Who Will Cry When You Die - Chapter 19 and 20

Chapter 19 - See Your Troubles as Blessings

Pain is a teacher and failure is the highway to success. See your troubles as lessons to discover who you really are and the fullness of the strength that lies within us.

It took me months to fully adopt this principle as a truth. Sometimes people go through truly traumatic events and it’s hard to find the lesson in the event. I’m still trying to find lessons in certain events in my life. But I have changed my outlook and actively seek to find the lesson. Seeking the lesson has put me in a more positive frame of mind. It has also allowed me to embrace challenges and situations that scare me because I know that even in failure, I have grown as a person.

Chapter 20 - Laugh More

We don’t laugh because we are happy. We are happy because we laugh. Watch funny movie or laugh for 5 minutes straight.

During my saddest moments, I found this principle ridiculous. But against my judgement I tried it out, and it worked. I think it works because I’m distracting myself with someone pleasant instead of dwelling on something negative. I found the more I did engaged in this practice, the easier it was to get myself in a good mood. However, overall it was a temporary fix. It turned out to be more beneficial to analyze the negative feeling and work through it. Laughter helped me but didn’t heal me.