TIME OUT:Wishful thinking can become a 'critical' habit, writes MARIE MURRAY
IF WE stop to think about it, we often expend enormous mental energy ruminating on what we “might have done, should have done, could have done, would have done”, having not done any of those things.
Whatever about engaging in this wishful thinking about major events, when we extend dissatisfaction about all the decisions we make to every trivial thing that happens, negativity can become a “critical” habit that influences how we view life.
This “should have, could have, would have” sequence can range from deciding that it would have been better to get the bus when we struggle for a parking place, better to have joined the other aisle when we find ourselves in a queue, better to have gone to a different film, ordered a different meal, had coffee instead of tea – in essence done everything, even simple ordinary activities, differently to the way we chose.
This killjoy psychological habit has a far greater negative influence on our lives and those around us than we imagine.
When parents engage in it, it causes anxiety in children, feels like criticism to adolescents and creates tension in relationships, as everyone is recruited into feeling responsible for things not being right.
If we are always thinking about what we should have done, or could have done, or would have done, if only we had known beforehand, then we are always dissatisfied with what we have done. Nothing is ever okay in this way of thinking. We are never happy. Nothing seems to be good because nothing is good enough.
Life as lived is not neatly ordered and if we expect it to be, and resent when it is not, then we kill the joy it can bring in the ordinary, everyday living of it, so that we lose our sense of humour, miss opportunities and end up feeling short-changed and discontented in everything we do.
In this pessimistic sequence of thinking we are constantly on the lookout for the negative – for everyone, for everything, for nature itself to thwart us. We are aggrieved if we bring an umbrella and it doesn’t rain, if we have a coat when it gets too hot.
“Should have, could have, would have, if only” is a form of self-criticism or, worst still, criticism of others and anger toward life that takes the good out of everything, because we want everything to be something else. It is a psychologically- sapping curmudgeon approach that leaves us ill-prepared when genuine misfortune comes our way. Resilience to the big things is borne of managing the small things and if we catastrophise the trivial, how can we deal with true catastrophe?
Understanding the power of perception in experience – “that thinking makes it so” – the power of opinion, attitude, disposition and positioning in interpreting the world is not new. “The power of positive thinking” arises in new guises through new psychological movements, and psychotherapeutic interventions at regular intervals, for each generation, and is currently underpinned in positive psychology.
Its simple profundity is increasingly scientifically validated, demonstrating how mind is shaped by belief and how good mental health requires positive perception.
We do what we do. We are what we are. In most cases it is better not to analyse ourselves too much. If we didn’t do something we wish we had done, instead of ruminating backwards, the question is what can we do now?
Being anxious about the present, living in the past, wishing the impossible, trying to redress the irretrievable, and deferring life by regrets makes every decision wrong and every alternative more attractive than what was chosen.
And yes, perhaps I should have written a different article, or introduced more research than discussion, or finer examples that would have illustrated the point better. I can think of a thousand “should have” options and angles through which I could have done this longer, shorter, better.
But I didn’t. And so, dear readers, please accept what I have done positively!
Clinical psychologist Marie Murray is director of psychology in UCD Student Counselling Services