The Right to Be Happy and Sad

The Right to Be Happy and Sad

"Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know;
Safely through the world we go."
   ___ William Blake, "Augries of Innocence"


   Joy and sorrow do not perform accordingly to logical rules and laws; they come unbidden like the clouds, the rain, the sunshine. If we assume that happiness is our sacred right, we tend to warp the all-covering garment of the universal bounty into a selfish cloak of self-appeasement. This cult of happiness can devolve into a pleasure-seeking pilgrimage, that excludes all difficulty and awkwardness. Our dissatisfaction, grief, or disillusion is then projected upon less-fortunate others.
    The gifts of sadness, like the gifts of happiness, come to all conditions and types of people. They provide moments of self-clarification that keep our lives on course. Sadness stems nearly always from some form of exclusion, separation, or rejection. When we are disconnected from life, we yearn for union. Joy connects us strongly with life; like people who plunge into the stream, we enter the swim of life in ecstatic connection. Our going safely through the world is based upon a true regard of both conditions. When we value the gifts both of joy and of sorrow, our taste for life increases. When we accept both happiness and sadness as our moral bequest, we grow as human beings.

"What have you learned from your own sad and happy times?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]