Posted by Mark H. on April 15, 2000, at 1:05:29
In reply to Suicide, posted by In Need on April 13, 2000, at 22:58:48
I emphatically disagree with your premise that joy or happiness is dependent on fortunate circumstances. Nothing could be further from true. The mind is an interesting toy, but when it breaks it tends to suck. Fortunately, it can be tricked. If you compulsively repeat "I have everything I need to be happy right now" about 500 times (which after all, isn't that many times), and say it with some conviction -- as though you believed it were true -- it WILL have a positive effect on your mood, even if it's just to make you chuckle with dark irony that something so banal and artificial can actually manipulate your consciousness.
At one of the lower points in my life I was sitting outside in a freezing rain with five other guys making far less than minimum wage to set reinforcement bar for a new concrete slab at a rural fire station. We couldn't feel the wire because of the cold, and we were tearing our hands to shreds twisting it around the rough re-bar. We were all bleeding all over the frigging place, shaking and hardly able to see. It was degrading and miserable and totally unnecessary.
So in a moment of madness, I said, "I'm having the most fun I've ever had in my life. I can't think of a more fulfilling work experience! I'm a firefighter for the State of California, and I'm sitting in puddle setting rebar in a freezing downpour. This is really, really fun." etc.
Well, the weird thing was that it worked! Somehow, we all started laughing and enjoying ourselves, and we got up out of our pissy misery and pity and finished the awful job. We succeeded in tricking our minds, even when our conditions hadn't changed.
Happiness -- sadness -- joy -- depression: it's all an illusion. Try not to take any of it too seriously. Happiness is hard work, not a by-product of fortunate circumstances. Most of the truly miserable people I know have plenty of good fortune, while a surprising number of my homeless acquaintances actually are happier than some of my colleagues at work. Go figure.
All is impermanent. When we're young, that idea scares us. When we're old (or suffering, as you are) it offers us comfort. One of the symptoms of depression is the illusion that you have always felt this way and always will. Someday you will not be depressed, and then you will hardly be able to believe that you felt the way you do today. For now, you just have to take my word for it.
It's worth waiting around to see what changes next. Please keep us posted -- most of us have been where you are.
Respectfully,
Mark H.
poster:Mark H.
thread:29931
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000411/msgs/30057.html