Mason  🏃‍♂️ ✂️

"Life isn't all fun and games." Not with that attitude it's not

It's genuinely amazing how many people who tell me that you can't choose to be happy will shortly thereafter, in some awkward arrangement of words, essentially tell me that they have chosen to be *unhappy*

It's also genuinely amazing how cringey is your post when someone with depression reads it (like me). I didn't choose shit.

Or all the people who suffer from other mental and physical diseases: did they choose to be unhappy? People who are discriminated on the basis of race, gender, sexuality and are unhappy bc of that: should they just choose different?

There are happier & less happy people in all those conditions + many lenses through which to view them that imply different degrees of/meanings for "choice." People w severe learned helplessness tend to choose one particular lens and yes, get very upset w/ me for choosing another

Yes, and there are unhappy people who have none of the above conditions, still they can't force themselves to be happy. You cannot force your feelings, no more than you can levitate out of your chair with your mind.

The problem anyway is that the "choose to be happy" trope is incredibly dangerous to people with depression. It basically tells ppl like me that it's our fault if we are unhappy. IT IS NOT.