace it with another, closer to the facts of life—namely, that happiness is not the criterion for a fulfilling life—it is healing. For the true criterion for a fulfilling life is to dare to take risks, to be authentic, and to put in the effort to evolve. Since this takes us out of our comfort zone, it is usually not experienced through the emotion of happiness.
Kameliya Hadzhiyska
