The older we grow, the less expectant we are, and the less expectant, the less we suffer. We gradually settle down to the fact that we are all disappointing each other almost all of the time.
From The Priory by Dorothy Whipple (1893 – 1966)
11.3.16
At fist reading the quotation I have chosen this week seems horribly downbeat and pessimistic. A couple of weeks ago I sang the praises of Dorothy Whipple (and her publishers, the elegant Persephone Books) and as I work through her novels I find more and more nuggets of wisdom. This one is about the shortfall in happiness, and how wise it is to accept that. So if the words do sound a bit flat and bleak to you, I am sorry – because they do express my core approach to life. And naturally I do not think that – peeling the layers off the onion – the words are as depressing as perhaps they seem
I point out, in my answer to the main letter in today’s advice column in the Daily Mail, that, ‘It is a sign of maturity in personal life (and in politics, for that matter) to accept that not everything can be put right.’ When I was young and idealistic, as a young reporter. I wept real tears at the poverty (real and in terms of aspiration) I encountered on my travels in the UK. I would also find myself secretly depressed when people disappointed me. So (to give one example) I spent time with a woman who I felt very sorry for (because her husband was doing life for murder) yet I found her thoroughly unpleasant and lazy and mean to her kids. Disappointed with her, I blamed myself for expecting ‘too much’ from her. Yet I had met other women in her situation who were brave and kind…
The point is, I could not cope with reality – and that made me thoroughly miserable. Nowadays I have to cope with reality, and because I don’t expect as much from human beings as I did forty years ago, I am in fact kinder to them – and to myself. As I say in the introduction to my book ‘Bel Mooney’s Lifelines’ (p xiv) I find life, ‘more full of quiet desperation than blazing joy.’ Therefore what else is there to be but philosophical about it?
When you don’t expect people to be perfect life becomes more relaxing. You may feel disappointed because your partner is not the man or woman of your dreams – but if you just tell yourself that the dreams were foolish on the first place, it is not so bad. There comes the day when you look in the mirror and realise that you have been suffering low-level disappointment with yourself too – and maybe for a long time. Good or bad? Why, good of course – because you can give yourself the leeway that you really MUST give to others, in order to be able to live a moderately contented life.
I know this isn’t very lyrical or inspiring. But I’ll tell you something – expecting less from the people around you and from life itself, does help you a little way towards happiness.