July 30, 2013
There are many positive things about sadness that we often fail to acknowledge. For thousands of years sadness has been the seed of creativity. Back in the 4th century B.C.E. they used to call sadness the melancholic habitus and depression the melancholic disease. Aristotle has been quoted as saying that “all men who have attained excellence in philosophy, in poetry, in art and in politics, even Socrates and Plato, had a melancholic habitus; indeed some suffered even from melancholic disease.” In fact, studies have shown that people that are sad make good judgment calls and have a better memory. There is also a study by Kay Redfield Jamison, a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins that found that successful individuals were eight times more likely to suffer from major depressive disorders than people in the general population.
Thus, if we think about all the very successful and talented people that chose to end their lives one could only wonder whether they would have achieved a similar level of excellence had they not experienced sadness and clinical depression in their lives. It is as if one of the rewards for experiencing emotional pain is achieving unremarkable success although those who prefer to see the glass half empty may say that one of the costs of success is experiencing emotional pain. Whichever the case the evidence is clear. Those who are fortunate enough to experience emotional pain can contribute greatly to humankind. This could be one reason many of us experience a great sense of loss when a person chooses to end his or her life. Those who choose to end their lives deprive society of their priceless gifts.
Next time we experience sadness perhaps it is best not to do everything we can to cheer up. Perhaps a better choice would be to embrace it and to cherish it so that we can achieve new heights. We should always bear in mind that choosing to end one’s life is always a personal choice. Choosing to live to see another day is also a personal choice. However, one thing that we should consider is that if the emotional pain is unbearable today chances are that it will not be worse tomorrow and there is always a chance that a new day will bring a fresh sense of emotional peace worth living for.