For years we’ve been sold the idea of happiness as a bright, clearly defined goal and almost mandatory. Something that, if we don’t reach it, seems to imply something about us: that we didn’t try hard enough, that we didn’t think in the right way, that we don’t know how to manage our emotions. In this context, not feeling okay is almost a personal failure.
But, as psychologist Jenny Moix explains with great clarity in this interview she gives to Cuerpomente, it isn’t as simple as talking about happiness. In fact, from her deeply liberating perspective the key lies precisely in ceasing to chase an idealised happiness and in accepting that suffering is an inevitable part of life. We discuss this, and many other essential topics such as humility and forgiveness, in this interview.
-For you, Jenny, is there a secret to happiness? And if so, what is it?
A very interesting question and one that has to be handled with great care from the outset. Because to say there is a secret to happiness implies that everyone will rush off in search of that secret, and the very desperation to find it will mean they never find it.
I don’t believe there is a secret to happiness. In plain, everyday psychological terms of ordinary people, I don’t think anyone has a secret to happiness.
-Indeed, what is happiness from a psychological perspective?
Exactly: before asking whether there is a secret to happiness, the first question is what happiness actually is. If we define happiness as not suffering, then no—there isn’t a secret to happiness because everyone suffers.
And you know, it’s a paradoxical thing. Accepting that everyone suffers and that we are human and we do suffer isn’t necessarily going to make us happy, because the word happiness is so laden. But if we accept that suffering exists, we can live more calmly.
-In your book Flexible Happiness you address this topic and place the word “flexibility” at the centre. What role does it play in happiness?
I like the question a lot, because I could have imagined optimism as the route to happiness or resilience as the route to happiness, but I chose the word flexibility because it’s very important to me. The word means flexibility with oneself, flexibility with others, and flexibility with life in general.
It means things aren’t rigidly fixed. Self-imposition is rigid: what you expect from your partner, for example, is something rigid. So flexibility has a lot to do with humility.
A veces queremos que la vida, los demás, todo se comporte de una determinada manera. Y lo único que hacemos es sufrir porque nos damos cabezazos contra la pared. Ni nosotros respondemos a nuestras propias expectativas, ni los demás, ni lo que esperamos de la vida. Porque nuestra mente es muy pequeña y la vida es muy amplia. En realidad es peligroso ser tan cuadriculados con lo que deseamos.
-What would then be flexibility?
Flexibility is recognising you need to widen your perspective, because then you’ll see that happiness isn’t about forcing your expectations to fit what happens to you, but about being very humble.
Let me give you an example with the issue of children. Parents think they know what’s best for their children. But what do their own parents know about what suits them? Parents think they know how the world works. Obviously you don’t want to see your child suffer, which is the first problem, because your child will suffer as they are a human being and in the world.
And you have to accept that they will suffer, like anyone else, and it’s part of the process. But on top of that, parents think they know what’s best for their child and push to make sure this is what they achieve. This is being very inflexible, even though it’s done with the best intentions.
-After all, no one has a crystal ball about the future…
No, no one has a crystal ball about the future, but consider what you say, because it’s very insightful. Even if we had one, we’d still be stuck in the same way. Imagine you see in the future ball that your child will not find work in what they’re pursuing. And you’d say, “look, I’ve got the ball, so don’t look for work here because you won’t find it.”
Well, that isn’t right either, because for your child it might be necessary to seek it and not find it, because along the way they might discover something else, or perhaps discover something entirely different.
Even in my private life, when I look back, I’m older now and I see many things I once thought: “Gosh, Jenny, that was a mistake.” For example, I married and I divorced. I could say: “Well, don’t marry, you’ll divorce and you’ll be miserable.” Yet I’ve had wonderful children and I’ve learned a lot from the suffering I went through in the divorce. So, even if that version of Jenny had had a crystal ball, she wouldn’t have all the answers.
-All of this is far removed from the euphoria we associate with modern happiness. In fact, I think we’ve reached a point where happiness has almost become mandatory. Have we become judges of our own happiness?
What you’re saying is very true. It looks bad not to be constantly happy. If you read many self-help books and you’re not happy, it suggests you’re incompetent. And that’s a very big mistake.
