On Bitterness

Someone told me once that depression isn't much more than anger directed inward, and that makes sense to me. I think that a lot of times it's easier to shove it inside rather than trying to confront (not confront in a violent manner, but simply face) its source. Carrying around that much emotion, and trying to avoid acknowledging it, is exhausting - and it's exhausting for everyone else, too, as they deal with the irrationality and overreactions of someone who is deeply depressed.

I made a couple promises to myself after commencement.

1: Not to respond to (people, ideas, things) that bring up negative emotions (chiefly insecurity or resentment) in me by seeking to demean or limit them. I've seen too many examples of the damage caused by feeding such insecurities. One of the biggest lessons I learned in college - from both sides of resentment - is that when there's nothing to actually resent, life is a lot much pleasanter without feeding that resentment - and when there is something truly awful going on, the situation usually destroys itself without anyone's help. There were people and situations that I could have really helped, if they'd stopped being threatened by me and let me help - and there were people that could have helped me, too. Fostering insecurities is always "easier", but it never makes anyone happier - I see this every day at home, and it makes me really sad.

1 (Corollary): Never deny my feelings to myself. Acknowledgment is the first step towards confrontation and understanding. Even though (actually, because) there will always be things that are deeply distasteful, admitting that those feelings are there enables a much more thoughtful, controlled, and rational response. If nothing else, that's something to be proud of, and a positive to seek in challenging situations.

2: To live a balanced life. CMU forced me to learn that not only is success not guaranteed simply by spending a lot of time on an endeavor, but that success isn't even a function of that time! I'm not saying that success doesn't take an enormous amount of time and energy, but I am saying that to put all of one's time and energy into a given task (a job, for example) is almost certainly counterproductive. Consider that if you're spending all of your waking hours at a job, you're not giving yourself time to do things that might spark a creative solution to a challenging problem, or the mental distance to remove yourself from an emotionally charged situation enough to make the right decision, rather than the decision that immediately satisfies your knee-jerk reaction. Stepping away from work feels like an impossible task at times, but having the ability to do so is extremely valuable as well as necessary for mental health.

3: To always truly be there for others. I'm really grateful for many of the close friendships I made at CMU, and many of them showed me what true friendship really means. It's so easy to say "call me if you need anything" - it's much harder to say "I'm coming over right now, let me help you" to someone who clearly needs something (and I'm not talking about just situations where there is a lot of upheaval or turmoil - I'm talking about anything).

That's it. All of them are pretty straightforward (and possibly trite) but over the past few years I learned what it actually means to practice them - how challenging it can be, but most importantly, how rewarding.