Episode 11: Greg Behrendt

[Namu]

Greg said: "If you spend most of your life thinking about others, everything will go fine. As soon as you start thinking about yourself, that's when things go awry. It's just not as complicated as we've made it. That's my -- that's how I need to process it. ... And when I had that very simple understanding of things, my life immediately just got better. I'm like, okay, so this is really it."

It's a new idea to me that this actually works for some people. It didn't for me. As a child, I went through a series of worldviews, discarding one after another as each one either failed to account for what I was seeing or just wasn't a perspective compatible with life. One of the last ones -- one that took many years for me to give up on -- was this: "All right. I get it now: My life seems very unlikely to ever contain much pleasure, happiness, or contentment. Certainly I'm not able to *make* life enjoyable; I've tried everything I can think of, for as long as I could, to find ways of being happy enough for life to be worth the pain and effort, and I've had no success. So: I've still got a life in front of me. What's left as an option for making the most of it is to be useful in helping others have the sort of life I'd really wanted for myself." It was pretty clear to me that people aren't always able to achieve quality of life without help, and, even for those who didn't *need* help, I could perhaps be of some use. It seemed like a reasonable, respectable plan, and it was one I was willing to accept in lieu of a likable life. There was some consolation in the thought of being good for others. I'd always cared about others, and always done my best to have a positive effect on others' lives. I'd hoped, originally, to have some good for myself as well, but there could be some quiet, solitary satisfaction in giving to others what I could not have for myself.

Living entirely for others was a bleak prospect, but it was the best I could imagine, and I didn't dare doubt it as a workable plan; without it, I could see only the long, slow, terribly difficult, terribly lonely road toward suicide. (The will to live, I learned early, is a huge obstacle, not easily overcome.)

I was a young adult before finally accepting that, for me, life is unsustainable without some minimum amount of happiness for myself. I can't fight off the misery when there is nothing for me, and I can't bear it. If there is a level of enlightenment or self-actualization or whatever that makes one's own welfare irrelevant, then I've never been anywhere near it.

Having given up on the notion that I could make life work without self-interest, I'm still trying to find a worldview that I can live with.

I wonder what it is that is different for people like Greg, who find that it is both simple and effective to just turn attention from self to others. I'd be interested to hear what you all think.

Thanks.

[brownblob]

I don't think it is good to live solely for others. Humans act out of self interest and that is reasonable, normal and healthy. I don't know if I can really put my world view into words. Basically, if I can make a difference in one person's life I feel that my life has been worthwhile. I am incapable of being truly happy, but I will do things that I enjoy to make life better. I refuse to feel guilty because I can't fix all the problems in the world. I can only work on myself and just try to be a positive influence on people I meet. I try to be honest, treat people decent and do the right thing. I believe in living so that when I die, I can look back at my life and say I did my best.