Life Stops Til Love
Dear [Mentat],
Well, that’s true that it wouldn’t be a catastrophe should we remain loveless. We’ve both had many a happy time while standing alone. And though I don’t want to just be reasonably happy without a mate, I acknowledge that it’s possible and in fact, I’ve been so for some years now. It’s actually a good thing because otherwise, I’d have been a suicidal, sad man, for sure. It’s worthwhile to be able to get on with life even when we don’t have what we ultimately want.
As far as the part about putting one’s life on hold until he finds a mate goes, one could argue that I’ve done just that. Sometimes, when a dream is important enough, we must do that. I gave up my computer career for, among other reasons, to devote full time to mastering and writing about the forces that keep pleasing women away.
Many suggest that doing this was supremely irrational. But I don’t see it that way. After fifteen years of living the professional life without companionship, I knew that putting the rest of life on hold until I solved this problem would be wise (and even necessary), especially since I could afford to do it financially.
For others not quite so lucky, Ellis’s teachings, though not ideal, could indeed have a positively functional significance, by showing how to be content with situations which cannot, without incurring prohibitive financial hardships, be changed. Most people generally don’t stop working to pursue their life’s dream full-time, because they have families and financial obligations locking [them] into their current path. Indeed, if they have families, in this country, chances are that their basic needs have been met up through level three [in Maslow's hierarchy of needs triangle]. So they wouldn’t feel as compelled to make such a radical life change, because the only needs they have left to fulfill are the less urgent level four and five ones. For these reasons, we’d expect people to stay put.
But in my case, I just got so fed up with that ache of loneliness from thwarted level three needs. I couldn’t combat it with several therapeutic series not to mention tens of self-help books. After over a decade of trying these make-shift measures, I lost all hope of any remedial approach other than actually getting desirable ladies, to make me feel chronically better. After close to three years of weekly analysis in total, I understood that cognitive therapy just wasn’t going to solve this for me. Oh, I’d feel relief while in therapy. Sometimes I’d even get to thinking that life was really good the way it was and that it could indeed be no better. But within a few months of the doctor and I parting ways, the props of therapy would invariably collapse, and the loneliness returned as strong as it was before. A therapist’s couch just can’t replace a bed with a warm, beautiful woman in it.
However, I’ve never become suicidal or destructive due to this deprivation. So I guess I don’t fit into those extreme cases that you say Ellis’s techniques help well. I admit though that even the worst diet for example, has great value if following it makes the grossly overweight thinner. Like the Atkins diet of high fat and protein has helped people shed millions of pounds though it may be murder to the cardiovascular system, Ellis’s ideas have saved countless thousands from the destructive effects of deep depression, even though they don’t seem to provide the first, best answer to lovelorn sadness. We can teach people how to minimize the pains of deprivation. But we can’t show them how to actually eliminate the deprivation without teaching how to get precisely what they seek.
In other posts since this one, we’ve talked much of the higher-level needs being easier to satisfy due to the greater plethora of choices of gratifiers. So I won’t discuss it further here.
Also, as we’ve expounded upon much in recent posts, people can live happily without relationships. I agree. I just choose not to go at happiness from that angle because it doesn’t work for me.
