I don’t know if you’ve ever had a pet, but I remember still today the time when I had to accompany my beloved mutt dog, Pepper, to be put down. I remember crying that big gulpy sob. My friend and fellow author, Ryan Berman, who wrote Return on Courage, and who has been a guest on my podcast, recently wrote about how he (and his household) lost Herman, their beloved pooch. [Sorry for your loss, Ryan]. To deal with it, he invoked the wisdom of Dr Seuss:
“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”
This made me think straight back to my last day with Pepper. And, even as I write, I smile at the memory of her beautiful eyes.
But should one not cry, I wonder? Is it a sign of weakness or a sign of courage to cry? In today’s world, I am genuinely perplexed. Ming-Hui Yuang and Roland Rust have called this, The Feeling Economy. Rene Brown writes about The Power of Vulnerability. But then we have Jon Haidt and Greg Lukianoff with The Coddling of the American Mind and Nassim Taleb’s Anti-Fragile.
Should we cry or smile?
Thank you for reading DIALOGOS - Meaningful Conversation. This post is public so feel free to share it.
I prefer to smile but sometimes it’s easier said then done! So when the emotions stir and the tears may flow, I think it’s healthy to acknowledge your feelings and even healthier to try and smile in between. 🙂
I am with you folks who say both are important. The tears are a way of acknowledging the hurt, the empty space left by losing someone we love. And they needn’t exist without the smiles. I look at it as a shifting in the balance. Our family lost someone very dear to us in March 2020, just before my last child was born. We spent a lot of time in very deep grief, but even on Day 1 we could spare a small fraction of that time smiling at the silly things that made him so amazing, the things we’d miss the most. Now, we do still weep from time to time. We still regret that he is not here to watch the baby grow into the precious little boy he is today and the amazing young man he’s sure to become. I’m tearing up as I write this. But the balance has shifted much more in favor of being grateful we had the time to share with him while he was here.
Thanks for your nuanced response Nicci. Sorry for your loss. In reality, it can never be black or white... (of course you should never say never either!)....
We should do both, as much as experience warrants. And by that I don’t mean anyone else’s perception of that experience but our own. Only we know how something has moved us, changed us, helped us, touched us. No one else has the right to say whether we should cry or smile or for how long we should indulge either emotion. If we listen, deeply, and allow ourselves the journey, we will know when it’s time to stop crying and start smiling or vice versa. This is how we learn, how we grow.
Permission granted, then!! Thank you Anthea for your insightful comment. In my upbringing of stiff upper lipness, crying was certainly never for public display. I can see how crying is cathartic, but sometimes I still feel (in my head) that I'm doing a little too much woe is me, at times. Like when I cry at someone else's funeral, I have pangs of guilt: am I not just crying for myself? Then there's crying solo in my airplane seat to a sad film. Again a bit of ashamedness. Stuff I've got to work through I guess! :)
Yup, you have to work through that shame and guilt and let it go. Literally see yourself chugging it in the bin. So what if crying at a funeral is more crying for yourself?! Yes, it’s cathartic. And holding in these emotions can cause more damage internally than I’m certain research can ever tell us. We are each journeying here solo, even if in the company of others. Our thoughts, our emotions they belong to us and no one else. I suspect your stiff upper lip upbringing suppressed a lot of stuff but that too was part of YOUR journey. We know enough now to know there is only now — it’s all that exists. As much as our past informs our present and we think, our future, it really only informs our choices in both states. I went down a rabbit hole the other day listening to David Foster Wallace’s commencement speech on YouTube (a Tim Ferris blog post referral), which started me on a google search, which plunge me into said rabbit hole. I was saddened to hear he’d taken his own life. All that wisdom he had imparted/shared with those graduates that day may, to them, feel, after his suicide, like a bit of a gyp. But maybe not. He had a very succinct way of articulating our toughest life conundrums. And I guess, his work here was done. He decided. Depression is a nasty condition. Anyway, I digress but all that to say, our journeys are singular and our right to express emotion is exactly that: our right. No doubt your upbringing was stellar in so many ways as look at all you produce, how you live and love your family, how you continue to share your learned wisdom and experience and encourage, inspire and provoke others to think beyond our quotidian lives. Bravo!
