Contents
Step 26: “How to get over the death of a loved one”
The 88 rungs of happy people
In this chapter of “The 88 Steps of Happy People” I explain why you shouldn’t sink in the face of a loss
This is possibly the hardest Step of all those included in this book. When you lose a loved one, the kind of attitude and response you receive from everyone around you is first from affection, which is fine, and second from compassion. But pity has a problem: like it. Is a compassion received from others, that far from wanting to hurt you, what they want is understand your pain and recognize how bad you are going through. The problem is when this excess of attention from others towards you can lead to a rejoicing on your part in that ocean full of pain. And this is not so good anymore. Like, like, but helping, does not help. When I started the paragraph saying that this Step will be hard, I meant that I am not going to take the path of commiseration. And this is why.
There is a widespread belief that great value is placed on suffering for others. It is as if the world should applaud us when we suffer. The compassionate suffering at the height of a human virtue. But that is a myth and this Step is going to focus on dismantling it.
I won’t be the one to deny how heartbreaking it is to go through loss of a loved one. Quiet. I am not a person who lacks empathy and therefore the central theme of this Step is not to determine if it is painful or not, but to question the usefulness of suffering and the contribution for the person who is no longer there. The serious mistake that many of us make is to think that suffering someone’s death is honoring that person and their death. But this is completely false.
I’m not saying you can’t suffer. Suffer everything that you can’t help but do not suffer anything that you can avoid. The central point of this Step is to reverse the belief that suffering contributes because it honors the loved one. Fake. It does not honor anything, it does not contribute anything, and the world does not improve one iota because of it. Not only does it not return a drop of life to the loved one, but if he or she saw your suffering, they would not even be happy. That loved one cannot see value in him, the world does not see value in him, and I hope that by the time you reach the end of what I write, you will not see it either.
The greatest favor you can do to that person you love so much is to use your love to encourage you to leave the house when you want bed, meet people when you want solitude, smile when you want tears, dress well when you want mourning, work your joy even if it is false at first, choose happiness when your body wants to rejoice in sadness. Do you find it difficult? Selfish? Don’t do it for yourself. Do it for him or her, and then you will make him or her altruistic. Love is an immense force when channeled correctly. And you are now in a position to take that enormous love that you feel for that loved one, tame him like a bull that only agitates and manifests fury, and redirect him not in the face of misery, but the opposite. Like everything in life, you are faced with a double choice. You can get muddy in your pain, and then that death will have produced more death, or you can channel that immense love to get ahead, not for you, but for him, and then you will achieve that death does not produce death, but life.
# 88StepsPeopleHappy
“The greatest gift you can give a loved one whose life fate took is to use every drop of your energy to prevent suffering from taking yours.”
@Angel
Do you want to honor him? Then live.
(If you know someone who is dealing with a loss, do them a favor and recommend this Step.)