Why I am always happy even when I feel sad?

In one conversation this week depression came up as I was asked if I ever was depressed I responded “no, I have been sad and down, but never depressed. I was genuinely always happy.”.

At first glance this is counter-intuitive right? How can one be sad and happy at the same time? That depends on the perspective and focus to me.

If I focus on what is bad or the struggles I turn sad/down. If I focus on positives I become optimistic. Life to me is going between the two.

Every time I get sad I let the thoughts play out. I try to permit myself to be sad. To not beat my self up over it as has happened in the past.

And if I turn to sad I remind myself of my family, friends that I call family and that god has not killed me yet. There have been plenty of situations were I could have been dead.

One such is a car crash where I nearly took myself out at approximately 160 km/h on the autobahn. Am I proud of that? no I was a fool at the wheel, but here I am. A live and writing these words.

I am grateful to be alive. I am grateful to have friends I call family. I am grateful that I have family that I love. Generally my personal relationships are filled with love. That love is empowering.

While especially the last 18 months and the years before that I have been focusing most of my time on work, which means I spend less time with family and friends I make sure to be with

family and friends at least every 4-6 weeks. Preferably every 2-3 weeks. How does that work? Well I just go home. It is of utmost importance for me. Even though I travel and feel lonely at times, I can

think of the last time I was home or next time and feel my heart warming.

That connection to my parents, brother, grandma and family of friends keeps me alive mentally. Even when in self doubt or emotional pain I remind myself of the gratitude I feel for being alive.

Learning from seeing my grandma outlive my grandpa for what is now almost 15 years heavily inspired this line of thinking. She always says that if she died tomorrow she would be fine. She has nothing left to do.

Happiness for getting another day and being healthy is what she feels and lives daily. It inspired me to get comfortable with being able to die tomorrow. So now I want to be grounded in gratitude and mapping my

actions to be able to die tomorrow without regrets. If I forgive, pray and keep the gratitude I have a happy base emotional state that enables that.

Generally that gratitude is why I personally think that I can be sad, but generally happy.

When my grandparents died (I have one grandparent right now, said grandma who is alive) my dad always pushed “life must go on”. I now come around to realise this is a coping mechanism, but it also allowed me

to deal with death at ages 11, 15 and 17. Where the death of my grandpa at age 17 was especially hard due to the circumstance and details that I won’t go into.

Life must go in, focus on what you can control, be grateful, forgive. These are generally seen as generic advice by many though I believe they are lived by few.

Living these grants a perspective that shifted my life. It enables me to generally feel happy. Happy for being alive, happy and smiling through sadness as well as happy for it all to end.

Please share any thoughts you have below. I would love to hear your perspectives!