Interview on the Great Happiness: Susan Cain on how sadness makes us happy

Susan Cain changed my life 10 years ago with her book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Speaking.

Susan’s book pushed me deep into the introverted world, as I was one of the flabbergasted extroverts who couldn’t stop talking, and when I began to communicate in another way, I started a “silent revolution” in my life. More-my son, my partner and my team. This approach helped me build a better relationship with them.

I became a fan of Cain’s work and I wasn’t alone. Quiet has sold over 2 million copies and has been translated into 40 languages. Kane has also been named one of the world’s top 50 leadership and management experts, and his unprecedented TED report has been viewed more than 40 million times.

That is why we look forward to a conversation in the midst of the Jubilee weekend celebration, where we will hold a flag-raising party for four consecutive days, confronting global turmoil and greedy enthusiasm. Cain in his new book Bittersweet: How Sadness and Longing Can Bring Us Together.

In this new book, he says: “How the bitter sweetness of life can help us overcome our personal and collective pains and change the way we live, work and love.”

Once again, I love his book, emphasizing the entire paragraph, reading excerpts from friends, and awkwardly almost crying during an interview with him.

Cain is somewhat practical and poetic in his book and takes the reader on a journey to help them understand what it is that makes life truly valuable.

Here we talk to Cain about how we can come together and find happiness despite sadness in times of disagreement and anxiety.

This column is called “The Great Happiness Interview,” but how do “bitter” feelings relate to happiness?

Funny, but the original title of my book was Melancholic Happiness. In fact, it is the name of my file in the book on my computer. But they told me: “If you call it that, you won’t sell any copies!”

What is “bitter” and why does it help us?

Bittersweet is the approval of both light and dark, birth and death (bitter and sweet), and the approval that the two are forever paired.

Bitter sweetness is beneficial to us because it shows how to deal with pain. Admitting it and trying to turn it into art, like a musician, or healing or innovating what nourishes the soul.

If we don’t change our sorrows and aspirations, we can insult, dominate and stop inflicting on others.

But if everyone knows or realizes that they are losing and suffering, they can face each other.

His book explores the idea of ​​noticing life’s frailties as a way to wake us up to the things that matter most. But many of us do not want to think about the weaknesses of life. How to make it brighter?

I wrote a book because I don’t know the way. Nope. Think about these ideas. However, I think a lot of people feel that once they start thinking about it, they can’t stop.

I’d like to say to people who wrote after the book was published: “I’m always drawn to thinking about these things, but I can’t say because there’s not a lot of cultural pressure. They are not worried about the deepest parts of the depression, but that is us. undesirable or inappropriate by the culture of.

The first thing I say is so as not to escape from questions like “What is the most important thing for me in this life?”

Once everyone knows or realizes that they are losing and suffering, they can turn on each other.

The truth is that for everyone life is a mixture of joy and sadness, of light and darkness. And if we take this clearly and incorporate it into our daily lives, we will all be fine so that we are not so surprised when more difficult things happen. That way, you can please yourself when something great happens.

In this culture, whenever difficult things happen, it seems unbelievable. The default position thinks that everything works, and if sadness overwhelms us, it means that everything is gone. of the rail

The real work is not to see it that way, but to see everything as amazing. Finally, we are all together.

You are writing for the comfort of music and art.

Not only for comfort, but also for connection. Listen and search for what the artist is saying, be it music or art. “I was there too. You’re not alone. But I’m going to show you this pain and I’m going to show you that it has something to do with something beautiful and transcendent. And I’m going to show you that I’m going to show that. I can’t put it into words.”

Think about sadness, the emotion that we all experience. They are so connected that you cannot think of sadness without thinking of love. And I don’t mean just the love of the lost. I also mean the love of humanity that occurs when you leave.

When you listen to music, you overcome your pain, you turn to another person and you know that they feel that sadness and love (or at some point), so that humanity can feel you in everything. By expressing it and communicating with this song or image, you realize that you are not alone.

You write emotionally about sadness, go ahead, go ahead, tell us more about it.

Nora McKinern’s excellent TED talks about it. The reason you think you’ll never be able to move on when you lose someone is because you feel like you’re leaving the person to grieve. By refusing to move on or move forward, you are refusing to live without them.

But it is good to consider another perspective. That is, you are not abandoning them, but you will carry them with you in everything you do and in every new experience you have.

It is an incredibly liberating realization. They may not be physically close to you, but they are still with you. They will be with you forever, just as one day you will live in the hearts of those you love.

What advice do you have for facing life’s challenges?

One approach is to find meaning. A person is a creator of meaning.

Regarding 9/11 in the United States, how did you respond? Many suddenly signed up to work as firefighters and teachers. In the context of a pandemic, there is an explosive growth in applications in medical and nursing schools.

Why are you doing this? There is no point in hurting yourself more. But what people want to do is create ideas and create something good out of something attractive.

Each one is going to decide what makes sense in his life, but I think turning in the direction of meaning is very liberating.

How do you stop feeling like a victim when something bad happens?

You are probably aware that loss, grief, and sadness happen to us; that does not mean that something unique is happening to you. Our sorrows and joys are part of human existence. When we accept the human condition, you can make your choice from there.

But I think that the deeper acceptance of this situation must come first. This is why many wisdom traditions focus on imperfections. Remember that good and bad things come and go. Ა There is nothing eternal.

One would think that it would create some kind of impotence, but I think it would happen the other way around. I think it was an opportunity to focus on what is important.

For the next 5 minutes, I always remember being insecure. And when we realize this fact, we begin to engage more with the present.

You write a lot about awareness and acceptance. The older you get, the more aware you become, but sometimes you can’t stand the fears that are going on in the world.

I am completely with you. There is a complete equestrian Buddhist idea, which may have been achieved somewhere for someone, but not for most of us.

In that book, I wrote about the poetry of the Japanese Buddhist poet Isa. He studied Buddhism throughout his life, but when his daughter died, he wrote in poetry that he understood that life was permanent. “But let me do that…” he wrote. Despite the knowledge of his teaching, he could never accept that his daughter died. He was always suffering.

I think that’s what most of us can do. But due to the fact that we are all in this situation, together we can achieve incredible love and reunion.

Bittersweet: Sadness and longing have found a way to make us whole (Penguins, £14.99).

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