The difference between being unhappy and being sad
Are we all just unhappy people in search of mythical happy places?
Momentary joy. It is very important to us today, no?
I want joy delivered to me in under 60 seconds, right at my fingertips. And if there is a dull second in there, you’re out, the next candidate is in, and they have to prove their worth.
At the end of a few hours and then some, of trying to find momentary joy in scrolling, I’m drained. I lock my phone, and then I am hit by this unruly wave of unhappiness.
Today, I am putting my Dora hat on, and trying to trace the origin of this unhappiness.
There is a big difference between unhappiness and sadness, by the way. Unhappiness is this muddy ball of unfulfilled greed and unsaid words while sadness feels a lot more like heartache.
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When I was in school, we’d have these Sunday outings. Money was limited, but love wasn’t. Dad would say let’s go see a movie, but no snacks there. Let’s go eat Chinese. But no second servings of main course, and of course, just one dessert.
When the goodness of greasy Chinese graces your tastebuds, you tend to forget rules. You want a second serving of mixed fried rice. You want one more round of that bright red chilli chicken with extra pinch of MSG. You need another cassata.
And when your dad looks at you and says no with the lack of emotion of a cold blooded killer (of my Chinese gluttony dreams), you’re not unhappy with the current decision making, of the people in power.
You’re heartbroken. Sad.
Maybe my earliest memory of unhappiness was when I was in college. I was in this long distance relationship. I wasn’t happy about how much time I got to spend with my then girlfriend. Or about how this relationship was shaping up, by no fault of either of us. Just faulty fate and timing.
But I was also scared about the entire premise of “breaking up”.
After all, all movie heroes marry their high school sweethearts, and who am I if I’m not a hero?
So I stayed unhappy. For years. Until it all culminated in an ugly breakup. And then, I felt lighter. Because I wasn’t unhappy anymore. I was just sad.
Unhappiness Pie Chart
As you grow up, your sadness gets replaced with unhappiness.
There are a couple of kinds of unhappiness.
Unhappiness #1
The “this isn’t what I want or need, but now that we’re here, I don’t know how to get out of it” unhappiness.
Think the wrong relationship, or a salty dish served at the restaurant that you’re terrified to return.
TLDR; in the unending effort to be kind, you became a coward instead.
Unhappiness #2
The “I deserve better” unhappiness. Because there’s always a follow up to that line. “I deserve better, but I don’t know how to get there. I can see that others are already there, and why do they deserve it any more than I do?”
The second kind, is a certain accumulation of unhappiness. Multiple unreturned salty dishes. Multiple (or one long dreadful) relationships that you stay in mostly because you don’t know the way out.
And before you know it, you go from chilly chicken munching cassata licking child, to greying, back pain suffering middle-aged late twenty-year-old, who feels like nothing is ever enough, but also, why does everybody around me seem to have more than enough??
I am in the flight right now. It’s 6:58pm. It’s one of those odd times, where the sky is still lit up, but the ground is dark. Through the clouds, I can see tiny lights on the ground that have come on. It’s amusing that the sun is right here, but it’s dark all the way down there.
I will not make a metaphor about zooming out from the darkness to find the light. What I will tell you though, is this. The way out of a dark room is as simple as just turning the light on. You don’t have to levitate all the way up, float next to the airplane, and then consume the sunlight.
What you sometimes need aren’t metaphors and poetry. What you need is courage. Let’s hope that the words you read translate into literal courage (see what I did there? Works on two levels. Wow so smart.)
Let me tell you another story. It’s a bit brutal, so I’ll try and keep it short. Domesticated elephants that are chained right from day 1, can be left unchained in their adulthood, because their brain thinks that the chain is still there.
Adulthood is a certain level of getting accustomed to unhappiness. Saying “This is how it is” over and over again, so that you never dare question “well, is it really, though?”
A good question to ask yourself to break the simulation is “how would two versions of you react? The 8 year old version, and the 80 year old version.”
I’m in a bit of a weird situation now. Good weird. Maybe for the first time in my life, I’m not unhappy. I’m plenty sad, plenty stressed, plenty giggly and plenty glad, but not unhappy.
I will not dole out life advice on how to get here. Because there isn’t just one way out (except for maybe not letting unhappiness accumulate, and finding way out of things and people that make you unhappy) and also, I have no goddamn clue how I got here.
I will just leave you with a story that I am chuckling about a little, of a recent “job interview-ish” that I had.
My hope is that I can get rich by spending less, not making more. That being said, I live in Mumbai. Rent is expensive. Life is expensive. So, when an opportunity comes along that excites me, I partake in capitalistic fuckery.
SO. Interview.
The person sat with full “tu roadie banega” energy. There was this want to see how much pressure could I handle, by testing my conviction, asking me tough questions, and trying to see if I would break down.
(Fair-ish enough on their part, it’s a high pressure role)
I think earlier-in-my-career-me would have cried a little for sure (at minimum internally), but as unhireable as it sounds, the first thought that crossed my mind was “man, I’m too old for this shit”.
And while I didn’t say that to them, there was a point where their question was “why X, why not another company?” and my answer was “if there’s another company in a similar industry that would offer me an interview, with the money I’m asking for, honestly I’m equally interested”.
I don’t think I came across as impressive. I mean, I’m pretty sure that I came across as an ass, but hey, they started it.
If I was unhappy, I’d have aimed to please. But because I am not, I was aimless.
I am nice still, but now I come with an upper cap of niceness. I’m not no cap like the youth (did I use that right??)
Get your heart broken (I mean, not if you have a choice), get sad, but all you grown ups that I am writing to, who don’t have their shit together (let’s be honest here, I don’t either), ask if child you would tolerate it. Ask if grandparent you would tolerate it.
The more okay you get with being sad, less unhappy your life becomes. And the less you search for mythical total happiness that never goes away (only drugs can give you that, but don’t do drugs, pls thx)
Hence.
May you have more sadness, less unhappiness.
Moral of the story
Don’t let unhappiness eat up share in your pie chart.
Happily eat some pie instead.
Love,
H.