Disneyland Knows We’re Afraid
How the Happiest Place on Earth taught me that finding joy is as simple as losing my fear.
This month I finally lived my dream — I visited behind the scenes at Disneyland, “the happiest place on earth.” Tens of millions of people come to Disneyland annually, each hoping to experience their own piece of joy, but very few get to see “backstage.” (No pictures were allowed.)
Over 20,000 people work year-round to keep Disneyland happy. Controlling every aspect of the park for so many visitors is no easy task, and tremendous expense and manpower goes into making sure everything runs perfectly. The scale and perfection of the operation is incredible.
Halfway into my tour, watching thousands of smiling employees rushing around the park, completely immersed in their work and their mission, I suddenly understood the magic behind the park. And knowing the trick only made me appreciate the magic more.
Disneyland’s magic is in eliminating our fear, not our sadness.
At Disneyland everything is kept the same — we do not fear change. They use familiar characters — we do not fear the unknown. They run everything like clockwork — we don’t fear the unexpected. They understand that the opposite of joy is fear, not sadness — and joy arises in the absence of our fears.
With this understanding I was able to complete a mental model I’d started building years before as a younger, unhappier man. And as I completed that model, I finally knew why joy had eluded me for so long.
Fixing My Broken Models
I have always wanted to be happy. At certain times I also wanted to be rich, or famous, or well-liked, or attractive, but I always wanted to be happy. When I was younger, I tried to pursue happiness directly by creating as many happy moments as I could. When that was not enough, I tried eliminating sadness. Many of my friends used drugs or distractions, but it never brought them the depth of happiness or meaning they sought.
In those younger years, we were all working off the same flawed mental model of happiness. In this model, Happy/Sad, there is a linear spectrum between happiness and sadness, a single axis of feeling.
For kids in my generation who grew up hearing how smart and talented they were, good grades were happy and poor grades were sad. Success was happy and failure was sad. Anything that sustained my mental model of myself made me happy, and I just really, really wanted to be happy. I took fewer chances and easier classes. I had comfortable friends and avoided arguments. I pleased people for too long.
No matter how many happy moments I had, they could not inoculate me against sadness. The sadness would creep in exactly when it shouldn’t — when I was with friends or family, when I had accomplished something, when I tried to create art. It was the persistence of this sadness that finally made me realize the truth: the Happy/Sad model was wrong.
So I updated my mental model. It is only recently that I have been able to find words or images for this change — nothing was explicit at the time. I have come to identify the new model as the Pleasure/Pain model.
I saw that what I had called happiness was simply emotional pleasure, andpleasure was anything that confirmed the way I saw myself and the world. Did I get a good grade? That confirmed I was smart. Did my friend say something I agreed with? That confirmed we were both smart. Did someone else say something hurtful, or surprising, or challenging? That was emotionally painful for me, and I had been avoiding that discomfort.
Because everything I read, or heard, or understood was compared against this internal model of myself and the world, pain and pleasure were entirely subjective. As I eliminated emotionally and physically painful moments from my life, I established a mental image of myself as a “happy person.” Any moment that I experienced new pain or discomfort, it challenged this mental image. It took less and less pain to hurt me, and more and more pleasure to sustain me.
I realized I was stuck in a one-dimensional, self-defeating emotional world. I became aware of the necessary existence of something else beyond this axis, something vastly more fulfilling. Some of my friends perceived this as well, and in the following years many found causes, faiths, or people they found meaningful. But later in life, as my friends learned new truths about these causes, faiths, and people, they became more lost than before and searched desperately for new meaning.
So what were they missing? What had I missed?
Understanding Fear and Joy
Two hours into my tour of Disneyland, strolling down the nineteenth gleaming street and waving to the hundredth friendly costumed character, I finally understood the magic of “the happiest place on earth.” They hadn’t eliminated sadness or created unique pleasure. In that moment, I found the words that completed my third model — Joy/Fear.
There was another axis, not of emotional or physical pleasure and pain, but one that gave real depth to life. Experiencing pleasure and pain moved me sideways. They existed only relative to each other. But joy and fear were absolute.
By creating an immersive world where spectacles run on the hour like clockwork, where you are surrounded by familiar characters and family, Disneyland is not simply creating happiness or minimizing our pain. It is deliberately eliminating fear. It removes the possibility of anything going wrong, of disappointing us. It creates a safe, spectacular reality and allows us to inhabit it fully. And behind the scenes, Disneyland works incredibly hard to make sure everything always runs the way it should. Actors alwaysstay in character, and the shows always run. If they could control the weather, they would — and maybe someday they will.
But it turns out that life isn’t Disneyland. We can’t control the world around us or fabricate entire internal realities that fully explain it, try as we might. We can’t completely eliminate our fearful moments. However, we can control how we approach life, and how we understand our fears.
I realized that I hadn’t been avoiding the pain of failure — I was afraid ofbeing a failure. I wasn’t avoiding the pain of arguments — I was afraid of losing them. I wasn’t avoiding the pain of classes — I was afraid of never understanding. And I was definitely afraid of confronting or examining any of these fears.
I realized that all the moments of true joy in my life occurred when I was able to eliminate my fear, not my pain.
Visiting new countries was not always easy or pleasurable, but it cured my fear of the unknown. Quitting my job was beyond uncomfortable, but it cured my fear of making my own decisions. Falling in love was emotionally difficult, but it cured my fear of being vulnerable. And in the absence of that fear, joy arose.
Now I see this same joy/fear model everywhere. Why do games bring me joy? Games let me exist without fear of failure. If I die or make a mistake, I can always play or try again. The game world is controlled, so I don’t fear the unexpected. Why does religion bring so many joy? It removes the fear of being alone, of being unloved, of death. In the absence of these fears, a pronounced sense of joy can exist.
But we don’t need games, religion, or Disneyland to begin to eliminate our fears. We can begin by deeply examining our lives and ourselves without theme parks or faith. What do we avoid out of fear of failing? What do we say out of fear of being wrong? What do we do or think out of fear of the unknown? What do we fear that we might lose?
Can all our fears be removed? It seems unlikely, and of course some fears are healthy and well-founded. But I have seen many of my fears for what they really are — self-inflicted wounds, and the only things that stand between me and the joy in my life. Why fear losing what must eventually be lost? Why fear never understanding what can’t be fully explained?
So if you don’t live in Anaheim, or if you don’t have time or money for a vacation, you need not worry. Just take a few minutes of your day and ask yourself — what is it that I fear? What really stands in the way of my joy?
The answer may echo back — nothing at all.
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