Reducing Your Sadness

Vacant: A fictional short-short story

Finding Hope: A short-short story

The Case for Sadness: Why happiness may not be all it's cracked up to be

Of course, no reasonable case can be made for debilitating sadness, let alone for depression. But our perkiness-valuing society deems even mild sadness to be a character defect or at least needing of repair: “What’s wrong, Pat?”

Yet, a defensible case can be made for a mild state of sadness. Perhaps it will promote self-acceptance among people who, because of biology and/or environment, walk the earth a little less chipper than average. I tackle that in my PsychologyToday.com article today.

Do You Look for Reasons to be Angry or Sad?

Some people tend to seek a reason to be happy, others to be angry, still others to be sad.

It’s easy to understand happiness seekers, but what could motivate people to want to be angry or sad?   

My PsychologyToday.com article today offers my hypothesis, the pros and cons of trying to change, and if you want to change, some baby steps that can help.

Feeling Useless: Remedies for an underdiscussed source of sadness

Children can feel useless, the product of their impotence in the adult-controlled world. Teens can feel even more impotent for they believe that, if they were allowed, they could be potent. 

Young adults, blessed (some would say saddled with) higher-education-inculcated big ideas too often find themselves pulling a beer or barista lever. Even many people who—to use the current argot—launch, by midlife see the dispiriting limitations of their influence, at work, in changing their spouse, even their kids. 

And of course, in old age, the decline in physical and mental capability often leads to the greatest dispiritedness because hope for a better future is gone—Their awareness grows of their ticking ever closer to the end of life’s conveyer belt.

What’s a mere mortal to do?  I offer suggestions in my PsychologyToday.com article today.