Pleasure is a funny thing in our culture. Our pleasures are very keenly watched, defined and evaluated. If you ask yourself what really brings you pleasure, you may be surprised. Try to be totally honest and open when you answer this question. If you were given free rein and no one would disapprove of you, what would you do that brings you the most pleasure?
Whatever they are, your pleasures are about as close to your real self as you can get Nothing can convince your true self that something is fun if it is not. No matter how hard you try, if it is boring, it is boring. As children, our inborn sense of fun and pleasure can become all tangled up with that which other people approve. We begin to worry that what we really enjoy may make us a little too “different” We try to become interested in what we are not, until by the time we are adults we may be totally confused on the whole subject Pleasurable correctness has taken us over, dampening our life force with its wet blanket of conformity.
Remember the slogan, “Are we having fun yet?” It rang true, this T-shirt plaint Too often we secretly seek validation to tell us whether or not we are having a pleasurably correct experience. Group reactions tell us what is supposed to be fun, leaving us feeling isolated and baffled if we do not like it Pleasurable correctness is an important value in our society, and it is tied to making money: if we can’t sell it to you, it can’t be the best kind of fun.
If you suspect you have fallen prey to pleasurable correctness, ask yourself, “Am I having fun?” If you are not, it means there is something wrong with the situation, not you, and you need to get out of there and do something else. You cannot fake enjoying yourself. It is too personal, too real.
However, you have an inner critic who does not care about your real enjoyment This part of your mind is invested in your remaining a member of the group, the family, the job, the chain gang. It hates uniqueness and personal feeling. It is anti-pleasure, because pleasure is such a heartfelt expression of pure individuality. Our inner critic can make us worry about correctness even -when every molecule in us is uncoiling in blissful surrender to a pleasurable experience. Hearing this judgmental voice, we evaluate instead of emancipate, we judge instead of enjoy. The inner critic keeps up a running commentary of what it thinks you ought to be doing or not doing. It stands in your way, and denies permission for certain individual pleasures and interests because it can see exactly where you are headed: away from the group. It springs to its feet in alarm, full defenses out, shouting, “You can’t do that!” The inner critic gets its start in the family’s authority, but it hooks up with the advertisers and media to tell you how to fit in and be more like other people around you. People who can honesdy follow their pleasure make lousy targets for sales pitches and guilt ploys.
Don’t wait for the inner critic’s permission to become yourself. By definition, if you depend on others to discover your true self, you never will.
Suicide: The Last Refuge of the Permission-Seeker
When you are forbidden freedom and happiness, what’s left to keep you going? Suicide is just one extreme way of making real the living death that a life of seeking permission brings. It is the one act that is perceived as not under the control of someone else.
Many people who at times have wished they were dead are in fact people who have a very powerful life force, a real drive for growth and enjoyment of pleasure. They are sensitive and strong, and feel the insistent urge to expand beyond their family. If this healthy urge is repeatedly criticized and thwarted, and they see no way out, then the idea of death can become the final, tragic way of liberating themselves. Fantasies of death in these cases are not abnormal or signs of mental illness. They are only symbolic wishes for freedom. At a subconscious level the person logically but irrationally thinks that if he or she could just stop this life, he or she might have a chance to live at last.
Self-destruction is the last self-expressive act of the powerless. It is a peculiar kind of creativity, but that is what it is. A suicidal plan can be the last attempt at taking control over charting your own course. And what a tragedy that so right an instinct could end itself in its own moment of creation. The suicide hopes for the big win in this last dramatic act, but it is a no-effort, magical wish to become whole and separate without working for it.
Any of us can perform little suicides all day long by not speaking up for our needs or waiting for permissions that never come. But your unmet need will sit indefinitely outside the door and wait for you to call it inside. It is the need to enjoy your life and to express who you were meant to be. Suicidal feelings tell you how far you have gotten away from your own real life. Suicidal feelings are a cry from the soul, an angry soul that is sick to death of living without air. A soul that no longer agrees to be the perfect victim.
If you have ever felt sick to death of your life, you know this feeling. By the time you get to this stage of frustration and hopelessness, it is extremely difficult to think of another way to solve your problems. Suicidal fantasies satisfy so many neglected urges for power, self-expression, revenge and escape that they can be hard to give up without help. They become a siren song that lures us toward the thrill of destruction and away from a truly fulfilling life—permanently Don’t listen to them. Run, don’t walk, to a good therapist who understands the symbolic wish and can help you figure out how to satisfy all those urges and still be around to enjoy life.
Signs and Serendipities
Have you ever had a sense of receiving a “sign” about what you should do at certain key points in your life? I have. At one point in the writing of this book, I was about ready to throw in the towel. I was wondering how I could keep on working on this project when I had so much else going on in my life that was demanding my attention. It seemed that just to turn out the number of pages to which I had committed myself was taking more time and effort than I had to give. The next day as I was driving to work, feeling thoroughly discouraged, the car in front of me slowed down and then stopped to make a turn. Just before he turned left, I carefully looked at the rear of his car. That is when I saw the message on his license plate: DONT KWIT.
My urge to give up collided with the perfect words right in front of me on that license plate, just when I needed to be slowed down and reminded of my real goals. How perfecdy in tune with my need. I immediately was reassured.
Is there a way to understand and use these kinds of serendipities? You could give it a mystical explanation, seeing it as a sign from God or a message from a kindly universe devoted to our growth. On the other hand, the scientist in you might say that we program our brains to pick up any cues related to our current need. No matter how you look at the sign, it is an act of recognition. When you see something and get that charge of meaningful recognition, you are struck by a sensation of knowing this is your answer. You feel ownership of it. The sign seems meant for you, and therefore significant and even precious. This sense of recognition often has an intensely comforting feeling to it, telling you you are on the right track after all.
However, there is another, negative type of sign that is used by people to justify why they cannot have what they want from life. This kind of sign “proves” that their dream was not meant to be and stops them in their tracks. Often this kind of sign-reading happens when you are just taking the first tentative steps in something new. Maybe you are making the first phone call to check on college courses after being out of school for fifteen years. Maybe you are checking out positions in another company, because you have finally decided you do not want to suffer in the old job any longer. The “sign” comes when your call does not get through or the conversation does not go as expected. “Oh well, its a sign,” you might say. And you back off. You treat the sign as a little bit of proof that you were not really meant to go ahead with that plan. This kind of sign confirms your fears. It gives you a resigned feeling. It does not energize, inspire, give hope, or lead you onward. It just keeps you stuck.
Disheartening “signs” that your hopes were not meant to be are nothing more than the