In a remote training camp, a squad of rookies had just returned to their billet after a days march under the boiling sun.
“What a life!” barked one new soldier. “Miles from anywhere, with a sergeant who thinks he’s Alexander The Great, no women, no booze, no leave – and on top of all that, my boots are two sizes too small.”
“You don’t want to put up with that chum,” said his neighbor, “Why don’t you request another pair?”
“Not likely” he answered. “Takin ’em off is the only pleasure I’ve got!”
Nothing To Lose But Unhappiness
We have nothing to lose but our misery and yet we seem so afraid to lose it. It was while writing my how to overcome shyness article that I remembered past experiences I’ve had when writing, or reading an online users positive self-improvement suggestions. Generally the feedback in the forum threads and replies report that many are open to the idea of losing their unhappiness. But often there are those few who will criticize the altruistic advice given with such immense brutality, that you feel as if they’ve just been given quick tips on how to murder their closest loved ones.
This not only applies to the internet. In many cases misery is actually seen as a cultural virtue. Suffering for your imperfect nature is a religious dogma all too present, and even modern romanticized subcultures like Goths and Emo’s jump on the same bandwagon. These people seem to find a certain sense of living ‘deeply’ – deeper than the rest of superficial society – when in touch with their darkest and sorrowful feelings. The more tormented and gloomy a soul, the greater the sensitivity of that person.
Self-Indulgent Misery
It never ceases to surprise me how enthusiastically I hear many people speak of their problems. One could almost presume this zeal comes from some sort of pleasure they feel with telling – and even competing with – each others problems.
There seems to be an investment in misery. If misery only brought us purely negative returns like say, the feeling of flatulence, then we’d endure it momentarily and forget about it once it is released. Some can even become miserable about being flatulent and tell their friends. So what is it that makes us cling to such a feeling and share it with others? The return of our investment in the form of pleasure.
People find it hard to let go of things that make them miserable because they also bring them some type of pleasure. It can come in many forms:
- Sympathy: Our society and social etiquette encourages sympathy as a form of virtue. If you complain about being sick, about struggling with a personal problem, there’s always a sympathetic ear to listen and offer “you poor thing” and “awww”s that will make you feel special and indulge your egotistical need of acknowledgement and attention.
- Desires and Expectations: This is attaching yourself to a misery now in order that your future desires will occur. For instance, you might have some ambition to achieve that is bringing you present miseries. So your expectations of the future are the things causing you problems in the present. Things aren’t going the way you presumed they would.
You might be aware of what is causing you misery, but part of you is still doubtful and cynical that they really are. It is up to you to explore yourself and understand the idea that “these are the things that are making me miserable.”
Misery Makes You Special
Misery makes you capable of attracting other peoples attention. When you’re miserable, you’re attended to, sympathized with, and loved. Everybody starts taking care of you because who wants to hurt a miserable person? Misery is a great investment. For instance, if Luna is miserable and complaining about something, it’s much harder for me to neglect her. But while when she’s happy in her own world and me in mine, it could be much easier forgetting her. Misery makes you special. Happiness is a universal phenomenon, there’s nothing special about it. Animals seem to be happy, tree’s seem to be happy, so they can easily be forgotten and abused.
Unhappiness is so much easier to convey than happiness. When we are miserable, we are immensely more aware of our existence. Since we feel no struggle when we are happy, no tension of pain between us and the rest of the world, we become more open and connected to everything. Man becomes special, extraordinary, and gains an ego when he has problems and misery. We create problems so we can feel that life is a great work, a growth, and you have to struggle hard to earn it. But the truth is, problems dont exist. You create the problems. Then you go in search for the solution.
We make mountains out of molehills because the egocentric sense of self doesn’t want to be ordinarily miserable, it wants to be extraordinarily miserable! If your own problems aren’t enough, you look for bigger problems to solve; you watch the news, listen to the radio and read the papers to fill yourself with more worries. Not that you can do anything about a recent war, murder or rape that occurred – but knowing about it indulges your fears about the rest of the world, adds a boundary, and brings you more misery to keep you busy. We need misery because without problems we feel empty, there’s nothing to do, nothing to fight with, and nowhere to go. The emptiness of our inner silence is so frightening, we become conspicuous and create the outlined boundaries of our identity through our problems.
