This is my motto, and it should be yours, too: “Life is sad and then you die.”
WTF, right?
Have we stumbled back to Tumblr and all its side bangs, smudged eyeliner, and adolescent woes of 2012?
Not quite.
We’re far closer to thirty than we or our not-so-subtle gray hairs would like to admit with our feet firmly planted on the ground and our heads grazing but no longer lost high up in the clouds. Say it with me:
Life is sad and then you die.
This is the saying that will set you free.
(And I’m an optimist! If you can believe it.)
Hear me out:
Life is full of sadness. People die. People get sick and suffer for years on end with no explanation given by any God or gods in response to loved ones’ pleas. People are mean. They judge you, spite you, ignore you, insult you. Some will even try to buy you. Others will sell you things and pretend they’re saving you. Worst of all, it often feels like it’s the most rotten people who are born beautiful and rich because life is just as unfair as it is sad.
This can all be expected. In the wise words of Trailer Park Boys’s* fictitious Ray, “That’s the way she goes”:
- the mean girl at school who can do whatever she wants because people have decided she’s pretty
- the mean boy at school who’s decided he can do whatever he wants because he’s tall
- the slimy boss who takes credit for your work
- the slimy algorithms that now dictate your work
… and so it goes.
Yes, these things are sad. But they will continue to happen, nonetheless. And you—no matter how unique and interesting and rarefied you are in so many little, obscure ways—are not special for experiencing these unhappy happenstances.
Sad things happen to all of us. And then we (eventually) die.
The sooner you realize this, the sooner you can get on living.
The faster you’ll realize you should appreciate your precious time here since we’re all walking around with invisible hourglasses trickling down.
And the easier it’ll be to release your anger when one of the Sad Things happens to you or a loved one (however justified that anger may be).
Because that’s the way life is: It’s sad. And then we die.
But acknowledging this sadness and recognizing its ubiquitousness is not to accept the absence of happiness.
Life is very happy, and we see demonstrations of its wonders every day, from grand gestures to small acts of kindness. A wise man knows, however, that the greatest moment of the greatest happiness of all can never mark the End of the Sad Things, for there will always be more Sad Things.
A wise man also knows how to be happy in spite of the never-ending torrent of Sad Things.
- He knows to keep replanting flowers in his garden even though the neighborhood kids keep stealing them (because girls will be girls)**.
- He knows some people will always make more money than him no matter how hard he works—but that doesn’t mean his life has to be any less worth living.
- He knows that even if he dresses the way you’re supposed to dress and tells the jokes you’re supposed to tell that there will always be people who don’t like him.
Maybe for some years he has a big social circle with lots of friends to pat him on the back and keep his spirits buoyed one Friday night after the next.
… And then maybe for some months people are busy working or traveling or being in love or otherwise living their lives outside of this person who is but one among many.
This may make him feel sad and alone for a moment, until he thinks to himself: “This is just one of those Sad Things. But that’s alright. There’s almost certainly a merry moment coming around the corner.”
When you dwell on the Sad Things, you feel sad.
When you accept that the Sad Things will always be there, then you can be free of them and you no longer have to live your life swinging from the emotional pendulum of chance happenstances.
Life IS sad and then we die. But don’t dwell on the Sad Things so much that you can’t notice the merry moments among them.
Have I achieved peak emo status? Maybe this is even cringe? (I don’t know what the hell Gen Z hates these days. (I’ve stopped looking at memes and let me tell you: Life is fabulous without them. ✌️))
I’ve told a number of friends my “Life is sad and then you die” motto—some over ice cream cones in sun-filled parks and others over whiskey stones in dimly-lit bars.
It usually takes them a couple of listens to come around. But after they’ve laughed in my face and/or rolled their eyes at me, they start to realize I’m not being dramatic (or crafting what would have been a great AIM away message) but that I’m completely serious and have chosen this to be the hill I die on (no pun intended):
- Life is sad and then you die.
- Once you learn to be happy on your own, you can do anything.
Because the only thing holding you back from creating happiness is wishing your life could be different.
Just be happy. Now.
*Do you disagree with my spelling of boys’s in Trailer Park Boys? It’s OK; we can both be right: How To Make Words That End In “S” Possessive
**Because no one ever says “girls will be girls” to justify our childhood wrong-doings. (This is a true story. Sorry to those people whose flowers my best friend and I plucked on our walks around the neighborhood.)
