Dear Dorothy,
I’ve been having a real hard time lately and I’m finding it hard to see the point in living. None of my “friends” want to hear about it and it’s making it hard to believe that people care about me. Your music has always helped me through rough times like these. Any advice you could give me would be greatly appreciated.
Yours Sincerely,
Edwin
Dear Edwin,
Oh man. Well, first of all, I’m sorry to hear you’re feeling down. I’ve been there myself many times. First of all: it may help to know that you’re not alone. It might seem like the rest of the world and the people on the bus and in the street all have their act together, but believe me, they don’t. Almost everybody out there is suffering in their own way, and as morbid as it sounds, that can be a comforting thought.
There’s a great old Buddhist story my best friend told me, and it goes like this: once upon a time, there was a young woman in a small village who gave birth to a baby, and when the baby was still very small, it died. The mother, this young girl, was inconsolable. She wailed, she agonised, she couldn’t get over the death of her baby. She kept the baby wrapped in a blanket and carried the corpse around with her. The neighbours and townspeople were pretty worried about her, and they sent the neighbourhood Zen monk to go talk with her, hoping it would help.
He stopped by and she said: “My baby is dead and I don’t know how I can ever be happy again.” The monk said: “Go door to door and ask everybody in the town what they know about loss, and tell me if there is a single household without it.” One by one the villagers invited her in and sat her down for a cup of tea. And at every table she heard stories of sickness, death, miscarriages, terrible accidents and lives lost and mourned … and there wasn’t a single family who couldn’t relate to her sadness. And then … she felt better.
This is all to say: even your “friends”, the ones not helping you, are in their own stories and dealing with their own pain, and it can help to remember that. And about your “friends” … if they’re not helping you, if they don’t want to talk at all, if they’re not available, are they your friends? Doesn’t sound like it.
Other general advice: take care of your body. It can be really hard to do this when you’re depressed and unmotivated, but it changes everything. Eat food that isn’t shit and fat and sugar. Drink a lot of water. Don’t make things worse by drinking alcohol. Don’t smoke. Sign up in a gym. Drop in on a meditation class and force yourself to examine your own negative thought patterns. Pick up a blank journal and write down out of everything that’s bothering you. Don’t write for an audience: just write for yourself, to figure out what the hell is going on in your brain. If you slow down enough, you might learn something. I hope these tips help.
Yours Truly,
Dorothy