Sorrow Defines Joy

Sorrow gives meaning to joy. Humans can only comprehend joy through the lens of experienced sorrow. Joy is a fleeting emotion of pleasure, while sorrow is the polar opposite, where a person feels low, exhibiting emotions such as sadness and pain. While joy is an experience that many people prefer, only by feeling sorrow do we learn the true meaning and gift of joy. Many people can relate to the emotion of sorrow in their personal and professional lives; examples include cases such as failed relationships, the death of a loved one, or the loss of a job can all bring memories correlating with negative emotions. However, sorrow can have disguised benefits overshadowed by the negatives associated with the feeling. These benefits can include gratitude, self-development, and, ultimately, an awareness and appreciation of joy when it occurs. Imagine a life where you have never experienced sorrow; even when feeling joy, you would not understand what those emotions meant. Pain and sorrow, while seeming sadistic, provide context to the feelings we experience when we are happy. Only by accepting that sorrow is a normal part of life can people move on from negative experiences to learn and grow without being consumed by sorrow. Instead, they can overcome this emotion to understand and appreciate positive emotions such as joy.

In our darkest moments, humans can cultivate characteristics that shape them into more extraordinary people if they allow the situation to teach them lessons. Therefore, even in sorrow, there are lessons that we can learn to understand ourselves better, the unfortunate circumstances, and more about life itself. Thus, sorrow is a blessing in disguise. No personal history is free from sorrow, as humans are social and develop connections with others through their families, careers, and social interests. Through these connections, there is an invitation to lose relationships with people such as an intimate partner, friends, family, and associates. Relationships between people can be severed, or people can, unfortunately, lose their lives, jobs, and other things they hold close to their hearts. Through the invitation of these relationships in our lives, we also invite the emotion of sorrow. However, we cannot allow sorrow to shape us into becoming cold, feeling nothing, and bearing no feelings. It is natural to be sad and share our sorrow, as represented by the quote, "We do not weep, we do not see." While sorrow is saddening in nature, an individual must live without these people who were once in their life; only by bearing this emotion, learning from, and mastering it can a person acquire insight into the lessons of life, become more sympathetic to others, increase gratitude, and discover countless virtues which they may not have awakened to before mastering sorrow. For example, a person who loses a family member prematurely due to a sudden accident would experience extreme sorrow due to the sudden death. The accident would cut short the time that the person could have had with their loved one. A source of consolation would be that the family member who has passed away would not want the living to bask in sorrow. The living must learn that those who have left us behind on earth would like us to do justice for their wishes by recovering from the loss, being optimistic, and learning life's most profound lesson from its most hurtful emotion. Furthermore, through sorrow, we know to build connections with others by sharing our grief. Making the ability to be sympathetic to others, as a family, can share a familiar feeling of sorrow and support each other through dark times. Once people overcome grief, they will have a greater appreciation for joy.

Through the mastering of sorrow, we learn the true meaning of joy. Sorrow provides context to the feeling and meaning of the experience of joy with relationships in our lives by giving it a more profound meaning after having been through the loss of others we care about. Following on from the previous example, after losing a loved one, a person would become aware of the oblivious lessons of joy experienced from the relationships with others in their lives. Learning from these lessons could mean appreciating what others do for us that may seem simple and that we have become accustomed to. Through the lens of experienced sorrow, we no longer take people for granted and have more gratitude for their presence. An individual would now understand the real meaning of joy, not allowing the minor altercations that are bound to occur from severing relationships with people who matter more now that they know the pain of losing a loved one. Ultimately, sorrow provides wisdom, teaching lessons we did not think we needed to learn, but once experienced, it can allow us to shape ourselves into more mature and self-developed individuals who have an amplified appreciation for the joy shared with the people still with us in our journey.

Sorrow is an emotion that appears hostile on the surface, but if we dig deeper into that emotion, we can unravel essential lessons. No doubt, sorrow is painful and saddening, but it is an experience that all will have a taste of. We can all agree that sorrow is an emotion that must be experienced, shared, and mastered to prevent it from shaping us into sad and cold human beings in the long term. Through sorrow, we learn lessons such as compassion and gratitude, which ultimately allow us to appreciate and understand the true meaning of joy in life with the relationship with family and friends by cherishing the time and gift of their presence. Without sorrow, there is no meaning to joy.