Auld Angst Whine

Submitted by tonyplant on December 31, 2005 - 14:37.

New Year tends to be a set-piece review date. A time for introspection on how we can improve our lives. An opportunity for reflecting on the past year and realising that we achieved everything that we wanted, and more. Or we confront ourselves with our failure to follow through on any of the plans and actions that we thought might bring us greater happiness and fulfilment.

 

Emotional self-flagellation makes it hard to view the up-coming year with optimism, so for some people New Year is an opportunity to re-visit the angst of past years. There is the usual laundry-list of unspecified goals such as losing weight, getting fit, earning more money. We hope that these things might make us happier despite the research that says, “Not necessarily”.

However, does this ritual introspection actually do us any good? Theodore Roethke robustly dismissed it:

Self-contemplation is a curse

That makes an old confusion worse.

There are few “Eureka!” moments that arise from pitiless self-assessment and rumination. Research by Susan Nolen-Hoeksema shows that when people are depressed, rumination just worsens their mood. Trite though it sounds, if we focus on the negative in our lives, we sink into a state from which it is difficult to recover motivation and energy. Rumination can suffocate our ability to come up with solutions for our predicaments. Nolen-Hoeksema reports that even when ruminators come up with a solution (such as joining a bereavement support group) they fail to follow through on their intention.

read more | add new comment | Theodore Roethke | rumination | optimism | Nolen-Hoeksema | new year | happiness | Aritstotle