People Love Spreading Misery

If you ask most people whether they'd prefer to be happy or miserable, they'd claim happy. In reality, I've discovered most people prefer misery. They thrive on it. They love the thrill of dragging others down with them. They love the drama and stress. I think it's some kind of sick adrenaline high. But it's got to stop!

I recently wrote a post about quitting social media for the second time, in large part due to all the negativity. I didn't expect it to be as popular as it was. But, it gave me hope that maybe there's still a spark of positive energy in the world.

No One's Allowed To Be Happy

I'm kind of old school and still have a Yahoo email address. I've had this same email for around 20 years and I'm too lazy to move everything over to another email provider. So, each day when I log into my email for work, I also glance through the headlines on Yahoo's front page.

I was both disgusted and yet, not really surprised to find a story about a woman sharing how happy she was to sit down to coffee with her husband and spend time together.

At first, I was expecting some kind of twist. Maybe this was another of Yahoo's many polyamory stories and her husband wasn't actually her husband or something.

Nope. This was your average couple who spent real time together over coffee for hours during the morning before heading off to their jobs. They had a simple backyard where they sat, gardened, and did yoga together. There also wasn't any extreme about them, such as talking about only eating organic vegetables fertilized by our own poo or look at us doing yoga naked. No, this was a seemingly normal couple.

Poor woman did the unthinkable. She tweeted about something happy. And, Twitter went crazy. Suddenly, people were blasting her for bragging.

Apparently, it was all her fault that some people can't afford coffee (yet could afford a phone to live on social media to complain about others), have chronic pain, or work too many hours to spend time with their spouses. Some users thought she must be hiding something because how could anyone possibly want to spend time with and talk to their spouse for hours every day.

You can check it out for yourself on Buzzfeed. I frankly can't see anything wrong with her tweet. So what if you've got problems? Does that mean no one else in the world should have a moment of happiness? When it comes to social media, the answer is yes.

Misery Is The New Sunshine

People seem to bask in misery. They love to share with everyone else about how miserable they are or how terrible their lives are. This is in such sharp contrast to those who try desperately to portray the perfect life instead. There is no middle ground.

I had a friend about five years ago who had a baby. My first thought was why her and her husband were actually trying for a baby (yes, this wasn't an accident). He quit a good job because he wanted to focus on being a husband. And no, he didn't get another job. She worked part time for a non-profit and both had massive student debt. They also splurged on a big wedding.

They lived in a rented basement and even squatted for almost two years because the state had paid the owner's for the property to build a new road, but hadn't started the project and made my friend move out yet. But, they decided a baby was a good idea.

She ended up on the local news to talk about a new way to help prevent SIDS, which was great. What did she do immediately afterward? Jumped on Facebook to talk about how she didn't even have clean clothes and wore some dirty shirt she found on the floor for the interview. Then proceeded to tell her friends/followers where baby formula and diapers were only sale because they were too broke to afford them.

She loved talking about how bad off they were, yet constantly went on vacations, ate at expensive restaurants, and bragged about buying an $80 handbag while asking for toys for her child.

If anyone shared about a good thing that happened to them, she'd tell them how happy she was and then start talking about how bad her life was. It was like she was trying to make them feel guilty.

Yes, people love to bask in their misery and shine it on everyone else. Trying to share a moment of happiness is like trying to shine a flashlight at the sun. It's pointless.

Being Happy Isn't Offensive

Somehow, being happy has become something else to be offended by. Someone got a new job and you didn't? Who cares. Be happy for them or just be quiet. Don't blame them for something going right in this crazy world.

I fully believe everyone has a right to their opinion. But, you also have the right to be quiet versus spreading your misery. Everyone has something that sucks about their life and some far more than others.

Yet, I've seen people with stage-4 cancer with weeks to live get up and enjoy every day as much as possible and be grateful they had that day. Then, I see someone who gets mild headaches (not migraines) and acts like the world owes them something and sits humped up because no one is babying them.

I know it sounds so corny, but maybe sharing happy stories could be seen as inspiration. For the woman who shared the story about having coffee with her love, maybe she was just trying to say it's nice to step away from screens and spend genuine time together.

That's what I'd love to do myself. Share happy things. Of course, a good rant like this one is fun to write too. The way I see it is if someone's happiness offends you, but isn't causing anyone any harm, let it go. You don't have to follow them on social media. You don't have to be friends with them.

Enjoy your misery if that's what you love, but it's time for happiness to take center stage and prove it's okay to feel good no matter how bad things might be in the world.