Burns and Happiness
The realization of how relative happiness is became very apparent to me some years ago when I was in the burn department.
One day a new patient came to the burn department — Miri, a teenage girl. Miri was 17 and her boyfriend just informed her that he was leaving her for someone else. As passionate as only teenagers can be, she went to the bathroom, slashed her wrists and poured bleach on them. As luck had it, when she was brought into the emergency room, Dr. Batya Yafe was there, an amazing woman and specialist in both plastic surgery and microsurgery who was able to reconstruct Miri’s blood vessels and take care of the damaged skin on her wrists.
A few weeks later Miri was a functional teenager again, but with second degree burns on her wrists. Relative to the rest of us, this was a relatively minor injury, but I am sure it was still very painful. The first few weeks were a serious adjustment for her – switching from being an active teenager in love to a patient in the burn department surrounded by these awful smells and many people in tremendous agony is not easy for anyone and particularly not for an idealistic teenager. The amazing thing was to see her a few weeks later and in the months to follow when she would come back to visit us. She seemed like a new and altogether person. She was happy, energetic, and with an appetite for life.
The scars that Miri carried on her wrists must have made her feel immensely different in the world outside the burn department, a constant reminder of her time spent in the burn department and the events that brought her there. I also suspect that these scars acted as a permanent reminder of what could have been, and her relative fortune in life. Was her newfound happiness related to the negative experience in the burn department? I imagine that Miri’s injury and her weeks in the burn department adjusted her perspective on life. Both the struggle she had with her burns, and the comparison to the other people in the burn department must have dwarfed her perceptions of her romantic trouble in comparison.
The burns on her wrists really helped Miri, and more generally I think that injuries that “work best” in giving people a new perspective on life are those that continuously act as a reminder of their relative happiness — even once the initial injury is over. Miri’s wrists, or losing a leg, for example, are promising on these grounds because the loss can act as a permanent reminder. And so are deep burns (the superficial ones are not as good because they can disappear with time). Lets be clear — I am not advocating burning people who are not very happy with their lives and letting them struggle with the pain and agony of burns, the slow recovery, and the comparison to other less fortunate individuals — but I do think that ironically such negative experiences can actually improve the outlook people have on life and their motivation for living.
So, as we plan for 2011 maybe we can find ways to be happy without any serious injuries.
Happy new year
Dan
The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone - Especially Ourselves
That’s a very interesting idea.
…I had been waffling over whether to get a tattoo or other similar commemorative body modification when I judge that I’ve recovered from depression (luckily, I seem to be on the up & up now). Seems like it might be a good idea, and I know many people do it.
I had been involved in an car accident when I was 8 years old. Which left me pretty messed up, today I do have scars on my face and some parts of my body but during social interaction I barely think about them. These scars have never been a benchmark for the quality of my life. What I found out very soon was, most people are too shy to ask what happened or just displayed plain old apathy. I don’t really think of them as reminders of the past. It could very well be because it was an accident not a self inflicted wound. But I never thought of going under the knife although most doctors i’ve visited at the time claim that it is a very simple process, by all means my family could have afforded this surgery at the time, now I can.
My scars and I are one… I don’t accept them, I am the scars. I am in no shape or form a bitter person because I had this accident or I am not acting like life would be much better without them. As they say “Life is life.”
Thank you Dan. The book, the tweets and for everything and the best of 2011 to you.
AK
“LIVING her for someone else”? Really? Proofread please! It makes me stop wanting to receive your weekly digests. Thanks and a happy new year!
Misplaced commas, run-on sentences…Dan, this post needs some serious copy-editing. I actually stopped reading.
Hmmmmm. I dunnno. I think that some people have an innate ability to recover from traumatic experiences, and others seem to find the pain a reason to bemoan their fate forever. As a recovering alcoholic I’ve seen both in meetings. Getting over the suffering, both physical and mental, of “hitting the bottom” for many of us opens up a new delight in life. Others like to hang onto the pain and never get past how bad their life was. And still is. There’s the type who bounce back joyfully, and those who like to lay on the floor and blow snot bubbles for the rest of their lives. Oh yeah, and if you read your posts aloud you before you post them, you’ll catch the mistakes.
Never ask an editor what they think…because they’ll always tell you
I will remember never to ask an editor.
Dan
‘writs’–>’wrists’ (2 places)
Sorry — just fixed it.
Dan
I think Dan may well be right about the reasons for Miri’s transformation. But could it also be that her self-inflicted injuries were a cry for help, and that the attention she got at the hospital, and likely from her family and professionals, were the main reasons for her improvement?
It seems to me that the longer-term effects of suffering traumas and bearing scars are mixed. As Ginnie pointed out, two people who have undergone similarly difficult experiences can have very different reactions, with one growing stronger as a result, and another constantly bemoaning his awful misfortune.
Indeed, the same person can have different reactions at different times. I would not be surprised, for example, if Miri does well for awhile, but experiences another depressive and possibly self-destructive episode later in life, especially if she does not take steps to maintain her mental health. I am not certain the scars alone are enough to change her perspective permanently.
>but I do think that ironically such negative experiences can actually improve the outlook people have on life and their motivation for living.
“Can,” yes. “Will?” Much less often.
Deut.30:19.
This is one of the most fascinating questions on the planet, IMO. How can you tell the difference between who will take which path, what supports either path away from a traumatic experience, and is there anything an outsider can do to influence which path a person takes?
Consider another example, currently in process: what will the three Duke lacrosse protagonists do with their “plate full of poop” circumstances? Might take 20 years to see how that story turns out.
