I’ve seen throughout my life a reoccurring cop out argument and honestly the only argument happy go lucky people bring to the table. Well its your “choice” if you want to be miserable. “That’s your choice to look at things that way instead of my way, and that’s why you’re miserable.” That’s basically saying there’s only one mindset that works in this world and that’s whatever the hell works for them which they always fail to explain. Are you kidding me? Really if you think about it that’s the same sort of logic that homophobes use towards gays, “your lifestyle and sexuality is a choice, and with that choice you made comes consequences.”
A choice, what exactly is their definition of choice? Because to me something like life and the events/circumstances that we are unfairly bombarded with are not that simple to be manipulated just by our decision making and mindset. What makes us happy or unhappy is our reality, not our mindset. A good mindset helps but its not enough when your life consists of so many outside forces beyond your mindset and that attack your mindset, daily.
It seems pretty obvious that the farther from the truth and reality you are the happier you are, stay in your socially constructed bubble of positivity and good times if you are fortunate enough to have that option.
I’m not mad that they don’t understand, that’s too much work for anyone. But why insult me by saying it’s my choice to be miserable? That’s like saying its my choice to be me, who I ended up to be. That’s just who I am at my core, a miserable person. What day could you find in my past that I just said you know what I prefer misery over happiness, it just is more of a thrill for me. It’s not there, I was too busy suffering from mental illness. For anyone who thinks that Mental illness is bullshit and I doubt that on this forum but who knows: you’re lucky, you are. I wish I was that ignorant.
4 comments
I think what’s even more disturbing is when people who are in the same boat with emotional/mental issues try to say the same sort of thing to other people. “It’s a choice, you do it to yourself.” Well, partly that’s true, but if it were entirely about choice, I don’t think any of us would choose to feel anxiety, depression, alienation, psychosis, etc… Reality is one thing, and it’s immutable – it’s physical and tangible. Situations are a little different because they’re social, and social relations can be influenced but not controlled or changed on any radical level. But emotional and mental conditions are a totally different animal – it’s like trying to bottle the wind. It’s not a choice any more than it’s a choice to have fingers and toes.
+1, good post.
Holy shit! I’ve finally found someone who understands that the world is not up to chance, but happens because it has to.
@TBO: idk if that was the point… most of what happens is the choices people make, but no one person can control the choices of everyone else. It can seem like “chance” on the surface, but when you dig deeper, all that “chance” is people making choices to enact actions based on their thoughts, which come from what has filled their minds, which mostly comes from the other people they’ve encountered in their environments.
But that’s just the thing: it doesn’t HAVE TO happen the way it does… people just make choices, and it would seem that a vast majority of them, don’t really consider the extended potential impacts of their choices… many seem to just do things to do them… which often results in causing extreme detriment to others, for no discernible or meaningful reason, other than the initiator of events “just felt like doing it.” You can break it down and analyze the piss out of everything… but it comes down to whether or not people making choices, are considerate of how their choices will affect others. Many aren’t. And so we have a whole shitload of unnecessary suffering, caused by people who either don’t care, or lack the presence of mind to even notice that their choices can affect others.