Psychologists experience this a lot. There have been times when I’ve found myself in the doldrums and I’ve berated myself: “Gosh, Jenny, how can it be that you give talks, you’re a lecturer, you write books, and you’re feeling down?” Well, because happiness isn’t there.
-Emotions, even negative ones, have a function.
Of course. When, for example, you’re cross about something or something makes you angry… It’s perfectly fine to sit with your anger; anger has its purpose. Or when you feel sadness.
Imagine a film where the characters are constantly laughing. After five minutes you’d switch it off—what rubbish.
I want all emotions. I want sorrow, I want joy, I want anger, I want envy, I want them all. The problem—and I think this ties in with what you said—is something psychologists are sometimes complicit in, and that is the classification of these emotions: these emotions are OK to have, these emotions are not OK to have.
-Even envy, which gets such a bad press?
Of course! The other day, a psychologist friend of mine said, “I’ve never felt envy.” And I said, “Have you never felt envy, or have you never recognised that you felt it?”
Because it looks good to say you’re stressed, it’s acceptable to say you’re sad. But it looks terrible to say you feel envy. And envy is important, because it teaches us what we truly desire. What we envy in someone else is what we want in ourselves. But if we don’t allow it to exist, if we don’t sit with it for a moment, we can’t realise what we truly want.
-How could we, then, practise a more realistic or flexible happiness in daily life?
That’s tricky. Look, I tell my students, for example, no matter how much psychology you study you won’t understand everything. And I think psychologists need to say that, because sometimes someone can fall into the trap of thinking that studying a lot of psychology will enable them to understand something and that it will help. And it won’t.
Indeed, immersing yourself in psychology helps only to the extent that you recognise how complex the human mind is and how difficult it is to explain it all. I think the key is to accept this. I don’t know much at all; I don’t know what’s best for me, I don’t know what’s best for others. And ultimately, to accept the suffering that is implicit in life.
And I’ll tell you something that isn’t original, but is important: to treat yourself well and to treat others well.
-Living well together to live well…
Exactly. Treating ourselves well, and treating others well, because we are all equal. Notice there’s an oxymoron: if I say we are all different, that’s true. But if I say we are all the same, that’s true too.
Because we are all different on the surface. You’ll have your tastes, routines, an age, and I’ll have mine, different tastes, different routines. On the surface we are very different, but at heart we both suffer. You’ll suffer for your reasons, I’ll suffer for mine. In some seasons we’ll suffer more, in others less.
So we must treat ourselves with care, with kindness, with compassion, and forgive a great deal. Forgive ourselves and others.
-Forgiving, precisely, isn’t a simple task. What does learning to forgive give us?
It’s absolutely crucial. Forgiving oneself, for me, is essential, because if I forgive myself, when things don’t turn out as I wanted, when I look to the future, it won’t scare me so much. Why? Because I know that the future version of me, if things don’t go as planned, will forgive herself.
But if I know I berate myself and don’t forgive myself, and I look to the future, I’ll think: “If I do this and things don’t go well, the self-criticism that will rain down on me will be brutal.” We have to be kind to ourselves and practice self-compassion, because we are babies in a world where we cannot know how things will turn out.
-And what about forgiving others?
In the Christian tradition we’ve often understood forgiveness as forgiving and forgetting. Forgiving and remaining friends. Forgiving someone who has stabbed you and carrying on as if nothing happened. This is what, essentially, we think forgiveness is. But forgiveness isn’t that.
You can forgive someone and end the relationship with that person. Or forgive them and continue the relationship. Or not forgive and sever the bond. Or not forgive but remain in the relationship. There are four options, but the most interesting for me is that you can forgive them, but not continue with that person.
Why? Because forgiving is about turning the page, which isn’t quick or instantaneous, because it’s a process. And turning the page means stopping the feeding of resentment.
Now then, I’m also human just like the other person; I’m not the Dalai Lama, I can’t continue with the other person, even if they stab me again and again. No—I forgive, I turn the page. But because I’m so human and so prone to suffering, I must protect myself. I can’t continue with this person. And so you go. You break it off. But you forgive, and you free yourself from rancour.
