THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS
Schindler, Dr. John A.
The Pursuit of Happiness by DR. JOHN A. SCHINDLER Five years ago The Progressive published two articles by John A. Schindler, "Greatest Cause of Illness," and "Keystones of Healthy Living," which...
...It is so much easier, so much more effective, so much pleasanter, to live maturely with enlightened selfishness...
...If one member is mature in this respect, the chances are the others will develop the same maturity, for the example provided by one unselfish, considerate person so obviously illustrates a better way of living that it readily becomes contagious...
...There are so many other factors that are important too in making marriage a success—factors such as being content with the arrangement of a husband's work and the wife's homemaking, seeing eye-to-eye on other interests, recreation, and activities, enjoying each other's companionship and society, being satisfied with the financial arrangement, taking pleasure in having and rearing a family...
...The woman's sexual outlook is much less physical, and is much more tempered by spiritual love...
...It is to his interest to modify his immediate desires in the direction of her satisfaction...
...The mother may tell them that sexual intercourse is painful...
...This may leave you without a job...
...But she may be sure it will require a tremendous amount of patience and effort...
...And most important of all, there is a vast difference between the meaning and interpretation a woman places on sexual love, and the interpretation the man gives it...
...The family is what you make it, and the most important ingredient that goes into its making is unselfish consideration for others that must be as great and as genuine as your consideration for yourself...
...In actual intercourse he brings on his orgasm as quickly as possible, following which, his needs requited, he is tired and no longer inclined to tenderness or to any show of affection...
...The average man is physically aroused by the nearness of any female who is attractive to him...
...it provides emotional relief and adds to the richness of the sexual life...
...It is not an effective attitude for handling adult life, but, results in infinitely more trouble than good...
...When his sexual desires are aroused his tendency is to proceed directly to a satisfaction of his wants, without more display of affection than he thinks necessary to gain his end, without preliminary whisperings of love or preliminary caressing, and without much considerate feeling for his partner...
...A woman can become a constant joy to herself, to her children, to her husband, to the world, by being glad she is alive and by showing it...
...The sexual intimacy of two people who have a genuine affection and deep love for each other is one of life's most meaningful and beautiful experiences, and one that adds an additional bond of unity to their marital union...
...Many men and women come to the altar with immature sex conditionings that interfere with achieving a happy, mature sex life in marriage: The conditioned idea that sex is dirty, sordid, and wrong...
...If you are given the opportunity of expressing your opinion ¥¦ the hostess' dinner, have no in-jpritions—tell her what a miserable lip it was...
...So it is much clearer and safer to say that one's sexual life can attain its full meaning and fruition only with the one person for whom we feel the most sincere and the most genuine kind of friendship we are capable of—"friendship" meaning devotion, honesty, openness, fairness, unselfishness, tenderness, understanding, loyalty, consideration, and, above all, affection...
...As Dr...
...She is ready less often than a man, nor can she come to it with as little preparation as can a man...
...Any procedure or innovation that increases the enjoyment and the beauty of the relationship for either one of them, without incurring the displeasure of the other, is entirely normal...
...She must make him feel that he is wanted, that he is worthy, that he will always be able to come to her and find the mother whom he needs as much as the wife...
...sexual compati-gh'ty or incompatibility is often a litemdary matter...
...For a woman to achieve the benefits of this maturity requires at least a fair share of a similar maturity in the person chosen for a sexual partner...
...Not that it isn't important, nor that it isn't the primary cause of the breakup of many marriages...
...It can be and is...
...The woman's sex role is not meant to be passive, any more than her role in life is...
...They hear the complaints of a nervous mother in the menopause...
...Many mothers teach their daughters, by inference as often as openly, that a woman's role in sex should be entirely passive, that sexual intercourse is merely a submission for the wife, indulged in solely for the husband's enjoyment...
...The bride does not need to worry how to act...
...The woman must generally be built up to intercourse...
...Anna K. Daniels puts it, "There is no woman so frigid that a good man cannot defrost her...
...Gentleness, sympathetic consideration and restraint is necessary in the husband if she isi not to be conditioned by painful experience to sexual reluctance all through marriage...
...The absence of any one of these three factors accounts for the large number of women who seldom or never reach a climax in intercourse...
...If unfortunately you were not successful in your choice, you are stuck and have to do as well as you can with the husband you picked...
