How many times have you trampled down your happiness because someone near you was depressed? You felt bad about being happy around someone who was so down so put a lid on your own joy. Now, is this someone depressed often? Is that their primary state of being? If so — it might be time to make a new friend. Why? Because we become like the people we hang out with. Even when you try to avoid it, depressing people steal your joy and they often don’t WANT to be happy because they find some “reward” in their depression.
You might be thinking, Why would anyone want to be depressed? What reward could they possibly get out of it? Stay with me for a second and you’ll see. Let’s take Sour Sally and put her in a situation where she’s surrounded by co-workers. Sally goes around shitting on everyone’s Cornflakes. She’s not a mean person by any means, but on some subliminal level you’ve noticed that every time Sally walks into a room, there could be ten people sitting around the table laughing and having a great ‘ole time, but when she walks in, the room suddenly goes very quiet. Sour Sally quietly pulls up a chair and sits down, and right away, some kind-hearted soul says, “Gee, Sally, what’s got you down this morning?”
Sour Sally launches into her list of all the things that are wrong in her life, or she resorts to the old stand-by of how crappy her marriage is, or her kids, or whatever her favorite sob story is. Now, she’s got ten quiet people listening and nodding attentively. Ten people who were, only seconds ago, doing great! Eventually, it’s time to go back to work, so everyone gets up and makes their way to their desks, heads down, thinking, Well…I needed that like I needed a hole in the head.
What was Sour Sally’s “reward?” Attention! For some reason, she’s gotten the idea from somewhere that the best way to get attention (translation: love) is to feel down so that everyone will come to her rescue and try to pull her out of her state of misery. But no matter how people try, it never works because she wants to be that way. Why? Because to her, when people side in with her and commiserate, that means that she’s loved and cared for. It’s her way of having someone “take care of her.” I would lay odds that when Sally isn’t depressed, she swings over to being angry and frustrated because she just can’t change things in her life. And when she’s tired of feeling frustrated and angry, she swings back over to depression again, and then back over to anger, and then back to depression. Even ten people sitting around that table commiserating and giving her the “reward” she wants is not going to change her way of life. She has to reach a point where she has just had it up to her eyeballs with being sad or depressed, and does something about it.
But that would require CHANGE for Sour Sally, wouldn’t it? Change. That is the one word that stands in that great chasm between where most depressed people are, and where they would rather be. Very often you’ll hear people like Sally speculating that they must be afraid of success, because they always manage to do something to block their own forward movement. Not!!! It’s not the fear of success that keeps them from getting ahead. It’s the fear of making the changes necessary to get from here to there. Change. There’s a monumental separation of thought when some guy who sits on the couch all day long, watching television, wants to become a millionaire. The two just don’t work together. He’d have go get up off his ass and start working toward something.
Sally would have to stop crying in her soup and start making some changes in her own life to improve things. She won’t do that until she’s finally, truly had enough of where she’s at. Having people commiserate with her will only help to keep her where she is, because in this state of mind, she gets the “love” she’s missing in her life, and she gets it in the form of compassion. She’s like that kid who goes ripping through a house raising hell because he’s dying for attention. So he gets a sound whack on the butt, someone to scream at him…but at least he got the attention he wanted.
The bottom line brings us right back to where I started at the beginning of this blog: If the people around you are robbing you of your joy, change the people you hang out with, because even if you are a truly optimistic person, the more you spend time with the Sour Sally’s of this world, the more you will trample your own happiness because it just feels inappropriate to be happy while someone near you is down.
You’ve heard the expression, “I’m getting too old for this shit.” Right? Well, I decided a long time ago that I was getting too old for that shit. I mean, everyone gets a little down now and then, myself included, and if it’s just a now-and-then kind of thing, sure, I’ll stick around and see what I can do to help. But if this person is someone who’s perpetually blue, frig that. They walk in, I get up, smile at them in passing to show no hard feelings, and then I’m outa there. I’m gone. I’m just getting too old for this shit, and life is too short to waste it around Sour Sally.
There’s help out there for people like her. All sorts of resources, self-help books, there are people like Wayne Dyer who put out tons of audios and reading material that can really help. Gift wrap some of it and hand it to her, but after that, get the hell out because if you don’t…one of these days you’ll be the one walking into a room and it will suddenly get very quiet, and then you’ll spend the next hour telling ten people how lousy your life is. Misery loves company, and misery is contagious.
Now, I know, I know…there are people out there who suffer from bi-polar disorder, or clinical sadness, or what have you. There are professionals out there who can help them, but again, they need to want to accept that help. You can’t force-feed them. There just comes a time when people have to take responsibility for their own state of mind. I suffer from S.A.D. myself. Seasonal Affective Disorder. By around February of ever year, I’m about ready to crawl into a hole and pull the hole in after me. I could, if I wanted to, start getting depressed in November, in anticipation of S.A.D. But I don’t. Instead, I change my surroundings or something about myself because I know damn well that it’s me I need to change, not everyone else in the world. I redecorate the living room, paint, change up the color, wear bright-colored clothing that improves my mood, switch my view from the gray skies outside to something on the other side of the room. I have even hung a miror in front of my desk, so that every time I look up, I can see that miserable, scowly face staring at me. Believe it or not, this makes me sit up straighter and look alive, and it also makes me laugh at myself. When it gets really bad I go hunting for funny videos on Youtube, and there are many. Or I watch a funny movie. Or I go buy a damn hat. Or I buy full-spectrum light bulbs that are supposed to help S.A.D. I do something about it! Because I’ll be damned if I’m going to let the weather or lack of sunlight wreck every single day of my life between November and April! I mean, really. There IS help out there.
So, if you’re surrounded by people like Sour Sally, and if your life sucks because of it, know that one of the best and first things a person needs to do to change the quality of their lives is to change who they hang out with. That doesn’t mean to become a snob. It just means to become more selective about the mindset of those who have an influence on your general state of being.
Until next time…
Hakuna Matata, everyone!
Here’s hoping 2012 brings you prosperity, great health, and great joy!
Zee.
