Are you “sad sad” or are you “happy sad”?

When you feel sad, celebrate your sadness. When you feel happy, celebrate your happiness. This is Zen!

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In R.Balki’s extra-sweet ‘Cheeni Kum’ (2007), the little girl Sexy (Swini Khara) asks Amitabh Bachchan, when he comes back disturbed and confused from work, if he is “sad, sad” or “happy sad”? Although it seems like an innocuous, well-written, line for the movie, understanding and answering the question can simplify Life phenomenally!

Are you “sad sad” or are you “happy sad”?

Nobody wants to be sad. Yet sadness is unavoidable. It is a natural human state, an emotion, that you will feel when you don’t like what is happening to you or when what you don’t like happens to you. Life is not in your control. So there will be times when you will feel sad. When you feel that way, hold that feeling close to you. Examine it. Dissect it – Who or what is causing your sadness? Is there anything you can do about it? If you can, fine, go ahead, do it. If you can’t, ask yourself, is there a point in continuing to feel sad? The moment you come to this level of clarity over whatever’s making you sad and what you can do about it, your sadness will disappear. This is what celebrating your sadness really means – when you are willing to accept it for what it is and move on!

Celebrating happiness is easy. We all know how to do it. We share. We beam. We spread cheer and goodwill. Sometimes, we party. Interestingly, the same approach will work for sadness as well. Surely, a party to share your sadness will work as well as a party to share your joy! We don’t know it works because we have not tried it. Why? Because society has conditioned us to restrict celebrations to happiness and has associated sadness with a state of mourning. Osho, the Master, has a beautiful perspective to offer here: “Celebration is unconditional; I celebrate Life. It brings unhappiness – good, I celebrate it. It brings happiness – good, I celebrate it. Celebration is my attitude, unconditional to what Life brings.”

Life’s really about experiencing what comes your way. And over this you – and I – have no control. The real question is, how do you want to live your Life? Do you want to live it lamenting that nothing’s in your control? Or do you want to celebrate the fact that because you are not in control, because you don’t have to control, you are free?

I choose to celebrate this freedom every day. I ask myself when I am confronted with a situation, and an emotion connected with that situation: Is there anything I can do about this? If I can, I go do whatever I can to fix the situation. If I can’t, I let it – the way I feel about the situation – go. And I remind myself, in either context, not to sweat over the situation or the emotion it brings along with it – and, instead I smile! This is my learning from Life: celebrate it for what it is, the way it is, as it comes! So, no “sad sad” for me anymore, just “happy sad”!