Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole

by Susan Cain

Why would sadness, an emotion that makes us glum and Eeyore-like, have survived evolutionary pressures?

not only in the corridors of a hospital but also the guy at the gas pump and your overly talkative co-worker?

But because we were primed to care for small and vulnerable infants in general, says Keltner, we also developed the capacity to care for anything infant-like—from a houseplant to a stranger in distress.

This means that we should stop longing for the unconditional love of our missing half; we should come to terms with our partners’ imperfections and focus instead on fixing ourselves.

Studies even show that babies in intensive care units who listen to (often mournful) lullabies have stronger breathing, feeding patterns, and heart rates than infants hearing other kinds of music!

Even once you break free (and you can break free), these siren songs may call you back to your accustomed ways of seeing and thinking and reacting. You can learn to block your ears most of the time, but you’ll have to accept that they’re always out there singing.

“You’re not saying there’s something wrong with you. You’re not saying that you have a pathology. You’re saying that you’re human. Welcome to humanity.”

and so did perfectly healthy young people who were primed for impermanence by, say, imagining that they were about to move far away from their loved ones.

But he believes that between this world and the next is a window, not a wall, and that our “death-phobic” society stops us from seeing this.

that I’m carrying not only my own grief; I’m carrying my mother’s grief, too, and the grief of her mother and father, and their mothers and fathers. I’m carrying the grief of the generations.

Jeri Bingham, the creator and host of Hush Loudly, a podcast dedicated to introverts.