Against Happiness
I just read the book Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy by Eric G. Wilson. (It was a gift from Christina and Christoph - I guess my adventures in wallowing are not going unnoticed!) I liked most parts of it, like the ones where he says not to try to cut sadness out of your life with medication, but rather feel all of your feelings to the utmost, even melancholia. He says sometimes the most brilliant masterpieces have resulted when people felt sad. Happiness doesn't seem to breed the same creativity. That off-kilter feeling is what drives people to take action, push boundaries, somehow harness their discontent to produce brilliance.
The problem is, my melancholy is crippling. What will spur me into action? How long do I have to suffer inside before I do something worthwhile? Will I be one of the millions and millions who just complain but never do anything about it? So far it looks like yes. I'll let you know if anything changes.
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I read this book, too---and really liked it. I always felt weird for being serious and solemn and "down" and "too thinky" and melancholy. I know exactly what you mean, Ginger---but I don't know what to tell you.
I will say, though, that your very suggestion of "...before I do something worthwhile" is an unnecessarily harsh judgment of yourself. I know you're not as mean and hyper-critical and judgmental of your friends and family as you are of yourself---why not cut yourself some slack, too? You're doing worthwhile things every day, even if they weren't the things you thought you'd be accomplishing when you were a naive, idealistic, stupid school kid (like we all were). Hey: I was gonna be a best-selling author of at least 5 books, happily married with 3 children, and living on acreage at a hobby farm in the mountains by the time I was 30. Oops...I guess I'm just a miserable failure :)
Can you answer this question: what do you want to do?
Ginger, I have to agree with Rachel and say that no one is harder on you than yourself. Having goals are good, but you also can't beat yourself up every time you come just a little short of those goals. That does not mean that you are a failure for not meeting the goals completely, it just means that you needed a little bit more time. In the grand scheme of things... so what?!
I had tried this with some of my clients before and it was successful with the ones that actually did it, so I am going to suggest it... I would like you to write down 5 different things that you consider as accomplishments everyday. I want you to keep adding to the list, and don't stop writing them down. No matter how small this accomplishment is... Even if it just mean that you played with your dog for an hour and you felt good. I want you to keep that list and refer back to your list every night. The reason why I want you to write it down is because I want you to be able to refer back to it and you could look at it. Over time, I want you to extend that list to 7 things, then to 10 things. I hope this little exercise would help you...
If you ever need to just talk, you know how to find me :) Love ya, girl...
if you don't like your life, change it. seriously.
i've found that it's not the things that you do that you come to regret - it's the things that you don't do.
the only thing worse than failure is to never try anything. yeah, failure bites, but a static existence would REALLY suck.
and yeah, i'm writing this happily married, with a beautiful son, from my mountain hobby farm (sorry rachel, if it helps, i am older than 30).
- missy