Between Rebecca Thorman’s pleas to our generation to get off our duffs, the recent cultural obsession with getting and staying happy – it’s been brought to my attention that we seem to be facing the destruction of one of our best assets and motivators. This author calls it melancholy, I might call it discontent. Whatever you call it – don’t chase it away completely. Certainly depression is a problem that can and should be remedied in hopes of becoming more well-balanced. However, a healthy dissatisfaction can point us away from the status quo, guiding us to what we need. And maybe what we need isn’t to be happy all the time. Great art, great leaders, great concepts and ideas are often born from struggle, strife, a good fight. I believe they can come from happiness and unabashed joy too. There is massive power in both.
So don’t get rid of one for the other. Learn from your sadness and your delight, use it to motivate and change yourself, your world. I have learned a lot from my father’s passing already. About myself, what makes me happy, my relationships, my creative capacity and urges. It’s unreal what is being born from the immense sadness and pain I’ve been feeling. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, but at the same time it is an incredible opportunity to learn. And I have to see it that way. If it was just dark and I stopped there I’d never find my way out, I wouldn’t change at all. I wouldn’t learn from past mistakes…and I need to, I want to.
You might be asking…but I’ve read some of your blog (you mean it?) didn’t you just get off Mad and Angry bus, er, Treadmill? Not entirely. Yes, I’ve been worn thin with the weight of the last year. Between marriage and the deaths of three close family members within weeks of each other, you’ve got to imagine why I took the wheels off my “change the world” tour. I’ll gear up again soon enough. But I’m on sabbatical right now, renewing, reading, writing. It’s healing me. Despite what I may have said.
You get to take breaks from your life missions every once in a while, regroup, re-evaluate. Also, be willing to be wrong. Are you supposed to be standing in the same space you occupied 3 years ago? A break can give you time you need to change your mind. And then when you are ready, move!
So, onward.
“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.” - Helen Keller
Did you see in my comments section James who noted that we should all have more "positive discontent"? I think that describes this idea perfectly. And I agree that you can't just be happy all the time :)
ReplyDeleteDennis Leary (of all people) said it best:
ReplyDeleteHappiness comes in small doses. It's a cigarette, an orgasm, a chocolate chip cookie. You c*m, you eat the cookie, you smoke the butt, and you wake up the next morning and go to work.
@ Rebecca - that comment does capture what I'm talking about. I think the modifier "positive" is important, it's easy to get depressed about whatever cause we are fighting for, whether it's our personal lives or issues out in the world, affecting others.
ReplyDelete@ Norcross - And here I thought Helen Keller said it best. : ) Leary does capture the sentiment. No matter who you are or what your net worth is, the life experience and the "doses" of happiness come in short fits. We don't need to grab at them...they'll fade away and come back when they do.