...The word "love," unfortunately, is such an evasive, insecure term, that it connotes many different things to different people...
...A wife who possesses an excellent disposition can hope to make some improvement in a man who is sullen and hard to live with...
...The entire idea is as tragically wrong as are its consequences...
...The man reaches a climax through friction alone, regard* less of any spiritual component Btt^ Jfthe woman...
...For instance, honesty, enlightened selfishness, making the most of it, self-reliance, a pleasant disposition, are all attitudes she can fulfill by herself...
...world for truly belonging, for being useful, for being truly valuable, in the only meaningful sense of those terms...
...The best guarantee of a happy marriage, even better than high intelligence, is an habitually pleasant disposition in both man and wife...
...And it is not hard to do, especially for a woman, once you get the idea...
...In the medical clinic where we teach the maturities to a wide variety of adults, we have come to have a high respect for this human ability to learn, and find to our surprise and pleasure that people are able to acquire the maturities at almost any age...
...With affection two people get a warm feeling of contentment just by being in the same room together, or they find a beautiful happiness by lying in each other's arms without any further physical contact...
...Affection is the most important ingredient in friendship and it is the key to sex...
...A couple should therefore not despair if their sexual experience during the first year, or the first few years, has not been successful...
...A man can have a climax with any woman...
...Two people may have exciting physical experiences in sex, but there is no lasting satisfaction without affection...
...Here are the people most important in your living...
...The Editors WHETHER you are a man or a woman, the family is the unit to which you most genuinely belong...
...Even if in the first marriage days her sexual response cannot be enthusiastic, her motherly attitude and concern for him during the first sexual experimentation must be warm and enthusiastic...
...They are assured, in preparation for menstruation, that menstruation is usually a painful time of sickness...
...A number of psychologists and psychiatrists advocate that people behave in what they term an "uninhibited" way...
...The only finer experience comes to the young later on when they fashion their own families on the same pattern—providing...
...she needs to be petted, embraced, kissed, and caressed...
...Many women brought up prudishly, and many men without the imagi-natiop to be adequate, artful lovers, conduct coitus with the routine monotony of the same procedure year after year, like animals...
...Achieving a climax is impossible for most women in the absence of the strong spiritual certainty that she has the affection and deep love of her partner...
...One more emphasis upon affection...
...It would take an unusual lack of some kind, and an unusual effort in the wrong direction, to make such a marriage go wrong...
...Furthermore, a man's approach is direct...
...Its pay-off is only emotional stress and unhappiness...
...To respond physically she must feel an existing oneness that is both a deep friendship and a deep affection...
...Conditionings in the man...
...1957 by Prentice-Hall, Inc...
...It is as active, allows for as much expression, freedom, and initiative, as the man's...
...Love is the combination of sex and deep friendship...
...True friendship is a hard thing to "service" and calls for a person who has a wide general maturity...
...The greatest wealth they have is in the pleasure of seeing the other person pleased and happy by what they can do or say...
...The attitude in families and in society that never allow sexual matters to be discussed leads to timidity and reluctance on the part of the wife and husband to discuss any troubles and difficulties they are having in their sexual life...
...But the ability to make sex a happy part of life is a maturity in which men and women share a mutual creative responsibility in a way that is true of the other maturities...
...Every single one of the other maturities a woman can put into practice as an individual in her own private life by, and for, herself...
...Second, one's attitude toward the things and people one is interested in should be friendly as far as possible rather than hostile...
...JOHN A. SCHINDLER Five years ago The Progressive published two articles by John A. Schindler, "Greatest Cause of Illness," and "Keystones of Healthy Living," which were later expanded into a full length book, How to Live 365 Days A Year...
...Or if you disagree with a speaker—talk up, or stalk out loudly, or both, to show your disapproval...
...She cannot accept intercourse as lightly as can a man...
...A happy disposition is not a matter of being either inhibited or uninhibited...
...The easiest way to be miserable is^to have a lousy disposition...
...But no matter, they say, you are really lucky not to be successful in the conventional way since being successful depends so largely on repressing impulses...
...She aroused his finest sensitivity, tenderness, and awareness of the things which are precious...
...Your disposition is the most important single factor for living en-joyably, regardless of whether you are rich or poor, smiled or frowned upon by fortune...
...The whole affair naturally loses interest and grows stale for both of them...
