Your Poker Face Won't Save You

If you’re not familiar with Barbara Ehrenreich (hasn’t everyone heard of Nickel and Dimed?), you should be. I heart her enormously. Her latest book, Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, was released this week and she recently did an interview about the cult of feel-good positivity with Elle magazine. In a previous post, I  briefly touched on my objection to conjuring things from the air and thinking your way to success, so of course I found myself nodding along with her words.

Photo by Samat Jain

What isn’t covered in the interview and what I find interesting is the social imperative to appear outwardly happy and how much of it is driven not by prosperity gurus, religion or corporate culture, but our personal fear of expressing our own unhappiness and/or witnessing the pain or sorrow of others. There’s something unseemly about being publicly unhappy. We’re supposed to put on a brave face, soldier on, get back in the saddle, etc. or at least make all the appropriate noises about doing so when asked for the current 411 on our emotional state by well-meaning acquaintances. God forbid that you admit  that even though it’s been six months, your father’s death still feels like it happened last week or that no, you haven’t gone on a date since December when your girlfriend left you for one of her coworkers, or that you sometimes wake up in the middle of the night with the tightest feeling in your chest but you know you’re much too young for it to be a heart attack.  Successful people cope!  Everyone loves a coper! They brush off life’s slings and arrows and dare fate to hit them, baby, one more time. Being anything less than a ray of sunshine or a stoic is weakness, it’s distasteful and it leaves people at a loss for how to react in the face of such naked vulnerability.

But sometimes things aren’t all right and they aren’t okay. Pretending that they are just isolates us further. You smiling through the pain sets up a false (and guilt-inducing) example for someone else to aspire to. If you’re able to hold it together in the face of such trying circumstances, well surely they should be able to buck the hell up and do likewise, yes?  Except it’s not a contest. There’s no prize at the end of the day for keeping up the most realistically impassive facade in the face of misfortune. What’s the pay-off to stuffing the hurt down inside and papering over any cracks in your happy-as-a-clam veneer? An ulcer? A drinking problem? The respect of your peers? The comforting knowledge that no matter how much things suck at least you’re the only one who knows how bad they really are? Forgive my skepticism, but none of those things keep you warm at night.

Faking that you’re happy when you’re not isn’t a sign of strength and it isn’t a sign of moral superiority. It’s driven by the fear that presenting anything less than your best face is just asking to be rejected and shunned. It’s the gnawing belief that you are only likeable or loveable when you’re on top of the world. And you know what?  That soul-deep insecurity is every bit as sad as whatever pain or unhappiness you refuse to acknowledge.