Don’t Worry, Be Sad: The Bright Side of Sadness

Bad moods can have unappreciated mental upsides

“While a positive mood may increase self-focus and selfishness, a negative mood can increase concern for others and the quality of communication,”

Thomas Jefferson defended the right to pursue happiness in the Declaration of Independence. But that’s so 237 years ago. Many modern societies champion everyone’s right to be happy pretty much all the time.

Good luck with that, says psychologist Joseph Forgas of the University of New South Wales in Sydney. A lack of close friends, unfulfilled financial dreams and other harsh realities leave many people feeling lonely and forlorn a lot of the time. But there’s a mental and social upside to occasional downers that often goes unappreciated.

“Bad moods are seen in our happiness-focused culture as representing a problem, but we need to be aware that temporary, mild negative feelings have important benefits,” Forgas says.

Growing evidence suggests that gloomy moods improve key types of thinking and behavior, Forgas asserts in a new review paper aptly titled “Don’t worry, be sad!” For good evolutionary reasons, positive and negative moods subtly recruit thinking styles suited to either benign or troubling situations, he says. Each way of dealing with current circumstances generally works well, if imperfectly.

New and recent studies described by Forgas in the June Current Directions in Psychological Science illustrate some of the ways in which periods of sadness spontaneously recruit a detail-oriented, analytical thinking style. Morose moods have evolved as early-warning signs of problematic or dangerous situations that demand close attention, these reports suggest.

One investigation found that people in sad moods have an advantage remembering the details of unusual incidents that they have witnessed. And a little gloominess could help job applicants; lousy moods cut down on the tendency to stereotype others, thus boosting the accuracy of first impressions. People in sad moods also show a greater willingness to work on demanding tasks, communicate more persuasively and are more concerned with being fair to others than are peers in neutral or happy moods.

Continue reading…

__

What Can Money Buy?

Money is nice to have but it can’t buy you the things that truly matter to make your life a happy life. Money you can lose and make again but there are things that if you lose them cannot be replaced. Money can’t buy you a life

• Money can buy Position not Respect

• Money can buy bed but not sleep

• Money can buy books but not knowledge

• Money can buy food but not appetite

• Money can buy Finery but not beauty

• Money can buy a house but not a home

• Money can buy Medicine but not health

• Money can buy Luxuries but not comfort

• Money can buy Pleasures but not happiness

• Money can buy Religion but not salvation.

Say not that this is yours and this is mine,
Just say, this came to you and to me;
So we may not regret the fading shine,
Of all the glorious things which ceased to be.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~