“I’m sad a lot.”
“I thought you had been cured of your depression.”
“I’m not depressed, I’m sad.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Depression is all-encompassing, there’s not rhyme or reason to it, it’s just there. When you’re sad, you’re sad about something in particular. It’s far easier to distract yourself from sadness than depression. You can still be hopeful when you’re sad, but when you’re depressed, there’s no hope.”
“Are there medications or treatments for sadness?”
“No. But you can identify the causes of the sadness and address that. With depression there’s nothing to identify. It just is.”
“So you’ve gone from depression to sadness.”
“No, the sadness was always there. It blends in perfectly with depression. Now that the depression is gone the sadness is on its own.”
“So overall you’re better off.”
“Oh, definitely.”
“Are you sad all the time?”
“Not at all. Sadness can be chased away, unless of course there’s been a tragedy in your life that is causing the sadness, even then it goes away eventually.”
“What are you sad about?”
“Existential things like death. I’m getting old and I think of the end of my life a lot — far too much. It’s not healthy and not productive. I also think about the past and the many things I wish I’d done differently. All the wrong paths I took.”
“You can’t do anything about either. Mortality is a fact of life and the past can’t be changed.”
“Exactly.”
“So are you simply going to go through your remaining time on earth being sad?”
“No, I can’t, I’ve got to change the way I think, the way I view the world.”
“Goodness, that’s a tall order. What are you going to do, find religion?”
“Of sorts, perhaps. Maybe I need to get deeper into meditation and maybe I can explore buddhism more. I’ve got to do something.”
“It’s good that you can talk about.”
“It’s always the first step. Actually the second, the first is recognizing the problem.”
"You’ve done that. The third step, I suppose, is taking a step towards addressing the issue.”
“The hardest part. I know I’ve got to stop putting band aids on the problem, like finding things that will make me feel better in the moment, such as watching a movie.”
“Movies are good, but shouldn’t be used in lieu of taking positive action. So what are you going to do now?”
“What immediately comes to mind is to look more into buddhism and also to see if there are any in-person AA meetings in the area yet.”
“That would be good. Especially if you can do some service.”
“I need to get out of my own head a bit. It’s my ego that’s holding me back. I’m looking inward so much that I’m missing a lot of what’s going on.”
“Too bad your school isn’t back open.”
“Teaching would sure help.”
“But you’ve got some ideas. Get started.”
“I will. Thanks for listening and sharing your thoughts.”
“A pleasure.”
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