...Giving expression to impulses may not make you popular, but it should make you happy...
...They have heard tales about the pains of childbirth...
...In the final analysis, a good disposition is based on a certain philosophy of life, which the person may hold without ever consciously expressing it...
...Revel in the fact you are rid of your impulses...
...The woman who never has a climax simply has never been loved by the right man, in the right way, at the right time...
...For her to realize a pgiax she must have (1) built up fiherself the physical need for sex-pi release, (2) she must feel that a Spiritual oneness exists with the Jnate, and (3) the husband's climax must be delayed long enough for her t© build up to hers...
...of course, they don't marry some egocentric, immature crown of thorns...
...The doctor finds that one of the most common immaturities giving men emotionally induced illness is an unpleasant disposition...
...The wholly "uninhibited" person could not be allowed to exist as a free agent in society any more than a child can be allowed absolutely free reign...
...In its essence, the philosophy of a person with a good disposition runs something like this: It is a good feeling just to be alive...
...General fatigue affects her response very much more, and during the busy child-rearing years she is not always able to meet her husband as enthusiastically as he would like...
...Sexual intimacy is neither dirty, sordid, nor wrong unless it occurs under sordid, wrong circumstances...
...Enlightened selfishness on the part of the man will tell him that he can achieve high sexual enjoyment in marriage only if his wife can...
...The book became a national best seller with sales exceeding half a million copies...
...It is far easier to pick out a good husband in the first place...
...she regards the act of coitus as the embodiment of that affection, that spiritual love, and that oneness, and not merely the physical relief of a physical desire...
...He views her in the double hal^ of a mystic mother-wife...
...The family is the center of your living...
...The little routine difficulties in our everyday life are really such trifling affairs they are not worth becoming upset or nasty about...
...The bigger difficulties that fate twists into our lives are best met stoically, with an attempt to illuminate the dark moment by being at least courageous and maintaining our equanimity, and by keeping, if at all possible, a sense of kind humor toward oneself and others...
...to them you owe your loyalty, your greatest consideration, and everything you have...
...Some parents try to solve the practical problem of protecting the daughter by planting vague but dreadful fears of men and of any kind of sex activity...
...She needs only to remember to be as much mother as wife...
...To be durable and satisfying, the pattern of one's sexual life must be created within the pattern of total companionship with one person of the other sex, to whom we can give our complete, undivided, and fundamental love...
...her husband's affection needs to be apparent...
...They insist that a person must remain juvenile in expressing, saying, and doing the things he wishes to do...
...We tend to overestimate the importance of sexual compatibility and happiness in the ultimate success of a marriage...
...This article and a first instalment published in the September issue of The Progressive are adapted from that book with the permission of Dr...
...There is no wealth nor pleasure to equal it...
...The success of your family will depend on the degree of mature cooperation and consideration the members of the family can develop among themselves...
...The wonderful thing about human beings is that once they become aware of what they need to live more successfully, they possess the ability to learn...
...by knowing enough to let tremendous trifles remain trifles, by turning the adversity of defeat into a victory of equanimity and calm acceptance, by lifting each moment from the level of the dull and the ordinary to heights which give them meaning and interest, and by keeping a song in her heart when lesser people are moaning with self-pity...
...Schindler and Prentice-Hall, Inc...
...A mellow disposition is hardly ever found without a considerable degree of maturity of other varieties...
...Even the general tenor of her day has much to do with her sexual mood...
...It is the one way in this...
...It is very possible that they can still work it out...
...Sexual experience between a husband and wife can be as creative and as beautiful as they are capable of making it, and it can be maintained through the years as the most precious part of their life together...
...To most grooms the womas&tjff| of his wife has almost a sacred qu|| ity...
...Consequently difficulties, antagonisms, and resentments increase until they constitute a threat to their marital relation...
...As one husband remarked (more discerningly than he realized), "My wife will have intercourse only when everything has gone well during the day...
...If you are impelled to tell your boss he is an unbearable fool and a stuffed shirt, you must tell him so, and not suffer with a repressed impulse...
...and finally, one never benefits oneself without at the same time benefiting others...
...She must practically be wooed every time...
...that it is actually immoral for a woman to enjoy coitus, and doubly immoral to show the husband she enjoys it, or ever to show her desire by making the initial move...
...Something is wrong with the psychological outlook and attitude of one of them, or of both of them...
