Desolate Days
You ever have those days where you’re just sad? Ever have those days where nothing seems to be able to pick you up, and everything that goes wrong feels like it’s the end of the world? I know that most of you reading this have.
While I don’t think having this kind of day means that one is depressed, I think it does touch on a point very close to depression. It exemplifies the lowest of the “high and low” points that we all go through throughout our daily lives. Going through these days is miserable. You sit through class or work or whatever it is that occupies your standard day, and you dwell on your problems and sorrows. First and foremost, this is detrimental to your state of mind, considering that repeated days without happiness are also stressful and taxing on you mentally. Also, looking at it from a more third-person standpoint, on these “down days” as I will refer to them, productivity and performance is severely limited. As you are constantly upset, you can’t really get any work done; this I have seen on those days.
What causes these days? Is it the natural path that life takes, with some days being good and others being not so good? Or is it that this is an indication that something really important in our lives is occupying our time and our thoughts? I believe that it lives are structured so that you reach both high points and low points on the journey. The high points are obvious-a great event takes place and you can ride the joy and elation from that event to carry yourself higher in other aspects of life. I believe that that is why good things seem to come in bunches. Similarly, the low points which would naturally occur are set off by a certain event. I don’t necessarily mean that a bad thing happens to you, but more like some feeling of desolation overcomes you for some reason, such as unreturned feelings of romance are on your mind or an unresolved argument is occupying your thoughts. And similarly to the good points in life, the bad things seem to come in bunches, because once your thoughts are occupied by a desolate feeling, you have a rough time performing the tasks you would normally perform easily.
So if good things and bad things come in bunches, there obviously must be something which breaks the string for good things and leads into bad, and vice versa. I believe this happens when we forget about the bad things and decide to start over, or forget about the good that has been happening and begin to focus on the bad. So, my solution to not taking these up and down trips in life is to take each little thing as just that: a little thing. If we give no special consideration to any aspect of our lives, and don’t focus in too great a detail on any particular piece of life, then we prevent ourselves from inadvertently staking our mindset on the outcome of a certain situation. Far too often, people place a lot of importance on one event, and when it goes their way, it can really be uplifting, but at the same time, if it does not go their way, it can be painful and bring us to those desolate days.
The reason I wrote this entry is because I have been having these days recently, and the effect that I have seen it have on my personal life (academics and social life), has been a little alarming. So from here on, I’m going to try to take life one step at a time, one day at a time, one event at a time, and not let anything take a hold of my complete focus. Hopefully this will put an end to the desolate days, while still allowing me to take joy in the small good things in life.
While I don’t think having this kind of day means that one is depressed, I think it does touch on a point very close to depression. It exemplifies the lowest of the “high and low” points that we all go through throughout our daily lives. Going through these days is miserable. You sit through class or work or whatever it is that occupies your standard day, and you dwell on your problems and sorrows. First and foremost, this is detrimental to your state of mind, considering that repeated days without happiness are also stressful and taxing on you mentally. Also, looking at it from a more third-person standpoint, on these “down days” as I will refer to them, productivity and performance is severely limited. As you are constantly upset, you can’t really get any work done; this I have seen on those days.
What causes these days? Is it the natural path that life takes, with some days being good and others being not so good? Or is it that this is an indication that something really important in our lives is occupying our time and our thoughts? I believe that it lives are structured so that you reach both high points and low points on the journey. The high points are obvious-a great event takes place and you can ride the joy and elation from that event to carry yourself higher in other aspects of life. I believe that that is why good things seem to come in bunches. Similarly, the low points which would naturally occur are set off by a certain event. I don’t necessarily mean that a bad thing happens to you, but more like some feeling of desolation overcomes you for some reason, such as unreturned feelings of romance are on your mind or an unresolved argument is occupying your thoughts. And similarly to the good points in life, the bad things seem to come in bunches, because once your thoughts are occupied by a desolate feeling, you have a rough time performing the tasks you would normally perform easily.
So if good things and bad things come in bunches, there obviously must be something which breaks the string for good things and leads into bad, and vice versa. I believe this happens when we forget about the bad things and decide to start over, or forget about the good that has been happening and begin to focus on the bad. So, my solution to not taking these up and down trips in life is to take each little thing as just that: a little thing. If we give no special consideration to any aspect of our lives, and don’t focus in too great a detail on any particular piece of life, then we prevent ourselves from inadvertently staking our mindset on the outcome of a certain situation. Far too often, people place a lot of importance on one event, and when it goes their way, it can really be uplifting, but at the same time, if it does not go their way, it can be painful and bring us to those desolate days.
The reason I wrote this entry is because I have been having these days recently, and the effect that I have seen it have on my personal life (academics and social life), has been a little alarming. So from here on, I’m going to try to take life one step at a time, one day at a time, one event at a time, and not let anything take a hold of my complete focus. Hopefully this will put an end to the desolate days, while still allowing me to take joy in the small good things in life.