Misery brings you pain which defines you as an individual: “this pain is mine and no others“, “this conflict and tension I’m suffering serves as a barrier between me and the rest“. Happiness takes all of that away and in doing so, you lose your identity, you become nobody.
This…
” The emptiness of our inner silence is so frightening, we become conspicuous and create the outlined boundaries of our identity through our problems.”
Just, wow.
How can you say that man! This is so true. I am in tears because this is it. I was reading my Existential theory’s notes and our teacher quoted a line from Spike in The Vampire Slayer. It says “You’re addicted to the misery. It’s why you won’t tell your pals about us. Might actually have to be happy if you did. They’d either understand and help you, God forbid … or drive you out … where you can finally be at peace, in the dark. With me. Either way, you’d be better off for it, but you’re too twisted for that. (pauses) Let yourself live, already. And stop with the bloody hero trip for a sec. We’d all be the better for it.”
I felt it so badly because I am actually going through something and my friends ask me to get over it already so I stopped telling them anything anymore because I don’t know, they don’t get it. I feel like I don’t know how to be happy or maybe this BAD feeling is the only thing I have. So I looked the quote up on internet and I found this article. Its a masterpiece. Being a graduate with Psychology major, I have never seen someone talk about misery so truthfully. I am currently reading Rollo May’s “The Courage to Create” and it is very authentic too. I’m just trying to help myself because right now, I can’t work so can’t afford therapy. This line below this box says “your email address will remail private” so I am just venting, lol. Somebody I loved since my childhood left because of his personal reasons and I can’t get over it. It been exactly a year now and I am as miserable as,… I don’t know. He has been within me for so long that even my earliest memory is about him. I don’t know how to let go of this pain because, at some point it feels like this is how I am keeping him with me but I can’t work, can’t study and just cannot pay attention. Well, I hope it gets better. I am a fan now, loner wolf. Gonna read a lot of your stuff! I hope you don’t use Rollo May kinda 20th century’s or shakepearan vocabulary. I am not a native English Speaker. Have a good day!
I agree, if I became happy achieving all the things which make me miserable then I would have to seek out better problems. But being miserable makes me seek happiness in small irrelevant things which most people take for granted. There is true beauty to misery. I can even compare my past misery with the current progress I have made and that brings next level of satisfaction in achieving those small irrelevant things.
I was searching for a certain quote on misery and stumbled upon your site. I agree with you, as I have been there myself. Keep spreading your wisdom so the world can be a better place
I feel what you have quoted.. You understand all about this, so Can you please also write an article on how to overcome this.
I disagree with u . I do not get anything good because of my problems or illnesses. I find that people don’t believe me because of the way I look. And most people are quite cruel about it all.
I needed to read this and will read it several more times. I court misery. I have not need to miseriable, I have a good life however I find myself looking for faults and attacking when I find them. I want to love and when love comes I drive it away by finding something to complain about. I have loving misery. I drive all the good things and people out of my life, the people that I want to stay and to love, I make miserable. I need to stop. How do I stop?
How can we get rid of the misery, the problems, and so on. Being happy, yourself, and normal is becoming so outdated.. and knowing how to get out of the fog that is causing you to be unaware most of the time, not being in touch with yourself and your surroundings, and the feeling that you’re alone all the time is just so exhausting. It makes you just want to sleep all day or be lazy. When, in your mind, you WANT to go out and explore by yourself. You WANT to really know who you are. You WANT to be in touch with the world and yourself so that you can be truly happy and NOT rely on other people to MAKE you happy. How can we make ourselves happy for once? How can one live a life with such sorrow, loneliness, sadness, and being so overwhelmed in a fog of depression, stress, and anxiety?
Hello, Do you think other people with depression, etc. might have this infection that can cause mood disorders and is often undiagnosed/misdiagnosed in immunocompetent people?
My coworkers and I, all immunocompetent, got Disseminated Histoplasmosis in Dallas-Fort Worth from roosting bats, that shed the fungus in their feces. The doctors said we couldn’t possibly have it, since we all had intact immune systems. The doctors were wrong.
