Instructions for Your Discontent: How Bad Times Can Make Life Better - Hardcover

Dolnick, Barrie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0743214420 ISBN 13: 9780743214421

Publisher: Scribner, 2003

Synopsis

Restlessness is your first clue. Discontent can creep into your life, making you feel uncomfortable, as if sitting too long in a cramped space. It can make you grumpy and put you in a bad mood. It can dampen your spirit and make you feel sluggish, dissociated, and disinterested. Yet you can use it to change your life. Instructions for Your Discontent is an inspiring guide to making discontent the driving force for change in your life. A practical handbook for using bad times to make life better, Instructions for Your Discontent deals with the feeling that we all have from time to time: something is wrong, but we don't know quite what it is. Supportive and refreshingly honest, Barrie Dolnick, author of the extremely successful Simple Spells books, identifies that feeling as discontent and urges us to respect it, rather than ignore it. Discontent is an intensely creative state, she says. It nags and pokes us to get ourselves going and to accomplish what we really want in life. It's trying to tell us something and we need to listen. Covering all aspects of life, Instructions for Your Discontent exploresrelationships, love, jobs, money, family, self-worth, anger, and time. This captivating and thought-provoking book provides creative and sensible instructions to guide you through the challenges, anxieties, and fears that interrupt your life and cause you unhappiness. Instructions for Your Discontent offers accessible, intelligent advice for weeding through the downers and moving beyond a life that is just okay. Enjoy examining your discontent and being happy again.

About this title

About the Author:

Barrie Dolnick is the author of several books, including Sexual Bewitchery and How to Write a Love Letter. She is also a high-profile consultant whose company, Executive Mystic Services, uses alternative information techniques, including tarot cards, astrology, and meditation, to guide clients to fulfill their potential. She lives in New York City with her husband and daughter.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Discontent: The Initiation

Restlessness is your first clue.

Discontent can creep into your life, making you feel uncomfortable, as if sitting too long in a cramped space. Initially, discontent can make you grumpy and coax you into a bad mood. Later, as discontent settles more permanently into your routine (I hate my job, I'm so lonely, I can't get ahead), you feel much more sour about your life and your future. Discontent is heavy. It dampens your spirit and whites out your hope. Discontent can make you feel sluggish, dissociated, disinterested, even disabled. Discontent starts with a single facet of your life, but left unchecked, it can eventually overwhelm your entire life.

This isn't depression -- you are functioning pretty well and you're not sad -- but you're definitely not happy either. You just can't seem to get comfortable. Discontent comes in many guises and for all occasions. It's epidemic and unique, mutable and fixed, relentless and forgiving. Discontent appears to be an enemy of all that is good in your life, and when it leaves, you're grateful -- not only for finally feeling good again, but because you feel even better than you did before. You're more solid and more confident. Now you're able to create even more happiness.

Discontent strips you to your most vulnerable to reveal to you your strength. It wrestles you to the ground until you yell "Uncle!" and surrender to its grasp.

No matter how happy you think you are, if you're getting fidgety, you're coming down with a case of discontent. Here are some common symptoms.

Dragging out of bed every morning.
Increased cravings for coffee, sugar, binge foods, or alcohol.
Decreased interest in pleasures.
Too much TV.
Putting on weight.
Laughing less -- especially at yourself.
Calling all glasses "half-empty."
Looking for approval from anyone who can give it.
Often using the term "It's not fair."
Putting yourself down.
Putting others down.
Constantly being asked "What's wrong?"
Feeling overlooked, unappreciated.
Feeling tired even when you're rested.
Feeling as if your life is in someone else's hands.
Lying because you're afraid that truth isn't good enough.
Being suspicious of others.
Losing your temper.

Listen to the rumbles beneath your daily life. As you face your unique race against time, tasks, and the demands of a job and family and your life, take a moment to pay attention to your underlying feelings. If you do, you may notice that discontent is often there, growling from a corner of your psyche through the peaceful moments. It may emerge during a traffic jam, or after a phone call from a friend. It may jab at you during unguarded, undistracted moments so that in a split second your composure, your peace of mind, and your mood all deteriorate.

I'm a perfect example. While I have most of what I've always wanted in life -- my husband, my child, work I love, and the health of my loved ones -- I'm still prone to ignoring the claws of discontent. I like to keep things moving. I want to be a supportive partner and an attentive, good mother. I want to continue to write and speak and evolve in my work. But when I find myself wishing I lived within the easy parameters of a TV sitcom where problems get solved in thirty minutes, or when I start envying the characters who live on Birdwell Island in my daughter's favorite Clifford cartoon, I know that discontent has come to visit. I notice myself in a fantasy of other perfect worlds when all I have to work with is right in front of me. I know that discontent is not an omen of bad times, but I also know it takes work and energy to deal with it. And it doesn't go away in thirty minutes of snappy dialogue.

