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Key points
- When you are feeling down, don't isolate yourself.
- Avoid remaining with just one person, especially one who is critical or bad-tempered.
- Seek out a variety of friends and family, and find joy in nature and art.
When all starts to seem grey and hopeless—the news depressing, success in work difficult, people around you disappointing and distant, or disappearing for one reason or another—try not to isolate or even remain too long with only one person, whoever that may be, particularly if they are critical or bad-tempered. Look around for friends or family who will laugh with you over an old joke, meet for a drink in a bar, or share a new book. Call and email or Zoom. Reach out to others in your life. Join a book group, a club, a place of worship. Don't rely entirely on one source of support.
Don't isolate.
The Outside World
Try to organize your days with time spent in the outside world in the fresh air or at least in the streets of the city or a park. Go for a run or a walk, do some yoga daily, or spend a half-hour or more doing a series of exercises. Enjoy nature or even the sources of life in the streets around you: the beauty of a tree, a flower, the clouds in the sky.
Turn to Art, New or Old
Pick up a favorite book Try the reliable classics alone or in a group: Dickens or Charlotte Brontë or George Eliot, reliable masters of plot and people, writers who can tell you about life. There are so many joys to be found in the pages of a favorite book: Try Middlemarch by George Eliot again or try something entirely new by a first-time author. (I read The Safekeep, a new book by Yael van der Wouden, with great pleasure.) Pick up an old thriller you cannot put down like The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith, or watch an old movie or a new one. Go to a gallery and stand before a favorite painting, or discover a new artist who makes you see the world slightly differently.
Remember: Each day is a new one, and things change constantly. There are always ups and downs, better times and worse. Some of us are better in the morning and some in the evenings or even late at night. Take joy in the simple pleasures of life: a good meal, a walk with a friend in the park, a good book, a beautiful sunset, a word of comfort given or received.
