Looking for Fixes

In life we often go through high and lows. A few ‘off days’ and mostly good days.

If we are diagnosed with depression we are usually given a tablet to take that causes us to become numb, or we look for reasons. Why?

Before modern medicine began dishing out Zanex in huge quantities, people had to live with it. Some killed themselves.

History is filled with outstanding writers, musicians, artists, and many other creative skilled people who suffered terrible despair. They sat it out. They journaled about it.

When you accept defeat as your only victory, dawn comes over the horizon.

How can something truly superb come from someone who has never known the depths of sorrow? Or grief, despair, or solitude? How can we expect no more than average to come from an average mood?

Never fear the darkness, a candle will extinguish it.

Look at Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Freddie Mercury, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, May Sorton, Elizabeth Bishop, Virginia Wolf, Dylan Thomas, Van Gogh, to name a mere handful who experienced despair. Apart from Dylan Thomas they sat it out. The jury is still out on Van Gogh.

If you are a parent you need to disguise your desolation, as I can attest. The thing is that light comes when you need it. When you accept defeat as your only victory, dawn comes over the horizon.

There is no list to give, no advice to write. Just sit it out. When the time comes you will be stronger and brighter.

Men don’t fear the feeling of failure. You have not failed, you are human. Despair is human nature. So is depression.

Attend the small things; washing dishes, changing clothes, normal daily habits.

This, too, will pass.

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This post was previously published on Medium.

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