Part of me wants to be discontented all the time. This bizarre urge is no doubt born from two distinct idiosyncrasies. The first is my peasant within who thinks that the evil eye won't fall on me if I don't smile. That's a fake-out, a way to affect unhappiness in order to avoid it. The second is slightly more complex. Discontent is not a bad thing. In fact, the fruits of discontent are generally sweet, and you will most likely "fix" your discontent by bettering yourself or your circumstances. Discontent forces you to make changes in your life to rediscover contentment or happiness. This is why I almost want to be in some evolving discontent; that way I know my life is going to improve, that the "dis" will disappear and leave me contented.

Thank goodness for discontent. Without it, I'd never have gotten off that couch in Wisconsin and moved out into the world, where adventure, love, opportunity, change, and other spicy moments awaited me. Thank goodness for feeling lousy, bored, angry, ignored, put down, overlooked, and just about every other offense one can feel from the world. Without those unpleasant prods, I wouldn't have found or defined my passion and my compassion, my truth and my humor, my laziness and my ambition.

My experiences with discontent have spurred me to become an expert in how to get happy again or, at least, how not to be unhappy.

During my thirteen years with Madison Avenue ad agencies, I learned how to evaluate the desires, aspirations, wants, and needs of all different kinds of people. (The best marketing strategies will diagnose a source of consumer discontent and offer a compelling solution -- for a price.) On a less pragmatic level, I compounded my understanding of discontent with fifteen years of study in the areas of astrology, meditation, intuitive and psychic powers, and alternative beliefs and philosophies. When I left advertising to write books, I also started a consulting business that helps clients identify and pursue career goals, navigate choices, and keep up with the changing marketplace. I use astrology, tarot cards, and metaphysical information to help my clients dissolve their discontent and open to their best possible futures.

Just as powerful in my training, though, are my personal experiences with discontent -- and I'll share many of them with you. I am an Instructor, but I'm also attending continuing-education classes in life.

That is true for you, too. Discontent will be the driving force for most changes in your life. And it should be. That's why these Instructions will be handy.

The Creative State of Discontent

Discontent can be a blessing. It is an intensely creative state that nags and pokes you to get yourself going and accomplish what you really want in life.

I regard almost my entire career in advertising as one of my most flagrant and long-term discontents. At the outset, I was grateful to have found my first job at a prestigious company. I realized quickly, though, that I didn't give a nut for the toilet cleaner I was to help sell, or for the cheap perfume I was to help create. I had no authentic enthusiasm for my work. On top of that, I had to learn and play the game of managerial politics and adhere to corporate-soldier rules. I felt like an actress, dressing for the role of "get-ahead" executive while harboring an eye-rolling scofflaw in my suit.

I soon realized that I despised what I was doing and for whom I was doing it, and that I was one Crabby Appleton. Add up thirteen years of doing it, and I was a veritable bitch in pumps.

I'm still friendly with some of the people I knew in my advertising career, many of whom are happily and effectively marketing products and services. They tease me once in a while about how completely impossible I was back then, and we laugh over the old stories we share. And in retrospect, I know I am blessed to have had every moment of that experience. Being in advertising and greatly discontented gave me my first taste of real-life issues, situations, and conflicts. Everyone had his own agenda. A few people actually cared about the work, but most were either jockeying for power or trying to avoid responsibility. Pass the buck and make a buck. Through working with difficult people, I learned patience and how to make myself heard. From making mistakes, I learned how to take blame and how to dissolve useless finger-pointing. I also tried to learn to keep my mouth shut, which is something I continue to struggle with. Most important, though, I learned to hone my intuition and to trust my feelings rather than rationalize and try to go with the group's way of thinking. I learned so much more than just how to sell soap. And I got frustrated enough to leave the business to do something I love.

I harbor enormous compassion for people in that creative state called discontent, and I hold extraordinary certainty that they -- and we -- will find a way out of it.

Surrendering Is the First Fight

I recall when I attended the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. I was a freshman, studying "Pre-Business" (that's a whole other discontent story), and living on my own away from Wisconsin for the first time. I had been determined to fly from my Midwestern cocoon and attend college in the East. I arrived with gusto, in search of a studious yet Love Story-worthy year of deep experiences.

