The hardest thing, sometimes, is admitting error. That it should be such a challenge is a bit mystifying. Why can’t we look truth in the face, see the mistakes in our previous thinking or behavior, and tell the world we had it wrong?
Honor is an ego prize. Honesty is of the heart. In this world, ego values dominate. So we insist on the accuracy of our opinions, and on the rightness of our actions. A great deal of marital discord would evaporate if spouses learned to admit error. Since political parties, nations, and religions are just as willful as individuals, the world is rife with gridlock in congress, imperialist invasions, and wars between religions.
Not only is rigidity bad for society, it keeps us locked in behaviors and attitudes that promote suffering. Case in point: I spent most of my adult life fighting for my own unhappiness. Even as I began to learn ways to shuck my depression, I resisted out of psychic stubbornness.
Not that I couldn’t justify my misery. Many posts on this blog have explained the ways my childhood sucked. Divorce, maternal suicide, child abuse, paternal alcoholism, and sibling psychosis were the staples of my upbringing. In the same vein, there is little doubt that I had a run of bad luck in adulthood: severe neck problems, career loss, psychiatric hospitalizations, permanent medication side effects, and multiple failures plagued me during the past decade. Fate has given me plenty of ammunition to shoot my mood to hell.
And yet, in recent years the suspicion grew that my attitude could change. Just as there were awful things in my family home, there were delightful things outside of it. My grandparents took custody of me one month a year, and lavished me with attention. In order to keep me out of my stepmother’s hair, my father had me spend half of every summer at camp. And although it was awkward being the only kid in residence longer than two weeks, I had lots of fun. My adulthood has brought me good times as well as bad. My prolonged education fascinated me every step of the way. For a brief time, I had a rewarding career. Financial concerns, while present, are not severe. My health is pretty good, and my wife loves me. Ever since I first worked with CBT in 2006, it has been clear to me that my biggest problem was a severe tendency to focus on the negative.
As readers have learned in previous posts, my opinion of my worth was very low until a week ago. Now, I can see how my deep feelings, perseverance, kindness, and insight make me a valuable person. That my outlook reversed in such a short time is telling. I believe the recognition of my good qualities has been secretly building inside me for years. But I resisted it. Why? Because I did not want to admit error.
How would it look if unhappy Will, who always had something discouraging to talk about, suddenly started acting joyful? Wouldn’t that prove that he could have changed long ago? Wouldn’t that negate all his complaints? Perhaps.
Maybe I could have let go of my sour attitude decades back. Former lovers and friends might have remained in my life. Years of sorrow might have been avoided. But would those be reasons to keep on in the same mode? One of my favorite sayings is, “cut your losses”. Last week, it finally came time to do just that.
It is not surprising that it took a long time to recover from such a traumatic childhood. And a period of mourning after my career ended was probably unavoidable. The problem was, my grief stretched on too long.
It is time to admit longstanding awareness of my attachment to sorrow. In essence, my unhappiness hardened into a habit. Although the word is overused, I’m tempted to call my pessimism an ‘addiction’. After all, it became a repetitive behavior (of thought) that ruined my life for many years.
Like any bad habit, the best way to break free is to recognize the problem, resolve to change, and then take concrete steps to improve. Although I could see my insistence on pessimism, and had pretty good resolve to change, I resisted releasing my negativity. The fact is, I feared that if improvement appeared suddenly, it would imply that I could have ended my depression at any time. It would indicate a big mistake.
Finally, using recovery jargon, I ‘hit bottom’. The constant misery became too much, and contentment became more essential than being right.
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