William James calls those givers who
live on the sunnier side of their misery threshold “healthy-minded.” Optimism
fills their lives, though there are degrees of optimism. Some of the
healthy-minded see the glass half full while others see it as half full with
something really delicious. These are the sort of people who always look for
the bright side and have a soul with “a sky-blue tint, whose affinities are
rather with the flowers and birds and all enchanting innocencies than with dark
human passions.” Though the sunny-side people can be miserable at times, they
have a low tolerance for misery. It would take something catastrophic for them
to stay on the dark side of their misery lines.
These givers on the sunny-side are somewhat interesting to
James, if only because they constitute a type that is almost completely foreign
to him. James knew himself and many of his family members to belong to the
second category — “sick souls” and “divided selves,” who live on the dark side
of their misery threshold. Sick souls tend to say No to life, according to
James, and are governed by fear. Sick souls tend to become anxious and
melancholic, with apprehension that opportunistically spreads.
The person with a divided self suffers from what James calls
“world sickness.” This sickness is progressive and James charts its development
keenly and compassionately. Those with divided self experience a war within;
their lives are “little more than a series of zig zags,” their “spirit wars
with their flesh, they wish for incompatibles” and “their lives are one long
drama of repentance and of effort to repair misdemeanors and mistakes.”
James understood this fear and saw the potential for
transformation “through a passion of renunciation [letting go of old ideas
through spiritually based and directed actions for others] of the self and
surrender to the higher power.” It is after this renunciation that one can
experience “the acute fever” of a spiritual life.
The terms “surrender” and “higher power” and “powerlessness”
are apt to leave some people uneasy (they are key phrases and concepts in
12-step programs everywhere). To surrender, in more Jamesian terms, is to make
oneself open to new possibilities. To surrender is to stop clutching core
beliefs or parts of one’s identity so tightly. When one loosens their grip,
they make it possible to hold something — perhaps very tentatively — in their
hands. In the case of a person whose self worth or humanity has been decimated,
it is a matter of being open to the possibility that just maybe they are worthy
of a little dignity and respect. Surrendering can be simultaneously liberating
and terrifying.
The when, where and how of surrender depends on a person’s
misery threshold. Someone with a low threshold cannot suffer long and so is
willing to make changes. Others will be able to suffer enormously and not
surrender until there is nothing left to lose. Each person’s “rock bottom” is
the point where misery can no longer be tolerated.
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