It’s Normal (And Important) To Feel Sad Sometimes
Take a minute and picture this situation in your mind. Your fairy godmother grants your wish for the perfect life. You live in the perfect house, you have everything you could possibly want with a clap of your hands, anything you could ever wish for just instantly appears. Really think about what this would be like. How long do you think you would be happy in this perfect world? The answer for most of us if we are really honest is not very long.
The research backs me up on this one, and it’s probably not hard to think of examples of how having everything can backfire. The actor or athlete that makes millions of dollars, so basically everything they want is available with a snap of their fingers. But we see them and they’re unhappy. Maybe they are drinking or using drugs, or their acting like jerks so they’re losing family and friends. Or they’re struggling with depression and anxiety. They have it all on the outside, but they are miserable.
There are a few reasons why this happens but the one I want to talk about today is why we can’t always be happy. If you think about it this makes sense. In order to truly feel happiness we have to understand sadness. If we were always happy, our brains would have nothing to compare it to and eventually we would lose that happiness. Think about happiness like a jolt that your brain gets. Every time we feel truly happy or excited our brain gets a jolt of positivity. If that jolt was happening all the time, it was a constant stream, eventually our brains would get used to it, so we wouldn’t feel happy. We wouldn’t feel that jolt of excitement anymore.
It is a lie that we tell ourselves that we need to be happy all the time. No we don’t. And actually, we need to have some times where we are sad, or angry, or frustrated so that our minds can truly appreciate what happiness is. Our brains need a goal to strive for, so if we go through life having everything handed to us with the magical wave of the wand, it’s not good for our brains.
Next time you’re having a really bad day and maybe you’re feeling really crappy, take a moment and really feel that negative emotion. Maybe it’s sadness, maybe it’s sorrow, maybe it’s anger, maybe it’s frustration. What ever the negative emotion is, remind yourself of this. My brain needs to feel this negative so that the next time something amazing happens to me I know how amazing it is. I know what happiness feels like, because I’ve been to that negative place of sadness so I will appreciate the happiness more. This negative feeling is going to help my brain kickstart in the right direction towards where I want to go. We are building mental strength every time we work through a tough time, so the joy on the other side feels twice as nice.