“You do an eclectic celebration of the dance! You do Fosse Fosse Fosse Fosse Fosse! You do Martha Graham Martha Graham, or Twyla, Twyla, Twyla, or Michael Kidde Michael Kidde Michael Kidde Michael Kidde, or Madonna, Madonna, Madonna, Madonna… but you keep it all inside.”
-Robin Williams in The Birdcage
…but why keep it all inside? What’s the danger in singing out loud, in dancing through the streets, in telling your friends and family you love them? It’s a sitcom staple for the quirkly, slightly socially inept to be “caught” doing a happy dance, for which he (as the character is most often male) is either relentlessly teased or cautioned against. (“Don’t do the happy dance,” a female character often cautions her significant other, pre-empting his physical expression of his emotion.)
To be clear, I am not advocating for the open and unbridled expression of all emotions on a day-to-day, id-powered, feel-it-so-express-it kind of a basis. Even if you’re having the kind of day that makes you very angry, or very sad, or very fearful or apprehensive, you need to be able to function. You need to be able to go to work, and when a client or coworker asks how you’re doing, to answer with a functional, “fine, and you?” If instead you respond that you’re livid because your boss just treated you unfairly and sometimes she pisses you off so much that you just want to set the building on fire while screaming unpleasant things about her family and upbringing… well, you may quickly find yourself out of a job.
Don’t get me wrong – it’s important to express these feelings. It’s important to be able to talk about the very sad or infuriating things in your life, and to be able to discuss your worries about the future with your nearest and dearest. Whether it’s a therapist or a friend you confide in, you have to get that stuff out too.
But to function in the world, you can’t just let that stuff out in full force to whoever happens to be around you. You can’t just walk around like an emotional autopsy in progress, all your anger and sadness and fear and frustration and bitterness hanging out of you like the liver of a murder suspect. As a respected supervisor is fond of saying, you have to let those things out in appropriate ways and at appropriate times, and then when you go back out into the world, you have to “zip yourself up” so that you can be a functional member of society.
And I get that. That makes sense. But why happiness? If you just found out you were approved for a loan and can buy your first house, or that you’re about to be a parent, or if you’re just in a great mood because your favorite song was on the radio, what’s the harm in telling the world? Society tells us to “play it cool,” but I disagree. I think happiness, positive thinking, and general goodwill are contagious. I think if you’re so happy that you can’t contain it inside your body, do your happy dance. Belt out a few notes. Grin like your cheeks are trying to escape your face. Look on the bright side without reservation or hesitation.
And if people look at you like you’re crazy… encourage them to give it a try too. “The world,” inform them, “could use a little more happiness.”
My middle name was Joy--it's not that legally anymore, but I still think of that as a part of who I am. Despite the name given to me by my parents, my family looked down on any overt display of emotion, including outbursts of happiness. I learned quickly to suppress my true feelings, first to avoid social faux pas, but as I grew older, it was survival. It's sad that we start out with so much potential for joy and compassion, only to have the light stamped out by insecure peers and adults.
ReplyDeleteIt makes me wonder if our society perceives expressing happiness as rude because they think of it as a form of bragging...but then, people are so quick to "sell themselves" in listing all the things they can do or have done. But it's never about how they feel. I think that emotions as a whole are thought of as shameful, with happiness at the top of the list.
Thanks for posting this, we all could use the reminder that we're allowed to be happy!
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ReplyDeleteTom, thanks so much for posting this insightful and well-written response! I think it's ironic that your parents gave you the middle name Joy but forbade you from expressing just that. That's reflective of society's tendency to have a hard time following through on the things they purport to value. If you ask just about anyone what they aspire to, they'll say happiness, but open and public expressions of glee are often met with sideways glances, and gossipy "what's his/her problem?" comments.
ReplyDeleteYour comment about emotions being shameful is absolutely true. Sometimes in my work, I get the impression that the only emotion that's accepted by society at large is anger, because it's so easily accessible and everyone can readily relate to it. I see a lot of people, in both my personal and professional lives, who choose angry over sad or afraid because there's weakness and vulnerability associated with those latter two.
I hadn't previously given very much thought to happiness being at the top of the list, but I agree that people believe expressing happiness is akin to bragging. After all, if people around you are unhappy, misery loves company, and you don't want to be that annoying happy-while-everyone-else-is-angsty person. But I also think there's a contagion aspect to happiness. When I'm feeling upset or disappointed about something, I don't call my cynical friends; I call my upbeat friends, because I know they're the ones who possess the perspective necessary to snap me out of it. I wish there were some way to make this knowledge more public - that happiness can beget happiness rather than envy or resentment.