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Self
Why the Happiness Zeitgeist Has Undermined the Value of Sadness
Moments of sadness can enhance decision making and depotentiate complacency.
Beth was tall and athletic, with brown hair and a serious demeanor that belied her clever sense of humor, which could catch you off guard at any moment. We were lane buddies on our college swim team, commiserating through workouts, and hanging out off the pool deck as friends.
I didn’t have many classes with her and boy was I grateful. She took 21 credits per semester and seemed hellbent on taking the hardest classes possible — biochemistry, neurobiology, genetics — anything with mountains of homework. It was a mind-bending workload to manage while also training twice a day for swimming. She managed to get straight A’s but, every time I saw her, stress and exhaustion were etched across her face.
Even when we passed each other on the sidewalks in DC (we were at George Washington University), she couldn’t pause to chat for even two seconds — as I usually did with other friends. I once saw her approaching and waved as she power-walked towards me, accelerating like a grand prix car, her backpack stuffed full of thick books to memorize.
