The art of changing

Sometimes I look at the situations people live in, or with, and think, "This is depressing.  No amount of chemicals are going to make you feel better until your life changes."  It doesn't matter whether those chemicals are prescription meds or street meds.

There was a cartoon I saw rather frequently when I was very small.  It showed a bunch of dark little men dancing in the woods.  They drank bottles of milk and suddenly everything became light and happy.  I was struck by that even at the tender age of three.  It might have been the music that accompanied it, or the imagery, but I have never forgotten it.

Now, I speak from experience.  Light comes from all sorts of different sources.  There probably is a truly clinical depression whose need for medicine is absolutely verified, but I suspect that more often it is life that makes us sad.

Being willing to go through the agony of change takes courage and determination, but it's worth a try.  I spent nearly twenty eight years afraid to change something and only after that change occurred did my depression go away.  After that I learned to make changes more quickly.

Not just the act of changing something, but the art of changing the right thing the right way makes life better, it takes practice.  Like learning anything, I failed, I tried different things, I floundered and eventually I found a sort of balance that works most of the time.

No one is deliriously happy all the time.  If they are there is probably something missing, but simple contentment interspersed with those crazy happy moments and some legitimately sad ones is normal.  That is what I shoot for and it seems to work now.

I can live with this.