Reading other people’s posts on Twitter is a good way to not feel so bad about one’s own life. I imagine this would be especially true if I followed a rag picker in Mumbai. For instance:
@rajit22: I picked rags in the dump all week but did not find anything worth keeping. Not sure how to pay the landlord. #fml
Even without such a stark illustration of the differences between the life I lead and the life so many people of the world experience, my family is together, I have no bodily injuries, we are not completely broke, and I am not spending September and October in the Madison County Jail. All of these are good things.
And that’s not to say that the recent unpleasantness has not been real or unpleasant, but as the events start to resolve themselves (this is an assumption, one I hope does not prove ironic) it is time to get on with trying to be of some use. Time was when I would try to figure out how to feel like doing something for somebody else, or otherwise get out of myself. The truth is, it doesn’t really work that way.
I can try to think the correct thoughts, or hold the right beliefs, all I want. I can try to somehow guide my emotions or restrain them so that I don’t feel bad about not feeling good. One is called orthodoxy and the other shall henceforth be called orthopathy. I have not been particularly successful at either. What works is action, right action. Orthopraxy. Right action is often not hard for me to figure out if I will follow one simple maxim: don’t be a douchebag. Knowing right action and doing right action are different, and I find the latter harder. It’s sort of magic, though, that when I actually do the right thing, my thoughts and emotions get clearer and calmer too.