I got nothing like it. I lived in an unromantic high-rise dormitory. My roommate was never there and I was lonely. While my high school friends enjoyed themselves at the University of Wisconsin and went through rush, I tried desperately to find spirit in a lackluster football team. It wasn't that I liked football, but that's what you were supposed to do in college, I thought, and I worked on posing as best I could as Ali MacGraw's Jennie, studious yet impossibly good-looking in a natural sort of way. I failed on all fronts. Pretentious behavior is a great symptom of discontent. I wasn't happy because I was trying to force an experience that for me wasn't authentic, organic, or true. But I tried: no way was I going to regret coming here. I took classes at Amherst College; I went to lectures at Smith. I stopped short of wearing knee socks and plaid skirts, but the thought crossed my mind. I hated it all. Reading the letters I received from my high school buddies (this was before e-mail) filled me with longing and envy. What was I missing? Was I really missing anything? Maybe they were just embellishing their good times.

I tried to keep my chin up, but eventually I succumbed to teary phone calls home. When my father suggested I transfer back to the University of Wisconsin, I muttered a few weak protests and then admitted the truth: I was unhappy, I had made a poor choice. I was full of discontent.

This is the critical point in dismantling discontent. You don't have to cry (but it's common) and you don't have to see a therapist or an astrologer (but that can be helpful, too). You only have to admit how you feel. That final breaking point when you confess that you're not okay is usually "turnaround" time. Discontent stops pressuring you.

Liberation comes next, and that requires invoking your own energy to break out of those limitations. Once I gave myself permission to leave U-Mass, I dealt with my pride, which had kept me from ever considering a change of school, and I applied for a transfer.

I remember, back in my senior year of high school, announcing to my friends, "I just wouldn't fit in at a Big Ten school. I could never go there." A statement like that is practically the kiss of death when it comes to discontent. If you litter your sentences with "I could never" or "I'm just not that type," you can pretty much be sure that eventually you'll have to do it. And that's a hard surrender to face.

My former astrology teacher and close friend Susan Strong always reminds me (when I'm steeping in some new discontent), "You get what you resist." It's totally true. Whatever you absolutely refuse to consider at the outset of your discontent is probably going to take center stage. So dance with your monsters. Welcome the pain. The critical point of shifting out of discontent is admission, but the only way to liberate yourself is by transition: taking an active role and doing something about it. It doesn't sound so good, but it works.

Knowing you're not in good shape is great, but you'll stay there or worsen if you don't take action. Inaction at the critical point results in depression.

No Denying It

Discontent is not something you should deny any more than you would deny a lump under your arm. For a physical problem, such as a lump, human nature would scare up a load of reasons why it's probably nothing, but you would still be encouraged (by your friends if not your conscience) to have it examined, diagnosed, and dealt with. Discontent isn't so pressing or ominous, and you can't go and have it "cured," but you can be your own doctor, in a way, and at least delve into self-diagnosis.

You can, and probably will, try to ignore the ugly feelings associated with discontent for some time. When you can't talk yourself out of your uneasiness anymore, you'll have two choices: conscious denial or active acceptance. Conscious denial will eventually land you somewhere among three conditions: dysfunctional living, addiction, or depression. Usually, you get a combination platter.

Nonaction

Some people choose nonaction. They just get angrier inside but never let it out; they refuse to do anything at all to help themselves. I've seen it with passive-aggressive people. It's irritating to those who love them, and after a while, these folks are seriously unlovable.

Nonaction also takes the form of anesthesia, ways to deaden the mind, body, emotions, and spirit instead of feel the pain of discontent. There are many ways to anesthetize. Most obvious is self-medication, such as drinking or popping recreational drugs or binge eating, until you don't notice that you're, like, um, addicted. It's a way of numbing your feelings, but the more you numb, the harder your feelings fight to come to the surface, so the more you need to cover them up. It's a vicious cycle that ends up harming your body.

You can also take your discontent out on everyone around you. But like those passive-aggressive types, sooner or later you won't have a lot of people to pick on. This is where I'm most skilled. Until I worked on myself -- which in many ways was simply about knowing myself -- I was a blamer, a criticizer, a coveter. And I was very much at home in my discontent.

Some people anesthetize themselves with so-called spiritual pursuits, such as dropping out of their relationships, work, or family life to follow a cult or a guru. It's a way of handing over your life to someone else's power, so that even if you're discontented, that choice has been made for you in the name of God. You don't have to take responsibility, just do what you're told. This is a sad cop-out. You don't even get to live your life's potential when you hand your free will to someone else.

"Dysfunctions" can play out in thousands of ways. The core of each, however, is pretty common: putting others' needs before your own. Dysfunctional living is also clearly the result of some contained discontent; dysfunction typically relies on keeping secrets, not telling the truth, indirect communication, and other u...

About this edition

• Publisher: Scribner
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0743214420
• ISBN 13: 9780743214421
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 240