Really agree: “The goal shouldn’t be to eliminate unhappiness but to limit it.”
The thing is, in order to accomplish that you have to gain the courage to examine the unhappiness, from the surface to the root causes.
These days the prominent social practice seems to have become utter avoidance of the “BadNews”, in an effort to filter out anything that might immediately affect people’s happiness.
“BadNews” is to be ignored, avoided and not passed on to other people, even if it might have an immediate impact on their lives other than just their emotions.
Boy howdy has this allergic reaction to “BadNews” ever affected the customer service sector, I have to say. (“If the answer is “no”, that’s important info.; I can deal with my problem otherwise, I’m really that smart.”)
Negative information is useful to those really committed to resolving and eliminating a problem or obstacle.
Designating our issues and our limitations makes it so much easier to quickly determine a plan of action, when we are action oriented. If we hurt bad enough to eliminate the problem, we need every advantage we can gain.
“Good News” input often is the rarest resource in such times, so “BadNews” becomes even more valuable; any news is news we can use. No it won’t help anyone feel better immediately, but also “no”, it shouldn’t make us feel worse about the person who delivered it. If it does, then we’re just not helping ourselves in a very effective way, at that moment.
With such resources, we can narrow down the factors making us feel so sad, scared, irritated or otherwise “shitty” and put them in their place if we please. Much more easy then to start being grateful for the newfound knowledge of the limitations, and chance to consider what good things are also within our grasp. Both are always there.
