Comfort

There’s a problem with people my age, or at least the people that I know that are my age. We aren’t happy. Not for long. There is an epidemic of depression rippling through the world. Some say that the increase in the cases of depression has more to do with an increase in diagnoses rather than an increase of actual cases. While this may be true, I do genuinely think that there has been an increase in depression and unhappiness, particularly concerning Millennials and Generation Z. Why do I think that? Because everyone around me is constantly on edge and desperate to make a name for themselves and live satisfying lives and make lifelong friends and have a successful career and be more and more and more and more. It’s exhausting. It’s exhausting but we all keep doing it because the moment you stop is when you get left behind. Hell, even if you keep going you’re still getting left behind by the person who goes out and founds their own company or gets private lessons or applies themself somehow. I’m just complaining at this point because I was and am not assertive nor proactive enough to find these opportunities. I am a sad, sad model of mediocrity. But putting aside the self pity, there is an idea that I have relating to unhappiness and comfort.

I believe that people have a homeostatic emotional point. In other words, when nothing is happening, there is a certain feeling that a person has. That feeling can lean positive or negative depending on the person and the point of life they are at. Personally, I feel that I’ve consciously changed my homeostatic emotional point multiple times in an effort to become happier, and more importantly, more comfortable with the idea of being happy. See, in our constant race to establish dominance and find success we stress and pressure ourselves into doing more. At the same time, we’re conscious of the fact that we should be happy and want to be happy. So, we do things that make us happy. We spend time with friends, go to concerts, make relationships. And it feels great to be happy, but something strange happens. Most people nowadays have homeostatic points that lean negative. They walk around, not necessarily unhappy, but they certainly feel discontent. It’s an obvious result of all the things that corner us in this competitive world. Because we keep doing more and it still seems like it’s never enough. So when we feel happy it’s unfamiliar and uncomfortable. I’ll say it again. People my age are uncomfortable being happy because we’re so used to being unhappy and stressed. That is the real tragedy and that is what I perceive as a reason for the increase in depression diagnoses in people my age. We don’t know what it’s like to relax anymore. Or rather, we relax, but then instantly feel guilty about it. We can’t take a break, we can’t take the time to be happy and in the moment because we’re constantly looking to the future and it’s all unknown and it’s scary.

I don’t know if this hypothesis that I have is true or not. There also isn’t a way I can really test for it. Ultimately, I have no idea what it’s like to be someone else and thus can never be sure what someone’s true homeostatic emotional point is, nor if that homeostatic point even exists. It may simply be something that applies only to some people. All I know is that when I start the next chapter of my life, I should seek to alter my homeostatic emotional point and grow comfortable with being happy. After all, I’ve spent so much time wallowing in sadness and tragedy. It’s certainly comfortable, but I don’t deserve it.