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Joy

Psychology

9 October 2024

5 min read

Dopamine-ing ourselves dilutes the real power of joy

Ditch being happy all the time.

Natalie Garrett

Natalie produces and narrates The Seen & Unseen Aloud podcast. She's an Anglican minister and a trained actor.

Cartoon character Joy looks up with arms held open.

Inside Out's Joy.

Disney.

As I write this, I’m looking out of my window at endless grey. It has been raining almost constantly for several days. The garden is waterlogged, the apples are going mouldy on the tree and my dog, who has just come in, is sitting next to me and smelling of, well, wet dog. And it all looks pretty gloomy.

One of my most climbed upon soap boxes is the oppressive myth of our age/western culture that we are all supposed to be happy all the time. If we’re not living our best life and posting photos of our happiness on social media, then shame on us. There seems to be a socially acceptable dopamine addiction running rampant – each swipe, like and tweet feeding our habit.

As someone who lives with the albatross of depression weighing constantly around my neck, I find this compulsory pursuit of very public happiness somewhat trying. And call me Eeyore if you will, but I’d like to point out that sometimes it rains and there isn’t a rainbow. Just puddles.

There is a place for sorrow and disappointment and frustration in real life, and dopamine-ing ourselves out of those experiences dilutes the real power of joy.

I haven’t watched the new Inside Out film yet (See Henna Cundill’s great article on it) but the first one is a firm family favourite. It’s so deeply insightful and brilliantly unDisney. For anyone who hasn’t watched it yet, it’s a Disney animation of the adventures of the five core emotions (Fear, Anger, Joy, Disgust and Sadness) belonging to a young girl coping with moving with her parents to live in a new city.

Happiness is candy floss and joy is a strong cup of tea.

The main character is Joy. And she’s all about the happy. She refuses to allow Riley (the girl whose emotions they are) to be anything but happy. And that’s the set-up of the film. Joy fighting against the odds to keep Riley happy, even when she’s going through some really tough life stuff. And by the end of the film, it’s Joy who has grown because she recognises that Sadness has an important role in Riley’s life and that when Sadness takes the lead, Joy can join in, honestly, unsentimentally and sincerely.

I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed seeing Joy’s bouncy, oppressive positivity being acknowledged as really annoying.

The real strength of the film is that Joy grows from a character that I would call Happy into real Joy. Because, based on no good reasons at all, I have always thought of Joy as a more mature relative to happiness. To me, happiness is lighter, frothier and joy has greater depth and robustness. Happiness is candy floss and joy is a strong cup of tea. Happiness is still naïve while joy has been around the block a few times yet still hangs in there. Happiness is a powerful feeling that eclipses all else. Joy is mature enough to be in the same room as Sadness.

You see, I also think of joy as a choice, not just a happy feeling. Like thousands of other people, I have benefited hugely from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) which says that while you can’t choose your feelings, you can choose your thoughts. And it turns out that our feelings are reactions to our thoughts, not the other way around.

For instance, if you are woken up in the middle of the night by a loud crash, how would you feel? If you feel scared, it’s probably because your first thought is that a burglar has broken into your home. If you turn over and go back to sleep, it’s probably because you know that the cat has knocked something off the kitchen table, again. Our feelings come after our thoughts, not the other way around. Which changes everything.

We can’t tell ourselves to be happy, to be excited, to not be afraid. But we can choose our thoughts, what we allow to dwell in our minds. The pursuit of happiness then becomes about training the mind rather than mindlessly reaching for the next “feel good” dopamine hit.

Joy grows up. She starts out bubblegum-happy-at-all-costs-annoying. And she matures into someone who’s patient and compassionate and strong.

CBT rose to fame, as it were, during the latter years of the twentieth century and more recently, a lot of research has gone into the correlation of CBT within diverse religious frameworks, including Judaism, Taoism and predominantly, Christianity. The evidence suggests that religious belief has considerable positive impact on mental well-being and psychology. It seems that there is real joy to be found in the Unseen.

And I don’t think that’s a surprise. The Bible is full of CBT once you start looking for it. For example, St Paul wrote a letter to a church in Philippi, while he was chained up in a prison cell. I think it’s fair to say he wasn’t Insta-ready yet he says (italicised translation my own) "I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of living my best life in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” Isn’t that a secret we’d all like to learn? How to have real joy that is completely independent from our circumstances?

St Paul is not saying don’t worry, be happy. He isn’t saying pretend everything is ok, put your head in the sand and act as if you haven’t a care in the world. He is far more realistic than that. He knows better than most people that real life is very complicated and often very painful. He’s saying that whatever our circumstances, we have a choice. A choice to let ourselves drown in anxiety and sorrow or to fill our minds with, “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” He is of course talking about the goodness and faithfulness of God and what pours out as a result of God’s lovingkindness. When I fill my mind, when I choose to think about such things, it means there is less room for despair and Joy has the space to dance.

And this is why I think Inside Out is so good. Joy grows up. She starts out bubblegum-happy-at-all-costs-annoying. And she matures into someone who’s patient and compassionate and strong. Joy can hold you while you give airtime to Sadness, Disgust, Fear and even Anger. And she’s there to celebrate and commiserate with you when that’s done. This may not meet the need for a party-popper-emoji-style happiness, but I for one say, Yes, please, can I have some of that?

