It’s Okay to Feel Bad For No Reason

When you scan for faults in the world or in yourself, you always find plenty, and each can fuel endless rumination. You wind up adopting any number of grim beliefs in order to make the equation make sense:-I’m not doing enough-I can’t stop screwing up certain vital things-The world is mean and dangerous-There’s something wrong with my brain

Those major mood dips don’t happen to me very often anymore, thanks to two godsends: meditation, and friends who are willing to talk about how shitty they (or you) feel. Most people don’t seem to want talk about feeling awful, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s because they also believe they need a reason to feel bad.

When you believe your mood necessarily means something is wrong, that something can only be you, or the world around you. You feel like have to fix one or both, and of course you don’t know how, so you feel worse.

But all of us are subject to the entire range of human emotion, and that itself is not a problem that needs to be fixed. I wonder how many interactions we have daily with clerks, cashiers, co-workers, and friends who are, at that moment, doing their best to appear okay.

Or you can just say you’re fine, and know that there will be no further interrogation, because it’s always okay to feel okay.

I now try to respond to my moods like I do weather. Day-to-day conditions shift and change, emerging from a web of mostly unseen causes. Each of us has to contend with our own local climate, with its particular norms and extremes. Some get San Diego, some get Newfoundland.

Sometimes there are discernible reasons for low moods, of course, and it makes sense to act on them. (I don’t have a plan for my consumer debt, and I need one. My relationship is stagnating and I need to address that.) There are also serious, diagnosable mood disorders that need treatment.

I grew up believing you had to have a reason to feel bad. Something had to have happened. You saw a scary movie. Somebody hurt your feelings. You’re coming down with something. You aren’t taking care of yourself.

The assumption seemed to be that human beings normally feel good, or at least fine, and only an affliction of some kind, either short- or long-term, could explain why someone would feel bad.

But those depressing explanations for feeling bad aren’t necessary when nobody (yourself included) is demanding a reason.