Thoughts and Random Things

Happy/Sad Ratio

WARNING: THESE ARE MY PERSONAL OPINIONS/OBSERVATIONS. DON'T TELL ME I'M WRONG OR THAT I'M BEING DISRESPECTFUL OF SOMEONE/SOMETHING. I DON'T MEAN TO SAY ANYTHING OFFENSIVE AND I'M SORRY IF YOU FEEL OFFENDED BY SOMETHING. THESE ARE MY THOUGHTS.

I've noticed something and I would like to express my thoughts on it. When one watches the news, the top stories are usually very heavy and depressing and involve death. Sad stuff, right? The big stuff in life is sad. Sure, big important events in life can be happy and positive too: a graduation, winning an award, getting a dog. But that's not the kind of thing that one worries about all the time. We, as humans, don't tend to dwell on the happy things; rather, we focus on the sad things. The big, important, life-impacting sad things. Death, loss, disease, heartbreak. Take it into consideration: when it comes to big, important, life-changing events, more often than not, these types of events are sad/depressing/negative. The saddest things in life are big. The big things in life are the saddest.

Now let's opt for a positive change in mood. Have you ever paid attention to the little things? Your best friend's laugh, a cute inchworm on the sidewalk, the smell of a single rose. These aren't exactly big things. They don't really impact your life. But they are happy. The smallest, most insignificant things can instantly brighten one's mood. I'm not saying that all of these small occurrences are 100% happy. There could be little instances that provoke negative emotions: someone tracking mud everywhere, seeing a dead sparrow, running out of lead for a mechanical pencil. But let us consider it: when it comes to small, insignificant-yet-mood-changing events, more often than not, these events are happy/uplifting/positive. The happiest things in life are small. The small things in life are the happiest.

Now, not everything can be considered a big thing in life. Let's say this: if it will still affect one's life one month after it occurs, it's considered a big event; if it doesn't, it's a small event. Let's refer to big sad events as stormclouds and small happy events as sundrops.

Think about the past month in your life. How many stormclouds have occurred in the past month? How about sundrops? Let's create a simple, reasonable ratio.

1:10

For every one stormcloud, there are 10 sundrops. Seem reasonable enough? Does that work for you? It's okay if it doesn't apply to your life specifically. It doesn't have to. This ratio is just arbitrary.

So, 10 sundrops for each stormcloud. But what if it flipped?

What I'm suggesting is, what if it were 1 big happy event for every 10 small sad events? What if the world was filled with small, sad, insignificant-yet-mood-impacting events with only a few large happy occurences to balance it all out? Wouldn't we, as a human population, go insane eventually? Surrounded by all that sadness and negativity all the time, only having some happiness here and there, would we all get depressed eventually? If sundrops turned to raindrops and stormclouds to sunshine, how different would the human race be?