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I was blessed with an optimistic, joyful disposition, which I inherited from my mother. I say this with gratitude, and with no more pride about it than I have about inheriting white privilege. A disposition towards joy is largely genetic. Even though everyone’s feelings are certainly affected by circumstances, some people just have an easier time experiencing joy than others, just like some people can see fine distinctions of colors and others can’t tell the difference between red and green.

The more I live, the more I see that it is not helpful when fundamentally joyful people share their “Tips for Joyful Living” with people of other dispositions. It’s like when thin people give me, overweight from earliest memory, tips about maintaining a healthy weight. “Eat less, exercise more!” they say, one way or another, as if I have never thought of that before.

So I’m not going to write a column about how to be more joyful. Other pieces in this issue speak eloquently to the practice of joy. Instead, I want to take a moment to congratulate the people who have more sensitive, troubled souls for making it through another day, another week, another year.

Late in life, my mother had a stroke. Though she recovered speech and movement, she never again had a sense of taste, and she couldn’t carry a tune anymore. She also became depressed. During that time, she told me, “You know, having experienced depression now, I feel I should have congratulated your father every day simply for getting out of bed. It is incredibly hard!”

I am grateful to say that I have never suffered from debilitating depression, though I have been knocked off my game by circumstances a number of times. Little things in life have always been able to delight or amuse me, even when I’ve seen them through a haze. But I have learned from many of you that my experience is not the same as yours.

350 million people in the world suffer from depression, and about 20 million Americans do. That is a very large number of people who are carrying extra burdens as they move through the already difficult business of being alive. And while medicine can help some people (I have known folks for whom anti-depressants created hope and joy where they had never known it before), drugs don’t always work.

So, to all of the readers of this column who suffer from depression: I see you. I believe you. I respect you. I know that, for you, an article on how to live with more joy could become one more reason to feel despair about something you can’t do right. And I do not want to add to your already large burden.

Instead, I want to thank you. Thank you for holding pain in a world that tells you, one way or another, that the pain is your fault. The pain is not your fault. There is a great deal of pain in the world, and there are a large number of people who refuse to hold any of it. Thank you for holding it. I would wish for you moments of ease and full breath as you do.

I want to tell you that you are loved, just as you are. People you don’t even know love you. I imagine you can’t feel that love right now, and you have said that you feel burdened when people want you to feel something you can’t. But could you lean into believing it, even when you can’t feel it, the way we can believe that the earth is moving us 1200 miles an hour even when we feel like we’re perfectly still? Can you entertain it as an idea, even if it finds no home in your body or emotions?

I want to express my gratitude for the work you do even though you are depressed. A huge number of writers and artists, ranging from Beyoncé to Henry James, have lived with depression. Some, like Parker Palmer, have written at length about it. People who are depressed—artists, teachers, parents, workers—continue to give amazing gifts to the world, despite the extra labor involved in these acts of generosity. I am tremendously grateful to you for all that you give.

I want to say that you are an important part of our community here on this planet. When such large numbers of people are struggling with depression, clearly something is going on that is not only about individuals, but about our collective well-being. If you are depressed, you may feel that the world would be a better place without you—but in fact the world would be much lonelier. Of course those of us who are not depressed wish that you did not have to carry this pain, or to feel alone as you carry it. Tell us how to help you carry it, or at least not to burden you further with our own ignorance.

And finally, I want to express my hope that you will feel better. That you will find some ease, some relief from the pressure, some place of rest. I hope that our community of bold, honest, sojourners might provide some of that ease for you. I hope that one day soon a sunbeam will fall across your face and awaken a sparkle in your eye and joy in your heart. Whether that does or does not happen, I hope you can feel my respect and appreciation that you made it through one more day.

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Rev. Meg Riley

Senior Minister at Church of the Larger Fellowship

Meg has been a Unitarian Universalist minister for more than twenty years. As a UU kid in West Virginia, she quickly learned to enjoy being "different," which has served her well in a "different" life. Meg lives in Minneapolis, where she enjoys walking by lakes, gardening, reading and writing. She also lives online, where she enjoys hanging out, keeping up with people, and playing the occasional game of Scrabble. She is the parent of a teenager, and the companion of a number of four legged friends.

Latest posts by Rev. Meg Riley (see all)

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