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Justice

Leading

Politics

7 July 2025

5 min read

The consequences of truth-telling are so severe our leaders can’t admit their mistakes

When accountability means annihilation, denial is the only way to survive

Leah Brown

Leah is a campaigner for restorative practices and founder of The WayFinders Group.

Baroness Casey.

BBC.

Why do our leaders struggle so profoundly with admitting error?

Media and inquiries regularly report on such failures in the NHS, the Home Office, the Department of Work and Pensions, HMRC, the Metropolitan Police, the Ministry of Defence, and so many more public institutions. Often accompanied by harrowing personal stories of the harm done.

In a recent white paper (From harm to healing: rebuilding trust in Britain’s publicly funded institutions), I defined “harm” as a holistic concept occurring where physical injury or mental distress is committed and sustained and explained that harm is generally something that is caused, possibly resulting in injury or loss of life.

When we look at harm from an institutional perspective, structural power dynamics inevitably oppress certain groups, limit individual freedoms, and negatively affect the safety and security of individuals. But when we look at it through the lens of the individuals who run those institutions, we see people who often believe that they are acting in good faith, believe that their decisions won’t have a significant impact, who don’t have time to think about the decisions they are making, or worse still, prefer to protect what is in their best interest.

Even well-intentioned leaders can become complicit in cycles of harm - not just through malice, but through their lack of self-awareness and unwillingness to put themselves in the shoes of the person on the receiving end of their decisions.

Martin Luther King Jr supposedly said, “the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” In contemporary politics, leaders are neither selected nor (largely) do they remain, because of their humility. Humility is synonymous with weakness and showing weakness must be avoided at all cost. Responsibility is perceived as something that lies outside of us, rather than something we can take ownership of from within.

So, why do leaders struggle so profoundly with admitting error?

The issue is cultural and three-fold.

First, we don’t quantify or systematically address human error, allowing small mistakes to escalate.

We then enable those responsible to evade accountability through institutional protection and legal barriers.

Finally, we actively discourage truth-telling by punishing whistle-blowers rather than rewarding transparency. Taken together, these create the very conditions that transform errors into institutional harm.

Nowhere is this plainer than in Baroness Casey’s recent report on Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse that caused the Government to announce a grooming gangs inquiry. In this case, the initial harm was compounded by denial and obfuscation, resulting not just in an institutional failure to protect children, but system-wide failures that have enabled the so-called “bad actors” to remain in situ.

Recently, this trend was bucked at Countess of Chester Hospital where the police arrested three hospital managers involved in the Lucy Letby investigation. Previously, senior leadership had been protected, thus allowing them to evade accountability. Humble leadership would look like acting when concerns are raised before they become scandals. However, in this case, leadership did act; they chose to bury the truth rather than believe the whistle-blowers.

Until we separate admission of error from institutional destruction, we will continue to incentivise the very cover-ups that erode public trust.

The answer to our conundrum is obvious. In Britain, accountability is conflated with annihilation. Clinging onto power is the only option because admitting error has become synonymous with career suicide, legal liability, and is tantamount to being hanged in the gallows of social media. We have managed to create systems of governing where the consequences of truth-telling are so severe that denial is the only survival mechanism left. We have successfully weaponised accountability rather than understanding it as the foundation of trust.

If Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council had admitted even half of the failures Alexis Jay OBE identified in her 2013 report and that Baroness Casey identifies in her 2025 audit, leaders would face not only compensation claims but media storms, regulatory sanctions, and individual prosecutions. It’s so unthinkable to put someone through that that we shrink back with empathy as to why someone might not speak up. But this is not justice. Justice is what the families of Hillsborough have been seeking in the Public Authority (Accountability) Bill: legal duties of candour, criminal offences for those who deliberately mislead investigations or cover-up service failures, legal representation, and appropriate disclosure of documentation.

Regardless of your political persuasion, it has to be right that when police misconduct occurs, officers should fear not only disciplinary action and criminal charges. When politicians admit mistakes, they should face calls for their resignation. Public vilification is par for the course. Being ejected from office is the bare minimum required to take accountability for their actions.

The white paper shows that the cover-up always causes more damage than the original error. Institutional denial - whether relating to the Post Office sub-postmasters, the infected blood scandal victims, grooming gang victims, Grenfell Towers victims, Windrush claimants, or Hillsborough families - compounds the original harm exponentially.

In a society beset with blame, shame, and by fame, it is extraordinary that this struggle to admit error is so pervasive. Survivors can and will forgive human fallibility. What they will not forgive is the arrogance of institutions that refuse to acknowledge when they have caused harm.

The white paper refers to a four-fold restorative framework that starts with acknowledgment, not punishment. The courage to say “we were wrong” is merely the first step. Next is apology and accountability followed by amends. It recognises that healing - not just legal resolution - must be at the heart of justice, treating both those harmed and those who caused it as whole human beings deserving of dignity.

Until we separate admission of error from institutional destruction, we will continue to incentivise the very cover-ups that erode public trust. I was recently struck by Baroness Onora O’Neill who insisted that we must demand trustworthiness in our leaders. We cannot have trustworthiness without truth-telling, and we cannot have that without valuing the act of repairing harm over reputation management. True authority comes from service, through vulnerability rather than invulnerability; strength comes through the acknowledgement of weakness not the projection of power.

We must recognise that those entrusted with power have a moral obligation to those they serve. That obligation transcends institutional self-interest. Thus, we must stop asking why leaders struggle to admit error and instead ask why we have made truth-telling so dangerous that lies seem safer.