The Dark Side

The other day I was flipping channels and I came across a church choir singing.  I was suddenly struck by their faces.  They all looked pained, like they were suffering!  Today  I was getting ready for one of my volunteer jobs and I found myself thinking, well, I have something to talk about today.  I've gained some weight.

It suddenly dawned on me that I have been groomed to be unhappy, to believe that suffering is good in some way.  Our society finds some kind of satisfaction in being unhappy.  It is often what we talk about, how we fit in.  That is a sobering thought.

There is a release in sharing sorrows and problems and there is a sort of grim joy in realizing my problems are not as great as others might be, but I think perhaps our culture likes suffering for its own sake.  It's who we are. 

Where did that come from?

It has taken me years to step out of the hovering gloom that was my constant companion growing up and though much of my first forty years.  I always assumed it was because there was something wrong with me, but I'm not so sure now.

I don't take any sort of drugs to make me feel better.  I just learned to look at my world from a different perspective.  Maybe I also had to unlearn the gloom lesson, even if I didn't realize I was doing that.

Sometimes accused of being a "Pollyanna" I find that looking for the bright side is much more satisfying for me now.  Living in the moment, knowing that in this moment I can deal with almost anything helps too.  The dark side is always available, I just choose not to focus so much on it anymore.