One of my favourite insights from the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer relates to the human negativity bias, that is, our tendency to focus on what bothers us. As he writes:
Just as a brook forms no eddy so long as it meets with no obstructions, so human nature, as well as animal, is such that we do not really notice and perceive all that goes on in accordance with our will. If we were to notice it, then the reason for this would inevitably be that it did not go according to our will, but must have met with some obstacle. On the other hand, everything that obstructs, crosses, or opposes our will, and thus everything unpleasant and painful, is felt by us immediately, at once, and very plainly. Just as we do not feel the health of our whole body, but only the small spot where the shoe pinches, so we do not think of all our affairs that are going on perfectly well, but only of some insignificant trifle that annoys us.
Because we tend not to notice and appreciate all the things that are going well for us, and instead attend to the problems in our lives, it becomes difficult to achieve happiness. As the philosopher (and Schopenhauer expert) David Bather Woods underscores in an article for Aeon, for Schopenhauer, the happiness that follows any positive event “is likely to be short-lived” For example, after the joy and excitement of buying a new home, Woods points out that “a host of new worries and stresses emerge, such as paying down the mortgage, or doing up the bathroom.” Schopenhauer believed that happiness was merely the absence of suffering – the moment of relief when some pain or worry had been alleviated, or some nagging desire fulfilled.
The quote from Schopenhauer above really rang true for me not long ago, when I was struggling (again) with wisdom tooth pain. For weeks, the pain was all I could focus on. I kept thinking to myself, I’ll be so grateful when this pain goes away. But, as always happens, the pain subsided, and I didn’t feel the intense gratitude that I had convinced myself I would feel. I returned to baseline; I didn’t experience an extra amount of happiness in response to my wisdom tooth and jaw no longer hurting. As Schopenhauer astutely observed, we are just not wired to experience happiness from the health of our whole body (or the health of certain body parts).
Schopenhauer was prescient in this respect, as he is in many of his psychological observations, as evidence gathered from a range of disciplines supports the existence of a negativity bias. The reason it exists is evolutionary: to focus our attention on pains and problems makes it more likely we will survive and procreate than if our attention were mostly centred on what was going well for us, or if our attention were, say, equally divided between the good and the bad. Negative situations feel more psychologically intense for us. There is a qualitative asymmetry between pain and pleasure. This is why, to use Schopenhauer’s example, that tiny place in our shoe where it pinches becomes so bothersome.
Gratitude can come naturally, but often, we need to cultivate it. It is only through practising it that we may more regularly notice the health, painlessness, and smooth functioning of our bodies (or most or some parts of our bodies). Of course, some people are temperamentally the happy-go-lucky type, who focus on the good, but we can think of the negativity bias as a spectrum. Despite people differing in their negativity bias, it is nonetheless a shared human tendency; if it weren’t, then the news wouldn’t be so engaging to us.
I think it’s helpful to know that Schopenhauer’s insight into pain and complaints applies to all of us: being so bothered about small discomforts is normal, rather than a reflection of poor character. On the other hand, we shouldn’t take Schopenhauer’s insights into the psychology of pain and use them to justify or normalise an excessive focus on minor problems, as that just makes one miserable. Regarding pain specifically, it is possible to notice more, as unnatural as it feels, the absence of pain in the body, as well as how this absence of pain is related to a general feeling of well-being.
Schopenhauer, famously (and miserably) opined that “life swings back and forth like a pendulum between pain and boredom.” Reflecting on this image of the pendulum, Woods writes that, for Schopenhauer, “a happy life would include enough success in fulfilling our desires that we are never in too much pain, but also enough failure to ensure that we are never too bored.” He adds, “A well-paced oscillation between wish and fulfilment, which is at most a semi-satisfied life, is the best we can hope for as far as happiness is concerned.”
Perhaps a state of semi-satisfaction is the most we can aim for, but this picture does leave out the role of gratitude, including the possibility of feeling gratitude (i.e. something positive) in the midst of pain. In this way, we are never stuck purely in a state of dissatisfaction, focusing only on pain. Suffering and joy can intermingle and interact. For example, cultivating certain positive emotions while in pain has been shown to reduce pain severity and psychological distress. So, at least through practice, we could end up happier than Schopenhauer imagined (even while experiencing the same trials and tribulations in life).
