So I was having a chat with a friend of mine today. He is having a difficult time with mental health, and hs been finding that with Covid kicking the crap out of him at every turn, it's been hard to find any joy in life. I had to smile, I have been feeling the same way for months now and it was kind of reassuring to know I wasn't alone. I had however a small philosophical concept that had helped me understand the purpose of shitty negative things happening in our lives.
If everything was good and happy all the time, we wouldn't know what happiness was. Good and easy things would be the normal and we would either be bored or complain that nothing was joyful. We need the negative. We need to struggle and fail so that we can succeed later. This is how we understand happiness, this is how we know when something really special has happened in our lives.
Just like light cannot exist without casting a shadow, we cannot feel happiness without having felt pain.
