All right. Sometimes it's impossible not to feel sad, because of circumstances that are overwhelming in one's life. Someone close dying. Lack of funds for important things. The troubles of friends. Illness. Sometimes we are just sad. It's inevitable. Notice I avoid the word 'depressed,' which I feel is bandied about all too much in our strange culture. Every other ad on TV, in magazines, etc, is directed to depressed people, and promises that a certain drug will fix it. Nobody is allowed to be sad anymore. It's as if the very word has dropped out of our vocabulary. Everyone says, "I'm depressed," whenever they wake up feeling less than perky. When really, they are just sad. Not that depression isn't real, but it's a clinical condition. I fail to see how 59% of the population can have the same clinical condition. If 59% of the people in the US woke up one day with, say, shingles, wouldn't it seem odd? Wouldn't we question how that happened? Shouldn't we be questioning the docs and the drug companies that subsidize them about how this happened, and is it true, anyway?
Excuse my rant. Jumped the track a little. In any case, it's OK to be sad. I give you permission. I'm sad right now because of various factors, but I know I won't be in the future. Things will get better. I'll be happy, at least a few hours a day. Half a day. For days at a stretch. This is just what happens, and I recognize it now. It's a function of aging, I think, realizing that things do eventually change for the better. And instead of moaning about how nothing's ever going to get better, as I used to do when I was younger, I try to focus on how things can be better. What improvements can I anticipate, and what might I do to push them along. Then I try to do some of those things.
So, if you feel sad, stuck, in a bad place, this week, envision how things can be better. Write/draw yourself happier. Write/draw the good things in your life so you don't forget things like, whoa, you're still breathing! Be grateful for the small things. I'll try, too.
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1 comment:
I love this post and I really agree with it. It does seem like the word "sad" has been wiped right out of of our vocabulary. It sounds very old-fashioned to me now that I'm thinking about it. And I can't remember the last time I heard anyone say they were feeling sad. I think we should start a campaign to bring back the use of "sad". Keep blogging, I'm "happy reading your posts"... even when they're sad.
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