The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

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1-Unhappiness 2-Freeloading Son

1-Why am I Unhappy 2-My 35 year old won't move out of the house.

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at Drkenner.com. Try to give a little more detail than this. The person writes, "Why am I so unhappy all the time" with no details? And so, this is from Samantha. Samantha, when you start like that, it's way too global. You want to get specific. You want to say, "What are my clues as to why I personally am unhappy?" You can use contrast: "When have I been happier?" And I can give you some tips.

First, look at the four areas of main values in a person’s life. You want to look at your career goals. I don’t know if you’re in high school, college, or married. I don’t know how old you are, but look at where you’re going. Are you doing things every day that are leading toward a career like that? From Dead Poets Society, we heard that kid who just was so excited and enthused because he says, “I know what I want to do.” Can you start at least getting in the ballpark of what you want to do? That'll make it more interesting to wake up in the morning. Also, with friends, if you're old enough to have a romantic relationship, in a romantic relationship, and with hobbies—finding a hobby that you enjoy. So those are the areas that you want to see: "Am I building values in this way?"

Now, fundamentally, people are unhappy not for any particular value that may be missing, but most fundamentally, it’s the way you use your mind. So, are you a focuser when you mentally focus, or when you've got a problem? Do you try to say, “Well, what's a solution to this? Why am I unhappy? Well, what would make me happier if I woke up a year from now feeling happy? What would have changed in my life? What would I have done differently?” And you start to look for solutions. So you don’t want to be passive or just expect life to happen. Life doesn’t happen; it’s an achievement. You need to go after it. So I hope that helps you with it. You can also get the book Mind Over Mood, which is on my website, Drkenner.com, d-r-k-e-n-n-e-r.com.

Here’s an email from Megan. This is about the woman who’s not suffering from the empty nest syndrome. "Dear Dr. Kenner, I don’t receive your radio show here in Salt Lake City, Utah. I hope we're there someday. We're, I think, in 40 different places right now on the radio network." So she says, she said, “I ran across your show on an internet site via Better Homes and Gardens email.” I'm not sure what that is. These days, there are a lot of adult children not leaving the nest. Time magazine recently did an article on it, calling them "twixters." With the economy and the job market not being good, it just adds to the mix. They have no motivation to leave home. I’ve got a 34-year-old alcoholic son, Mac, still living at home with us, which, of course, makes it more complicated. We’ve tried everything we could to help him get going on his own, except kicking him out, which would leave us both feeling badly. We are emotionally and financially bankrupt. We feel hopeless and trapped. Do you have any ideas on this subject? I have a lot of friends with their adult children at home too—maybe not with a drinking problem, but just not being able to leave for one reason or another. Thanks. I hope you can give me some input on this.”

Okay, so I picture your son, 34 years old, an alcoholic Mac living at home and not feeling good about himself and probably feeling very resentful towards you, rather than feeling thankful. And he probably tries to shift the blame to you, not take responsibility for his own actions. And who knows, there may be some hidden secrets with Mac. Mac may have engaged in some criminal behavior if he got into the drug world or something, and something that he feels very guilty about and needs to process before he moves on. But I’m going to assume that’s not the case. I’m going to assume that Mac just never has given himself the skills to—or done the thinking to—think about what type of long-range purpose he wants in his life, to be purposeful in his waking hours, rather than just giving up on himself, giving up all of his motivation, and just not feeling capable or worthy of moving on. And then you get the weight of inertia. He hasn’t done it for a long time, so he takes the road of least resistance. Nobody grows psychologically in that situation. He may have the comfort of the familiar day in and day out, but it takes on a psychological, stagnant stench.

So here’s what I recommend you do.

Hey, I got to interrupt this because we've got to pay some bills. 30 seconds, that’s it. A very quick ad, and then Alan will be back. Romance. I wish I knew more about. What girls want from a relationship, boy, I wish I knew more about what I want. Where’s that ad I saw? Here it is: The Selfish Path to Romance, a serious romance guidebook. Download chapter one for free at selfishromance.com and buy it at amazon.com, huh? The Selfish Path to Romance—that is interesting.

He may have the comfort of the familiar day in and day out, but it takes on a psychological, stagnant stench. So here’s what I recommend you do. You could ask him the question, “Imagine it's a year from now, and you’re feeling better, Mac. What do you imagine waking up to? When you imagine getting out of bed, what do you picture? And then, what do you do next? And then what do you imagine you do next on this day that's so much better?" How would your life be different in the future, if you make some changes now?” So you get the gears turning in his mind. If it’s possible, he may just blow this off. And then you can say to him, “Mac, Dad and I are real sad and frustrated. I know you are too. We’re really sad about the drinking. We’re angry about it, and I'm sure we're all on the same page with that—you’re not making your life more interesting, and we feel powerless to do anything about that, and we feel we’ve made the situation worse by enabling you. I don’t want to play mind games with you, since even though we're very frustrated and upset, we love you dearly.”

So I remember a Mac that used to be fascinated, that used to get up in the morning and love playing with your railroad set or going to the Science Museum. We couldn’t get you out of the discovery room. Remind him of times when he did have that energy, you experienced yourself so differently then, Mac. In the privacy of your own mind, you’ve probably thought of ways to make your life more enjoyable, more independent, more interesting. I'm hoping that you'll psychologically come out of the closet and start to take some risks for yourself, come up with a plan to rediscover that energy and enthusiasm that we all know you've buried with the alcohol. Now next, I would get the book Sober for Good, and I would read the chapter for family members, because that will give you some tips. That's by Ann Fletcher. It's on my website, Drkenner.com. If he's willing, I would try to find him a cognitive therapy alcohol treatment program. There's a book Treating Alcohol Dependence by Peter Monti (M-o-n-t-i) and several other people. Now, this is a coping skills training guide for alcoholism that clinicians would use; he wouldn't use this necessarily, but try to find some place in your area that offers this type of training because it teaches them how to say no, what to say to themselves to give up alcohol, managing urges to drink, gaining social skills, resolving relationship issues, moving on in their life. So I think that will help. You can also read The Fountainhead, which is a very motivating book by Ayn Rand; that's on my website also. Then you can set a deadline. You can tell him that there are YMCA lodgings, and he's got until—give him a month or two months to move out, or some parents even downsize—they move to a one-bedroom apartment.