This pathogen causes many idiopathic diseases and conditions, including hematological malignancies, autoimmune symptoms, myelitis, myositis, vasculitis. etc. It causes hypervascularization, calcifications, sclerosis, fibrosis, necrosis, leukopenia, anemia, neutrophilia, pancytopenia, thrombocytopenia, hypoglycemia, polyps, stenosis, and perforations, inflammation of various organs, GI problems, hepatitis, etc. More than 100 outbreaks have occurred in the U.S. since 1938, and those are just the ones that were figured out, since people go to different doctors. One outbreak was over 100,000 victims in Indianapolis.
It at least “mimics” autoimmune diseases, cancer, mental illness, migraines, seizures, etc. It’s known to cause rheumatological conditions, inflammation, and precancerous conditions. It causes hematological malignancies, and some doctors claim their leukemia patients go into remission when given antifungal. My friend in another state who died from lupus lived across the street from a bat colony. An acquaintance with alopecia universalis and whose mother had degenerative brain disorder has bat houses on their property. It’s known to cause delusions, wild mood swings, and hallucinations.
I believe the “side effects” of Haldol, leukopenia and MS symptoms, are not side effects but just more symptoms of Disseminated Histoplasmosis, since it causes leukopenia and MS symptoms. What about the unknown reason why beta blockers cause tardive dyskinesia? The tinnitus, photophobia, psychosis “caused” by Cipro? The hypersexuality and leukemia “caused” by Abilify? The fungus is an Oxygenale and therefore consumes collagen. Fungal hyphae carry an electrical charge and align under a current. It’s most potent in female lactating bats, because the fungus likes sugar (lactose) and nitrogen (amino acids, protein). What about female lactating humans…postpartum psychosis? The bats give birth late spring/summer, and I noticed suicide rates spike in late spring/early summer. A map of mental distress and some diseases appear to almost perfectly overlay a map of Histoplasmosis. The bats eat moths, which are attracted to blue and white city lights.
Apparently, even the CDC didn’t know bats CARRY it and shed it in their feces, although they knew it could grow in bird and bat feces. Researchers claim the subacute type is more common than believed. It is known to at least mimic autoimmune diseases and cancer, and known to give false-positives in PET scans. But no one diagnosed with an autoimmune disease or cancer is screened for it. In fact, at least one NIH paper states explicitly that all patients diagnosed with sarcoidosis be tested for it, but most, if not all, are not. 80-90+% of people in some areas have been infected. It can lay dormant for up to 40 years in the lungs and/or adrenals. It causes RNA/DNA damage. Other doctors are claiming things like sarcoidosis IS disseminated histoplasmosis.
My coworkers and I had GI problems, liver problems, weird rashes, plantar fasciitis, etc., and I had swollen lymph nodes, hives, lesions, and started getting migraines and plantar fasciitis in the building, and haven’t had them since I left. It gave me temporary fecal incontinence, seizures, dark blood from my intestines, and benign paroxysmal positional vertigo. I had symptoms of several autoimmune diseases, including Fibromyalgia, Sarcoidosis, ALS, MS, etc. that have disappeared since leaving the area and taking Itraconazole antifungal.
And your writing of this article where you talk about how this set of people are just serving their own ego that set is not yada yada. When your agenda is hidden underneath this.. doing just that, by talking about it all in your article. I could say the same thing.
Great article! Very insightful, honest and real. Thank you!
My misery is a barrier to keep people from getting too close to me, I don’t want to let that wall down. To quote Misery by Gallows, ” misery fucking loves me, and I love her too.” I hate the things I do, I hate myself sometimes, I do and say things that are vile, but all in response to something else, trust me it doesn’t take much sometimes. I love feeling down on myself, because nothing I do is good enough, and it works vis versa with others. I am hard on myself and everyone around me that matters. I don’t feel this way all the time; right now I do, eventually I will talk to myself about what a pussy I am being and maybe in few days I will snap out of my childish shit fit, but it should a “fun”, quiet few days at casa de me. Sometimes we just need to kick our own ass. Unfortunately, this will happen again. ” No inspiration left to do you best when, nobody hates you more than your reflection.’ Slug from atmosphere.”
