Keep your chin up

I had to look up DBT. I’d never heard of dialectical behavior therapy. If you’re depressed about something, it helps to think about someone who has a reason to feel worse. Get inspired by thinking about a famous person who triumphed over something similar. Don’t ask me why, but this works. In matters of the heart it helps to think of poor old Schopenhauer offering Flora Weiss that bunch of grapes.

I had a terrible manager at Google. He wasn’t a bad person, but he reported to a verbally abusive tyrant. This guy would drive my manager to black despair.

My manager had to hang in there and take it until his options vested. It was hard. One day I gave him some advice from a long-dead prizefighter. He said he found it consoling, and that it gave him the strength to hang on. It’s addressed to men, but it can apply to women:

Fight one more round. When your feet are so tired that you have to shuffle back to the center of the ring, fight one more round. When your arms are so tired that you can hardly lift your hands to come on guard, fight one more round. When your nose is bleeding and your eyes are black and you are so tired that you wish your opponent would crack you one on the jaw and put you to sleep, fight one more round — remembering that the man who always fights one more round is never whipped. — James J. Corbett (1866–1933)

If all else fails, remember that misery has always been the stuff of immortal literature. As the great philosopher Charlie Brown once said, “Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love.” Nothing else does more to make you a better writer, either.