Perspective, Despair, Responsibility and Feeling Overwhelmed

Sadness feels easy these days, and in many ways I am surprised we aren’t all more miserable than we are. While reading the news, be it local, national or international, we are bombarded with reasons to despair, and yet I still keep reading. I feel like I have a responsibility to educate myself about the world, to not be willfully ignorant of the pain and struggle of others, and that reading the news is in that sense a noble pursuit. It feels like a heavy burden to bear though - stories of people in unimaginable, unconscionable amounts of pain are easy to come by thanks to the internet, and often it is inflicted on them by other human beings. To me, seeing the negative side of humanity is far easy than the positive side, we are surrounded by the former, and that makes it difficult to remain optimistic.

There are of course good things about people, but they are far less forthcoming, and require active effort on my part to hunt out and find. Wholesomeness doesn’t generate clicks or drive sales, nor does it seem to greatly motivate people in general, I always find myself drawn back to tales of suffering rather than of great joy, although perhaps that is my problem rather than an issue at large.

It’s not just in the news either; the people close to me are as inherently flawed as everyone else, and they make mistakes hurting myself or others in the process. It’s easy to idolise one’s friends, to assume they are infallible, and realising the pain they cause, even if inadvertantly, can be jarring. This is doubly true when I was complicit in it, and true tenfold if I was the individual in the wrong myself.

While finding the good in my friends and loved ones is relatively easy, it still feels a little precarious to base my own emotional wellbeing around it. Ceding any amount of control over my own emotions to anyone else makes me feel vulnerable and scared, and also feels like a difficult thing to ask of another, feeding into my perpetual fear of being burdensome to those around me. Some amount of it is inevitable, but I’ve still always felt like there is some onus that one should have an immutable well of happiness inside of them that can be drawn upon at will, and this is how I am supposed to be a functional human being.

That also seems hard, for obvious reasons. When you are looking for reasons to be unhappy, they are plentiful, and I find them easier to look for said reasons than their sunny, upbeat counterparts. I feel obligated on all sides to strive to be a better person - to be fitter and healthier, to be more efficient at my job, to constantly audit my social and political views, to be a better friend and family member. It’s a lot, and I often feel overwhelmed, very much like I am treading water.

Looking at the world around us, I think despair is a very natural reaction, or at the very least, one for which a compelling argument could be made. But despair is not helpful. Feeling overwhelmed with responsibilities and instead growing paralysed, fulfilling none of them, is similarly unhelpful. The only responsibility I really have it to myself, and it is not to feel these things, it is to find a way, somehow, to be happy.