Many thanks for your kind words of support, Anthea. I have definitely listened to DF Wallace's commencement speech... and more. I particularly enjoyed his String Theory. A brilliant mind.
I prefer to smile but sometimes it’s easier said then done! So when the emotions stir and the tears may flow, I think it’s healthy to acknowledge your feelings and even healthier to try and smile in between. 🙂
Sort of like the sun breaking through after a downpour.
Yes, that’s a great analysis.
I am with you folks who say both are important. The tears are a way of acknowledging the hurt, the empty space left by losing someone we love. And they needn’t exist without the smiles. I look at it as a shifting in the balance. Our family lost someone very dear to us in March 2020, just before my last child was born. We spent a lot of time in very deep grief, but even on Day 1 we could spare a small fraction of that time smiling at the silly things that made him so amazing, the things we’d miss the most. Now, we do still weep from time to time. We still regret that he is not here to watch the baby grow into the precious little boy he is today and the amazing young man he’s sure to become. I’m tearing up as I write this. But the balance has shifted much more in favor of being grateful we had the time to share with him while he was here.
Thanks for your nuanced response Nicci. Sorry for your loss. In reality, it can never be black or white... (of course you should never say never either!)....
Both🤗
Surely Annemarie!
We should do both, as much as experience warrants. And by that I don’t mean anyone else’s perception of that experience but our own. Only we know how something has moved us, changed us, helped us, touched us. No one else has the right to say whether we should cry or smile or for how long we should indulge either emotion. If we listen, deeply, and allow ourselves the journey, we will know when it’s time to stop crying and start smiling or vice versa. This is how we learn, how we grow.
Permission granted, then!! Thank you Anthea for your insightful comment. In my upbringing of stiff upper lipness, crying was certainly never for public display. I can see how crying is cathartic, but sometimes I still feel (in my head) that I'm doing a little too much woe is me, at times. Like when I cry at someone else's funeral, I have pangs of guilt: am I not just crying for myself? Then there's crying solo in my airplane seat to a sad film. Again a bit of ashamedness. Stuff I've got to work through I guess! :)
Yup, you have to work through that shame and guilt and let it go. Literally see yourself chugging it in the bin. So what if crying at a funeral is more crying for yourself?! Yes, it’s cathartic. And holding in these emotions can cause more damage internally than I’m certain research can ever tell us. We are each journeying here solo, even if in the company of others. Our thoughts, our emotions they belong to us and no one else. I suspect your stiff upper lip upbringing suppressed a lot of stuff but that too was part of YOUR journey. We know enough now to know there is only now — it’s all that exists. As much as our past informs our present and we think, our future, it really only informs our choices in both states. I went down a rabbit hole the other day listening to David Foster Wallace’s commencement speech on YouTube (a Tim Ferris blog post referral), which started me on a google search, which plunge me into said rabbit hole. I was saddened to hear he’d taken his own life. All that wisdom he had imparted/shared with those graduates that day may, to them, feel, after his suicide, like a bit of a gyp. But maybe not. He had a very succinct way of articulating our toughest life conundrums. And I guess, his work here was done. He decided. Depression is a nasty condition. Anyway, I digress but all that to say, our journeys are singular and our right to express emotion is exactly that: our right. No doubt your upbringing was stellar in so many ways as look at all you produce, how you live and love your family, how you continue to share your learned wisdom and experience and encourage, inspire and provoke others to think beyond our quotidian lives. Bravo!
Many thanks for your kind words of support, Anthea. I have definitely listened to DF Wallace's commencement speech... and more. I particularly enjoyed his String Theory. A brilliant mind.