Those Who Share a Roof Share Emotions
“How to Build a Life” is a weekly column by Arthur Brooks, tackling questions of meaning and happiness.
“Laugh, and the world laughs with you; / Weep, and you weep alone,” the poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox wrote in 1883, in what wound up being her most popular verse. “For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth, / But has trouble enough of its own.”
The poem is lovely, to be sure. But in truth, unhappy people generally do not weep alone. Emotions of all kinds are highly contagious. Working in a negative environment, for example, can lower your happiness; living with a negative person can make you depressed.
Escaping unhappy people and their contagious emotions can be difficult, but more to the point, when we truly love others who are suffering, we don’t to avoid their sadness, frustration, fear, or anxiety. We want to help—and that’s good. Just as our own negative feelings if we want to grow and solve our problems, we can help those we love by accepting their emotions. And by following a few simple lessons, we can do so without sacrificing our own happiness in the process.
