The insecure among us ask themselves why they are not well-liked. Hours and days are spent puzzling over this. They look for answers by evaluating their behavior, appearance, clothing, and education.

If those items don’t explain the problem, excess introversion or extroversion presents itself. Questions of intellect, wealth, sense of humor, height, fitness, and status pop up, too.

The whatness and wholeness and greatness or smallness of ourselves.

The explanation for the failure to impress might be none of the above. It turns out, however, that breaking with what is expected of you sometimes offers the answer you seek.

The writing of Franz Kafka provides an example. In his novel The Trial, Joseph K. wakes up and discovers he has been charged with a crime. Like anyone else, he seeks to defend himself. The mind-bending complication to his defense is that his misdeed is never specified.

In his review of The Trial, — the Orson Wells film based on the book — Roger Ebert characterized Joseph’s dilemma as a situation where “innocent people wake up one morning to discover they are guilty of being themselves.”

While most of us wish to be thought of as ourselves, being genuine and open isn’t easy.

The challenge is to fit into the psychology of our time — the epoch during which we dove into the river flow of history.

Those women born in the Victorian age, when ladies wore lengthy dresses and hid their ankles, discovered any deviation from the recommended attire created a scandal. 

No wardrobe crime existed during the reign of England’s Queen Victoria unless a lady displayed too much of herself and caused a public disturbance. Guidelines such as the following were obligatory:

When you dress to receive visitors, you are expected to wear something nice, with a high neckline, long sleeves, very little jewelry, and . . . there should be no cap or head dress worn.—The Ladies’ Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness, page 28 (1872).

In our time, attire strictures are less limiting. Few, however, recognize a different, more subtle expectation in 21st-century society.

Lauren Berlant calls it cruel optimism in her book of the same name. This paradoxical phrase is especially true of a country that valorizes heroic individuals pursuing The American Dream.

This three-word goal, its value, and the possibility of achieving it are suspect on at least three counts. First, it assumes material success makes the individual happy as can be, once such triumph is achieved. Second, its unstated recipe is “a combination of good performance, high productivity, constant self-improvement, and relentless cheerfulness,” according to Mari Ruti.

Third, the mirage of which I am speaking includes a marriage of eternal passion and understanding, enhanced by the addition of beautiful, talented, and untroubled children. 

To the extent we want to fit our time and place, we must therefore smile a lot, exhibit enduring resilience, and buy into the shared fantasy of achieving almost anything. We need only work hard and never give in to make it so. 

Even TV commercials encourage the prospective college student to envision education as an escalator ride to higher achievement, luxurious possessions, and an endless honeymoon once the time is right.

When obstacles to those goals appear, happiness demands rereading the recipe described by Dr. Ruti and trying again. Those who doubt the prescription’s validity may continue to sense they lack permission to display any alternative attitude, including drawn-out discouragement.

Many persist in keeping their hopes alive, nose to the grindstone, and bury their doubts. 

The grindstone doesn’t do much for one’s nose. Pain mostly. Sometimes the pursuit of the rainbow continues long past any realistic hope of satisfactory results.

The old mantras apply: “When the going gets tough, the tough get going,” “Hang in there,” or similar cliches. My dad had his own saying, one he repeated often in his early 20s during a jobless economic catastrophe, “Every knock is a boost.”

To avoid being avoided by those who define chagrin as a sign we lack “the right stuff,” many humans in the USA do their best to fake their hopefulness. Unfortunately, doing so in an age that promotes authenticity leaves them dying inside, violating the unwritten social rule to be “real.”

In effect, Dr. Berlant emphasizes, it is the endless push toward our goals while trying to shake off the emptiness of our slavery to socially exaggerated expectations that stand in the way of flourishing.

A further irony is that if our friend is also faking it, we each contribute to the other’s misery. Neither one exposes his disappointment or offers consolation, just more encouragement to reach deep inside for the willpower a pickpocket swiped years ago.

I am not criticizing optimism in those fortunate and talented souls for whom success is probable. Rather, I hope I have made the point that a future of finding a prime seat on the bullet train of existence doesn’t measure up to the hot air balloon of the Dream. 

The sunrise used to provide more light before the dark and weighty tread of the climate monster and other problems started to catch up to us.

In truth, the yellow brick road to the land of Oz has never been accessible except for a minority, quite a few of whom were “born on third base and thought they hit a triple,” a quote attributed to Ann Richards, among others.

I write this as someone who surpassed his dreams, so I’m not offering you the sour grapes associated with being a bad loser.

Nor do I think anyone should discard the inborn optimism built into their human package. We do well to talk back to catastrophization since small and passing things can be enlarged beyond measure.

Hope, effort, ingenuity, and the ability to delude oneself kept our ancestors going. Moreover, predicting a life filled with closed doors makes one unnecessarily terrified and helpless, unable to recognize the agency we do have.

Still, if you want honest conversations with authentic people who accept a fellow displaying an upside-down smile, you might want to consider how cruel optimism plays into life.

Afterward, with a less cruel version designed by yourself, for yourself, figure out what mountain is reachable and satisfying, even if imperfect. 

Hills are also ok to climb. Not everyone gets to be #1 in class, the one waving from the mountaintop. When we face the man in the mirror, I suggest we ask ourselves whether we live to work or work to live. That answer underpins everything else we do.

I advise seeking a few companions, assuming the potential buddies admit life is at least a bit of a slog, and who welcome a genuine person who goes by your name.

These are decent souls, the kind to join hands with. With them by our side, we might win something nonmaterial of more value than a corner office with a beautiful view. It’s true we won’t put the list of our best friends on our resume, but in any insightful summation of life’s achievements, perhaps we should.

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The first, fourth, and five photographs are the work of the extraordinary photographer/artist Laura Hedien, with her permission: Laura Hedien Official Website.

We begin with a Supercell Storm with Lightening at Sunset Near Brady, TX, on 6/12/23.

Next comes a picture of the photographer Viona Lelegems at the Victorian Picnic, 2009. It is the work of Motophil and sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

The third photo is The Art of Flying, a two-minute film by Jan Van Ijken taken in the Netherlands and sourced from Youtube.com/

Laura Hedien’s Arcus Cloud Reflection at Sunset in June 2023 follows.

Finally comes a Hog Nose Snapper, taken by Ms. Hedien at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium in August 2023.