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- One day, a few years ago, I was rushing from the pool dripping wet
- when a man with a Russian accent stopped me and said, “You must come
- to svim with the team.”
- I was in my early 50s — too old for swim team, I thought. But the
- coach — Igor was his name — persisted: “I see you are good svimmer.”
- Intrigued, and being a sucker for flattery, I relented and joined his
- ragtag group of swimmers. Workouts started at 5:30 in the morning,
- when most sane people were tucked in bed. It didn’t matter because no
- matter how sleepy we were, we were guaranteed to be wide-awake, if not
- euphoric, when we finished. We enjoyed our camaraderie and although we
- were all at different swimming levels, we had one thing in common: We
- wanted to get better.
- One day, a bunch of us were grousing about how little progress we were
- making in our swim times, how slow we were.
- Ever the philosopher of the pool, Igor smiled and said, “You are all
- confused! Speed is not the goal; it is the result of perfect beautiful
- technique.”
- What really mattered to Igor was excellence — the efficient stroke.
- Once you mastered that, he argued, speed would follow naturally. Speed
- was simply the welcome side effect of swimming well.
- I’ve been thinking lately that there’s a lesson here that goes beyond
- the pool. We all wanted to swim faster and the more hysterically we
- tried, the more speed escaped us. The same goes for happiness.
- Everyone wants to be happy, yet the more directly we pursue happiness,
- the more elusive it becomes.
- We’ve all experienced this phenomenon. Think, for example, about your
- coming vacation. You are excited about going to the beach or mountains
- and relaxing with lots of free time. How happy you are going to be!
- Then you start to plan out what you’ll do, what you need to bring,
- what restaurants you need a reservation for. Soon you’re feeling a bit
- stressed out about your future pleasure.
- Research shows that thinking too much about how to be happy actually
- backfires and undermines well-being. This is in part because all that
- thinking consumes a fair amount of time, and is not itself enjoyable.
- The researchers behind this study, called “Vanishing Time in the
- Pursuit of Happiness,” randomly assigned subjects to one of two tasks:
- One group was asked to write down 10 things that could make them
- become happier, while the other wrote 10 things that demonstrated that
- they were already happy.
- The subjects were then asked to what extent they felt time was
- slipping away and how happy they felt at that moment. Those prompted
- to think about how they could become happier felt more pressed for
- time and significantly less happy.
- This jibes with the argument the journalist Ruth Whippman makes in her
- 2016 book “America the Anxious: How Our Pursuit of Happiness Is
- Creating a Nation of Nervous Wrecks.” Trying too hard to be happy —
- downloading mindfulness apps, taking yoga classes, reading self-help
- books — mostly just stresses us out, she writes. So what should we do
- instead? Maybe simply hang out with some friends, doing something we
- like to do together: “Study after study shows that good social
- relationships are the strongest, most consistent predictor there is of
- a happy life.”
- Which brings me back to swimming. When I swim, I feel that I have all
- the time in the world, in part because much of what marks time — my
- everyday life — vanishes the moment I step in the water. And all the
- while I’m there with my buddies, bound by mutual exertion and joking
- about life.
- Our technique has improved, thanks to Igor. We have a smoother pull,
- never dropping our elbows, and a steadier flutter kick. Some days, I
- swim a little faster than I did before. But even if I don’t, I feel
- great.
- In the end, happiness is a side effect of living well — just like
- speed can be the result of excellent swimming technique. Now, if
- you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the pool.
- Richard A. Friedman is a professor of clinical psychiatry and the
- director of the psychopharmacology clinic at the Weill Cornell Medical
- College, and a contributing opinion writer.
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