Intrinsic Gifts in an Imperfect World

The holiday season, as delightful as all the lights and decorations are, can actually be a tough time to feel happy, because we’re bombarded on all sides with images of “perfect” lives and holidays–and we humans, it turns out, depend quite heavily on comparing our lives with others when we decide how happy we are. (Counter-intuitive as it might seem, the states with the highest levels of self-reported “happiness” also have the highest levels of suicide–which researchers attribute to the fact that if everyone else seems happy, our imperfect lives seem even worse. New Jersey, which rates 47th in terms of happiness, also rates 47th in terms of suicides. Misery apparently really does love company.)

So what do you do if you don’t have the happy-ending, picture-postcard success and perfect family bliss going on in your life? Short of channeling Scrooge or moving to a state where a lot of other people feel as if they’re struggling, too?

Interestingly enough, some people without a current “happy ending” situation are still quite happy … a point that came to mind again, a few days ago, while reading a New York Times profile of the actresses Viola Davis (who just became the first African-American to win an Emmy award for Best Actress) and Edie Falco (who has won numerous awards for her roles on both The Sopranos and Nurse Jackie). Both Davis and Falco are in their 50s now, and both struggled for years before attaining career success.

Obviously, it’s easy to imagine that Davis and Falco are happy now, with great-paying gigs and fame and those shiny statues sitting on their mantlepieces. But what intrigued me was what they had to say about their lives in the lean times, when roles and even auditions were few and far between, the bills were steep, and they were on their own. When asked why they didn’t quit when times were so tough, they both said (almost with a shrug) words to the effect that that they didn’t have a choice. Or a Plan B to fall back on. Davis said, “Whenever I’m in a room with another actor, I think: Maybe she could have been an astrophysicist, but I had no choice … there have been times when I’ve been depressed: A guy dumps me, no money to eat. But I worked because I had to.”

Not, “I had to,” as in, “I need food so I’ve got to go get a job at McDonalds.” What Davis meant was, she kept working toward her goal of making her living as an actor (even when she was working as a waiter) because, as she put it, she had “a passion that outweighed the failure. I didn’t see the roaches. I didn’t see the mice … [I] ate Spam. But all the bad plays I did, and all the terrible jobs, they taught me the kind of actor I wanted to be. They cemented my passion.”

One takeaway, obviously, is that passion is a huge motivator. And, perhaps, that passion cements itself not despite when the going gets rough, but perhaps only when the going gets rough. But researchers who’ve looked at what makes us happy would also say that Davis and Falco’s answers … and recollections of being happy even with bad roles, and hard times, because, as Falco said, “I can’t get past the gratitude of doing something I love” … make perfect sense.

Why? Because it turns out that how “happy” we feel about our lives in the absence of great external rewards, “success” or picture-postcard perfect lives has a lot to do with our motivations behind whatever we’re doing.

If, on the one hand, our lives are geared toward the attainment of what are called “extrinsic” rewards (rewards conferred on us from the outside world), such as money, luxury, popularity, fame, status, or glory … we tend to feel more consistently unhappy as we pursue those goals. This is, in part, due to the fact that (back to the suicide stats) … extrinsic rewards are always subject to comparison against what others have, and someone else always has more. What’s more, even when we do achieve one of those goals (including, apparently, winning an Emmy Award), the happiness it gives us tends to be fleeting.

If, on the other hand, we seek or are more focused on what researchers call “intrinsic rewards,” such as personal growth, connectedness with community, emotional intimacy, a sense of autonomy, having impact on the world, or a sense that our activities are aligned with our deepest-held beliefs or values, we feel happier even if we haven’t yet achieved those goals. Even little steps of progress along the way improve our sense of well-being. Working toward those goals also tends to make us feel “intensely alive,” as two researchers put it.

In other words, Viola Davis and Edie Falco don’t sound as if they pursued careers in acting to become famous or rich (extrinsic rewards). They were doing it because that path was where their passion lay–which made all the activities in pursuit of that path closely aligned with their innermost beliefs and values. So even when times were tough, they were happy … and, I believe they would even say, felt intensely alive.

On one level, I found the article uplifting because it was so refreshing to see two grown women speaking so powerfully and joyfully with what were clearly their own authentic voices. But Viola Davis and Edie Falco also seem to be maintaining perspective, satisfaction and happiness in an ultra-crazy competitive Hollywood world dominated by seekers of ambition, looks, power, fame and status. And that made the article a powerful story of how, by doing an internal check on why we’re pursuing whatever we’re pursuing, and realigning our focus, if necessary, on more intrinsic rewards, gratitude, and dreams, all of us can be happy along the way. Without the glitz, or the perfect house, or the perfect family, or the perfect career happiness or success. Even if the road feels particularly long or uphill, at the moment.

And that seemed a gift worth sharing, this holiday season.