Making Ourselves Miserable

The damage we do to ourselves through our internal narratives, and how the indifference of others can help us think differently

I. The stories we tell ourselves

A few months ago, I was walking on a sidewalk that narrowed. A person approached, so as usual, I said to my sometimes absent-minded son beside me, “People coming, pay attention.” As usual, he huffed, “I am paying attention!” and he proceeded to take a tiny step out of the way at the last possible second.

This same scenario has played out more than one hundred times, but this time, the response of the passerby was different. There was technically enough room for the approaching person to walk by, but she did not feel that way. She shouted, not at my son but at the air around her, “Just because I’m black doesn’t mean I don’t deserve space on the sidewalk!” I think even my oblivious son was taken aback by this.

For me, this moment illustrated a regular phenomenon: the stories we tell ourselves can destroy our mental health. I have observed my kids be indifferent to others on the sidewalk hundreds of times: they could care less if the figure approaching is striped, purple, bow-legged, or a 100-feet tall dragon; they still won’t make room for them without my reminding them. But for this passerby, her skin color was on everyone else’s mind as a mark of ignominy. From what I know from friends, family, and books, I can imagine the stories in her head: childhood experiences of being insulted as dumb, stories from parents who grew up abused in Jim Crow societies, friends who were passed over for jobs even though well-qualified. Whatever the reasons, the story she carried in her head resulted in her feeling insulted by a child who was in fact uninterested in anything besides his own reverie.

Another sidewalk example, this one from a few days ago: I sat on a bench beside my daughter as a dog approached. Whenever my daughter sees a dog, she calls out in delight “doggy!” What she saw that morning was a bulldog sitting inside a stroller. In delight, she exclaimed, “A doggie in a stroller!” We said “Hi cute doggie!” as it passed. But the woman pushing her elderly dog retorted: “His legs don’t work!” From other experiences, I can imagine the stories in her head: a dog she’s loved for a decade falls ill, she feels pain each time she has to take him out in a strange looking stroller instead of letting him walk, she once overheard someone make an insulting joke about her dog. Whatever the reasons, the story she carried in her head led her to feel hurt by a small child who was experiencing only joy and surprise.

Everything we believe about the world is in our own minds. These beliefs can be painful and self-destructive. And since we spend most of our thoughts on ourselves, this means we can spend most of each day being cruel to ourselves.

II. Nobody Else Cares