Hey, how are you? A common greeting we spit out almost as a reflex. Half the time we don’t even respond or get a response and the other half of the time the immediate response back is ‘Good. How are you?’. I have been taken by surprise only a handful of times with responses like that aren’t quite as mundane and automatic. How does one respond when things aren’t good? A lot of the time people are so quick to try to cheer someone up or give them the magic solution to what ever is troubling them. If things were that easy, a lot of people would walk around with bigger smiles and a lot less weight on their shoulders.
As a person who seems to have a permanent smile on my face, it’s quite apparent when I’m having a less than stellar day. “You’re supposed to be happy?! You can’t be sad!” As much as I don’t enjoy having a sub-par day, everyone is definitely entitled to not be sunshine and rainbows everyday, all year long.
In a perfect world, we would all wake up on the right side of the bed every morning and smell the roses and love life. We would not crumble under the stress of student loans, GPAs, relationships, work, and everything else under the sun. But we do. We all have felt the overwhelming dread of getting out of bed in the morning to deal with life. And that’s fine. I am giving every single person a pass to throw themselves a pity party, lock themselves up in a dark room and shut off from the world for a while.
At times there’s no logical reason why you’re feeling sad. Nothing is really going terribly wrong, there’s no crisis, but you still find yourself discontent. You just are in a funk. You may not know why, but you are.
This is ok. It’s okay not to be okay. We are complex beings with multiple emotions which include sadness. At times I think we – and when I say we I include me – throw ourselves into our work, into school, into our relationships – to distract us so we don’t feel sad. And in the end we still feel sadness but we are now so preoccupied with other things we can no longer pinpoint where these emotions are coming from.
Embrace your emotions – all of them. Be thankful for the days you feel endless happiness and know that days of sadness don’t last forever. Everyone at some time will fall into a funk. Allow yourself to emotionally rest and not force yourself to wake up tomorrow and be happy. Take an hour and watch trash TV. Spend $20 and get your nails done. Cuddle on the couch by yourself on Friday and try the new Ben and Jerry’s flavor. Do whatever you want. Never justify your actions or emotions to anyone because frankly in the relationship between you and your emotions, no one else matters.
Taking care of yourself emotionally is just as important as not missing your curfew or paying your AMEX bill on time.
So for all those spending time in Funky Town, feel free to come and go as you please.
A lot of the time I use this blog as my outlet for my thoughts, feelings, concerns, and some comic relief in the face of some type of obstacle. I had every intention of sitting down today and writing about how things were not going in my favor, a perfect reflection of how I felt this time last year when I was denied a re-evaluation for Open Fences. As history would have it, my sadness and frustration and anger from current events transformed into something that instead pushed me forward. The most successful people in life are those who use the same very things that bring them down to instead propel them to the surface.
An Open Opportunity 