I just finished reading Man’s Search For Meaning, by Viktor Frankl. (I should say that I just finished RE-reading it, since I’ve read it before, but thanks to the magic of old age forgetfulness, I can now re-read books I read when I was younger and it’s as if for the first time. Perk of dementia.)
Food for thought:
More and more, a psychiatrist is approached today by patients who confront him with human problems rather than neurotic symptoms.
In other words, just cuz you’re miserable does not mean you’re maladjusted. After all, life is kinda hard.
And also:
Edith Weisskopf, before her death professor of psychology at the University of Georgia, contended, in her article on logotherapy, that “our current mental hygiene philosophy stresses the idea that people ought to be happy, that unhappiness is a symptom of maladjustment. Such a value system might be responsible for the fact that the burden of unavoidable happiness is increased by unhappiness about being unhappy.”
Well said, Edith. A legend before her time.
Takeaway: It’s okay to be sad, depressed, miserable, and just generally over it sometimes. Don’t let the positivity propogandists tell you otherwise! “Mental hygiene,” ew.
So, perhaps being comfortable with being unhappy is preferable to being happy, when things are transient and wont to change that feeling to unhappiness which may be uncomfortable.