Everybody has scars. Some people’s scars are visible.
The same theory is presented in the SAW movies…
Dan,
This is very true for mental traumas as well.
Scar tissue does grow over old memories and sights, but they resurface easily over the years. It could be triggered by familiar smell from the time, talking to old friends or just random memories.
In this I must include trauma caused by the injury or death of other people in the same situation. The recovery from mental trauma could be a lengthy process as well.
Happy new year to you and yours.
My grandfather lost his wife and two sons in the holocaust. After the war, he remarried and had my mother, another daughter and moved to Israel. For the rest of his life he never spoke about those boys. He never even told anyone their name, but there was a picture of them in the living room, hanging in the middle of all the pictures of his daughters and us grandkids. I wonder if that was his reminder of what he had come through amidst the reminders of what he had to live for.
I think that’s a horrible thing to say. To glorify injuries on the basis of an increase of happiness is irresponsible, IMO.
Completely true! I’ve just finished writing a college application essay on breaking my leg, and the new perspective it gave me on life. And looking back, I think I was a lot happier on crutches. Sympathetic friends, lots of attention, and most importantly, the determination to make better use of my mobility when my leg recovered.
I actually think that everyone should have mildly scarring incidents now and then
If nothing else, it would give you something interesting to write or talk about.
Agreed, depending on the injury maybe.
I’m just recovering from 6 months of relative immobility. Its my second long injury, the previous one being 18 months a couple years ago. I have to say I LOVE the focus that getting back to fitness puts on my training. More importantly though, I am determined not to waste time or put off things I want to do, becasue with each injury more things are crossed off the list of what’s possible, are more time passes.
People have said to me that they are SO impressed with how I deal with injury. I think i need to find that sort of focus (as on my rehab) in my everyday life. That’s a bit harder!
Hello Mr.Ariely!!
I have just finished reading your book Predictably Irrational and you have opened the world of behavioral economics for me. I’m 17 years old and im currently at the crossroads where its all about do what you love v/s what your parents want you to do. my parents have already told everyone that im gonna do CA (chartered accountancy- im from India thats why my parents have already decided for me)(sigh) but after reading your book, its opened this whole new universe where i fell in love with economics-something i never even thought would happen to me- so Thank You!
Happy New Year!
I’ve always been generally upbeat, but perhaps I am more upbeat for the past 20 years as a result of a rough week lying face down in the hospital due to a complication following back surgery. The loss of spinal fluid caused raging untreatable headaches. After corrective surgery (delayed by a week due to infection), I was good as new (mostly). I have a dramatic scar, but since it’s on my back I can’t see it without a fair bit of effort, and as a result it’s not a reminder to me. But still, during tough times I do sometimes reflect that “it could be worse”, because I have at least once experienced worse.
Certainly I can’t see burning or injuring people as a means of cheering them up (!), but perhaps there are situations where it might advisable not to fully repair all visual reminders of a painful experience. That is, even when possible, perhaps the plastic surgeon ought not to remove all evidence of some injuries?
Dan, I hope to see you again in February/March at TED.
Very interesting… I experienced a serious brain hemmorhage 23 years ago and while the scars from the brain surgery are hidden under my hair, there are 5 deep holes in my skull that remind me every day of the experience and how it changed my life. I carry a copy of my brain scan in my daily diary to help me put things in perspective at work. This was a life changing experience and I often wonder if the paths I have chosen on a daily basis and my healthy attitude towards life challenges have been prompted by this or if I already possessed a high level of resilience and adaptability. I’m not sure I’ll ever know the full answer, but in my case, I believe that even scars that aren’t visible can have impact on relative happiness.
+1
A veces estamos tan ensimismados que no nos percatamos que a nuestro alrededor existen personas con problemas más graves, olvidándonos de valorar nuestra vida. Realmente la vida es corta pero es bella.
In my own case, I have physical scars from a double mastectomy due to breast cancer at 52. My sister died at a very young age from breast cancer, and my mother from ovarian cancer, so I’ve been quite happy to have survived past the so-called 5-year “milestone” without any further disease. I never had reconstructive surgery, just use prostheses, and I don’t mind my undressed appearance one bit; I feel very blessed to still be around. I think you appreciate life more when you’ve been through something like this, you look at things through different-colored glasses, your perspective changes. And if you are able to work through it, it will mature you, help you grow and make you stronger, even give you a better understanding of and compassion for other people, and most particularly, those who have suffered in the same way. Dan, has not your own experience done that for you as well? I’m willing to bet that it has. I’ve been able to be a friend to several women who were diagnosed with breast cancer, but if I hadn’t had it myself, I wouldn’t have understood, wouldn’t have invested the time, wouldn’t know what to say. So it’s kind of strange, how something terribly unfortunate or evil can still be transformed into something wonderful and good, in more ways than maybe we will ever know, because there can be a ripple effect. I really like that!
I think there are different ways to gain perspective on your own life that do not involve physical injury. One could volunteer to help the less fortunate (the physically or economically-challenged).
I was fortunate to grow up not having the pain of myself or my loved ones being sick/injured or deceased. Yet I lived in an environment that kept me exposed to people with very varied socio-economical situations. It helped to keep my teenage years in perspective and maintain a good level of respect for my parents.
Aw, this was a really nice post. In concept I would like to put
in writing
like this additionally – taking time and actual effort to make an excellent article…
however what can I say… I procrastinate alot and by no
means seem to get one thing done.