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The Mystery of Happiness

How to live a soulful and spiritual life.

by T. Byram Karasu, M.D.

T. Byram Karasu, M.D. is Silverman Professor of Psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. See full bio

April 1, 2009, Therapy

Sharing the Joy and the Burden

Common source of failure

Seeing ourselves alone, or not asking for help is a common source of failure, as in this tale by David J. Wolpe:

A boy and his father were walking along a road when they came across a large stone. The boy said to his father, "Do you think if I use all my strength, I can move this rock?" His father answered, "If you use all your strength, I am sure you can do it." The boy began to push the rock. Exerting himself as much as he could, he pushed and pushed. The rock did not move. Discouraged, he said to his father, "You were wrong. I can't do it." His father placed his arm around the boy's shoulder and said, "No, son. You didn't use all your strength-you didn't ask me to help."

Work Theater of Everyday Life
People who tend to take over everything are more tiring than tired. Independent of their competence, they feel uncomfortable in delegating and micromanage every detail. They think that if they don't, either it will not be done or it will be done incorrectly. They have no confidence in others, regardless of their competency.

The one who is trying to do everything herself not only forfeits others' potential but also cannot really succeed. As the tasks expand, such a person eventually feels not only chronic exhaustion but also underappreciation. Even Moses couldn't escape the despair and irritation of having excessive responsibility: when the people of Israel began complaining out loud about having only manna (a kind of coriander seed) to eat, and accusing Moses of taking them out of Egypt, where they ate all the free fish, cucumbers, watermelons, leeks, onions, and garlic they wished, Moses went to the Lord and said: "Why have you brought me this trouble?...Am I their mother?...Where can I get meat for all these people?...I can't take care of all these people by myself. This is too much work for me."

The distribution of power and responsibility to one's team not only preserves the competent person's energy and well-being but also cultivates the competence of others, ultimately benefiting everyone. The one who has real power (personality, intelligence, judgment) will welcome all the help she needs even though doing so may seem to dilute her authority and significance. Ultimate authority and significance come not by holding on to the center of power and having others feel totally dispensable but by making oneself relatively dispensable.

The second group tends to confuse living with performance. How we want to be is not necessarily what is expected of us. If the conflict between the two resolves in favor of the latter, we end up performing for others-our parents, teachers, spouses, friends, ministers, even our children. The authentic self is so often compromised that eventually its spirit is broken and becomes unidentifiable or, worse, it becomes one with the performing self. Such invasive bureaucratization of the self uproots the soul to the point that one can no longer experience genuine emotions, except perhaps a vague unhappiness, which engenders futility of work, negates love, and promulgates a philosophy of nihilism.

T. Byram Karasu, MD is the author of The Art of Serenity