Sadness thoughts and rants

In this country, we believe in the right to pursue happiness. However, the pursuit of happiness is a difficult task to undertake if one does not understand the very concept of happiness. I doubt myself, my world, my existence. I try to talk to my friends about these doubts. Their well-intentioned idea of comforting me was telling me that I had a great family life, a good home, many talents, and a sweet spirit. They told me I should not feel sad because I had been greatly blessed. I agreed with them, knowing I had so much for which to be grateful. It was stupid to be sad. Nevertheless, the feelings remained. I told myself to never talk about them because it did not seem like they mattered. I felt that I had no right to be depressed, despite my uncertainty in my ability to find joy.Since then, time has passed, I have grown up, and the sadness still consumes me.

I am a friend of many whose emotional states echo that of the one I once had. I am a confidante, trusted with their stories because I can understand. Oftentimes, my sad friends pour out their feelings and then express guilt for them, saying they have no right to feel the way they do, like the comfort of their homes should be all that matters. I have never hesitated to tell them that the worst they can do is to keep their feelings to themselves. Doing that, they have the potential to let the sadness eat them through. There is more to life than a lack of shelter, stability, or what most people will look at from the outside and call the “perfect family.” People are different, needs are different; as such, there is really no accurate way to compare people to each other, and the reasons for depression are always different. Besides, life is, after all, very difficult to endure and understand at times. Thus, all people have a “right” to be sad. In fact, sadness affects many people. For most of them, it is actually a process of finding out why happiness exists.This process of finding happiness can be tedious and difficult. In my personal experiences with the subject, I have found that there is one factor that most cases of depression have in common—uncertainty. Many families endure problems of which non-family members never know; sometimes people strive to be the popular definition of “perfect” rather than becoming the person God intended him or her to be; some people have been abused or neglected; many feel that there should be more to his or her life than the immediate surroundings; altogether too many consider themselves to be nothing more than awful burdens to others. I have seen each of these scenarios; they are real, and any one of them could dishearten anyone. All those who are sad worry that they are not going about life the right way. All of them wish to find happiness but are unsure of where to look. It goes far beyond having a warm bed, food, and shelter. The homiest places in the world cannot make up for total lack in a sense of purpose and self-worth. The human body requires constant temporal nourishment, but the human soul is more eternal; it is not kept alive by bread, water, or blankets. It is kept alive by love and hope. When love and hope are lost, nothing is left to motivate a person to be strong and keep living. The sad become the way they do because for their own personal reasons, they lose all sense of purpose.

No one can say those people have no right to be sad. That is like telling a crying child in the middle of the woods that he or she has no right to be lost because he or she has a map. By saying that, one makes the assumption that the child knows how to read the map. Sadness does not make a person stupid—it makes a person lost. The reason that it is a “right” is because there is nothing else it can be; when it happens, it happens. Attempting to simply banish it by saying it should not be there is not the same as actually curing it. If ignored, it remains.Now that it has been established that sadness is a human right, it must nevertheless be made clear that the behavior of the depressed ought to never be excused. There are those who take out their frustrations on others in various ways, such as physical or verbal abuse, because they cannot think clearly enough to realize that there are more productive outlets, and besides that, they feel that they need something or someone to blame—a reason (which takes us back to uncertainty). There are those who hurt themselves, for they figure that by dealing with a greater pain than what they feel in their hearts, they may eventually become numb to pain altogether or because they believe they deserve as much pain as possible. Hurting oneself usually indicates a desire to escape or a belief that if they do not punish themselves correctly, no one will. There are those who shut themselves away and give the cold shoulder to anyone who might try to help because of pride, lack of trust, or not wanting to be an inconvenience. By no means do I wish to convey that any of these actions in response to sadness are acceptable. By spreading, numbing, or hiding the pain, the soul does not find the comfort it so desperately desires. It instead makes the situation worse, for rather than being dispelled, the pain is merely converted to different forms. It is not morally wrong to feel sad, but it is morally wrong to use the sadness as an excuse for poor conduct. Anyone has a right to be sad but not to deal with the sadness in any remotely harmful way.

There are ways to deal with depression. In the most drastic cases, therapy of some kind is recommended. However, in most instances, the teamwork of friends and family is required. While it is true that people have the ability to determine their own attitudes, no one can deny the influences of other people. The sad need to feel loved and understood; by feeling a sense of hope, they can feel more inspired to reach out and serve others. Likewise, if a sad person were to initiate the service, he or she would find service knocking at his or her own door as well. To love and be loved—both concepts go hand in hand. They inspire each other; each is caused by the other. At its deepest roots, depression is usually a natural self-absorption, a preoccupied and unhealthy anxiety about one’s life; it makes sense, then, that the cure would be selflessness, both given and received. The act of serving cannot help but inspire great spiritual growth. When there are so many different possible ways to heal, no sad person has the right to be selfish and hurtful. That would be like the child lost in the woods crying about being unable to read his or her map when he or she refuses to listen to someone trying to teach him or her how to use it. The sad must seek help both from others and from themselves; otherwise, they risk always being lost.After all, sadness is about trying to find a way to live, not being stupid or troublesome.

Do not tell a depressed person that he or she ought to appreciate his or her blessings; gratitude or lack thereof usually is not the issue. Sadness is simply the absence of happiness; happiness comes from many sources, but the most basic, common denominator is love, hope, and meaning. When found, however, the concept of self-worth is understood at a far greater scale than before. Once sadness is comprehended and cured, happiness is deep and all the more wonderful. Surely, like all people have the right to be sad, they have the right to pursue happiness as well.