Thank you for sharing your struggle Danny. Misery is a very self-centric business, if you feel self-loathing for yourself it’s going to be very hard to have any motivation to heal and learn to love that which is the source of your loathing. It creates a vicious cycle.
I’ve found that in situations like these you either way for rock bottom to come, a moment of realization where you feel worth the struggle to overcoming that self-pity, or you find something beyond yourself, outside of those self-centric walls, that motivates you to go beyond what you think you are.
The time comes we realize the imperfections, the insecurities, the mistakes, the expectations we create for others and ourselves; are all illusionary ideas that arise in what we really are which is a boundless presence of experience. This new way of perceiving the world beyond your wounded concept of ‘self’ is a shift toward a soul-centric one.
why did you remove his comment smh…
Marxists exploit our misery and keep us there to advance their power.
I can’t really blame anyone specifically. If we are to blame society, we are to blame ourselves as we form society.
This stuff was snuck into our system under the guise of “human rights”. But its not, not at all. Its poison and its killing the US.
I’m starting to realize/think that I’m living with someone like this. He constantly mopes and is dramatic about sometimes the little-ist things – he will twist them to be about him and his suffering. He can dish how what you’ve done has made him feel invisible etc but when you tell him how you feel (when it comes to dealing with his attitude etc), it somehow becomes a personal attack on him – he can dish it but can’t take it. I just feel he is very depressed and unhappy but I don’t feel it’s my job to make him happy. I want him to be happy but I can’t be made to feel guilty for trying to be positive and having a life. I feel he is very passive aggressive and sometimes I wonder if he also might be narcissistic because it’s always about him and how his suffering is more than others as if we don’t have problems too! Any insight? Anyone ever deal with someone like this?
He also has so much pent up anger that I sometimes worry about him snapping. I just need to protect myself, I think I am going to move out and not be roommates with him any longer.
Many people who have not learned to love themselves will come across as narcissistic and loving their misery. They carry such a low self-esteem, everything becomes an opportunity to draw attention to themselves, to their unhappiness, to their bad luck and in doing so gain a small sense of self-importance.
If you cannot help a person like this because they are not open for being helped, then moving out might be your best option as it only provides an audience for the self-pity and a toxic relationship for you. He will hit a point in his life where he’ll realize this and thirst for change.
Thank you so much for this thoughtful response. I do believe you hit the nail on the head. I don’t think he’s narcissistic as much as he is dealing with a lot of misery and unhappiness. Thanks again. I do think I plan on moving out when our lease is up…
I know what you mean that is my life also unbearable at times, I feel the need to isolate myself from him, as I feel my life is being sucked out of me.
I am thinking of ways to join up with sociable people to be able to leave him and his misery behind.
I told him that I am moving out. I was really terrified to tell him and I think that speaks for itself. Luckily, he seems to have accepted that I am leaving. His guilt-tripping is no longer working. I can’t wait to move at the end of the month. I know I will miss the person he was when I first met him, but I know I will also feel free.
If I learned anything it’s that happiness is the exception and not the rule. The more you have, the more you’ll lose and don’t get too comfortable in your happiness. The world is full of people who want nothing more than to tear it down. People who are always happy make me sick.
Entropy is the law of the universe. Everything is always in a state of decay. You start dying the second you are born (or even conceived for that matter). Life sucks. People suck. Wipe that fucking smile off your face.
Happiness is a momentary experience, it’s not meant to last forever. Instead I aim to encourage more inner peace and joy in our students lives. That can be permanent, and does not depend on the ups and downs of happiness contrasting unhappiness.
If we stop being so self-centric, we realize that the slow decay of us is the organic matter that will give birth to something else someday; the universe doesn’t surround human beings existence.
With all its injustice, destruction and chaos; life is perfect and exactly as it’s meant to be. We are what we create in this life. If more people have an attitude like yours, we will very well create a hell for ourselves on this earth and if that’s so, then that’s exactly what we deserve.