...To her it is more meaningful than a passing whim...
...The root of the matter is simply that the selfish, egocentric attitude does not pay off...
...He also finds that the most common single stress a woman experiences in marriage is having a husband with such a childish and volatile disposition...
...Conditioning fears that sex is dangerous...
...They have no inkling of an idea that it might be otherwise for the wife, or that it can be on a more meaningful level for them...
...The general impression conveyed to many children through the few hesitant remarks parents make about sex is that everything about sex is dirty, sordid, and wrong...
...It requires nothing more than such nearness to awaken his sexual desires and stimulate his reproductive organs...
...The misconception of the woman's passive role...
...Schindler, chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine of the Monroe, Wisconsin Clinic, has now written a new book, Woman's Guide to Better Living, published by Prentice-Hall, Inc...
...whatever brings good to other people benefits oneself...
...Since maturity can be defined only in terms of effective living, that is to say happy living, the whole of maturity can be summarized by the two things which Bertrand Russell said a person needed to be happy: First, one must have as wide and deep an interest in things and in people as possible...
...They believe that inhibitions imposed by society or oneself produce inner conflicts, and it is these conflicts that make people unhappy, anxious, and tense...
...Conditioning girls that sex is painful and unpleasant...
...It is part of a mature perspective to appreciate that there are differences between a man's and a woman's sexual needs, ease of sexual arousal, circumstances of arousal, and reactions during intercourse...
...But there is infinitely more to it than that...
...The trouble with a lot of love is that it is mostly sex and very little friendship...
...Most men grow up to think of sexual intercourse largely as a matter of high enjoyment, and marriage as a nightly spree of sexual indulgence...
...What her husband's attitude has been during the day has much to do with her receptivity...
...A frank assessment and discussion between themselves or with an understanding physician or counselor will help...
...But cultivating a pleasant disposition is an excellent place to begin maturing...
...Because it is such an ineffective attitude for handling adult life, egoism produces our greatest troubles—whether it operates at the domestic level in a family, at the community level in a village, town, or city, or at the national or inteft national . The boomerang in Ugoism is that the world is so constructed that what produces trouble for other people brings trouble to oneself...
...Their sex life is entirely and completely their private concern, and whatever brings mutual pleasure is good...
...It is a matter of attaining insight and vision enough to see that choleric attitudes, anger, meanness, low moods, and anxiety add nothing to any moment except more unnecessary troubles...
...They have been severely punished for childhood infractions of sex tabus...
...To keep sexual interest in each other alive, and to give fullness and richness to requiting each other's needs, there is the same necessity here for creative expression and new experience that there is in any other aspect of life...
...For some women sexual intercourse may be painful at first, and for an indefinite time...
...If it isn't, you've gone far astray...
...Girls are often indoctrinated with this idea more strongly than boys, since girls receive much more family instruction in the tabus than do boys...
...The people fortunate enough to have been conditioned to the maturity of enlightened selfishness have everything, even if they are poor in material possessions...
...Almost any person can acquire a credible degree of maturity even relatively late in life by knowing what the maturities are and becoming aware of the immaturities he has carried over from childhood...
...It is desirable that she does reach a climax at least some of the time...
...It is also the simplest and most direct way to make the people you live with miserable...
...But it isn't Me determining factor that many .••oouples think it is...
...Be glad you are Sot the executive type, all of whom are horribly inhibited, are beyond Mp in fact...
...Conditioned reluctance to discuss sexual difficulties...
...Many girls are conditioned to associate all sex matters with pain...
...Even the uninhibited person who stays on the safe side of the police will make more trouble for himself in the long run than the experiment is worth...
...Living in a family rich with such attitudes is the finest experience a child can have...
...Many a day may have its difficulties, but none is so bad that a cheerful disposition can't make something of it, and no day is so good that a rotten disposition can't ruin it completely and turn it into a day that wasn't even worth getting up for...
...When affection and the other qualities of friendship are added to the natural body functions of sex, the physical and psychological experience that emerges is the thing for which the human race has coined such terms as "beautiful," "supreme," "sublime," and "ultimate...
...The man's sexual outlook is much more simple and direct, much more physical, than is the woman's...
...Similarly, the easiest way to turn your life into a reasonably happy experience is to cultivate a cheerful, pleasant disposition...
Vol. 21 • October 1957 • No. 10
