I love this from the blog by: Stephen Fry “Certainly the most destructive vice if you like, that a person can have. More than pride, which is supposedly the number one of the cardinal sins - is self pity. Self pity is the worst possible emotion anyone can have. And the most destructive. It is, to slightly paraphrase what Wilde said about hatred, and I think actually hatreds a subset of self pity and not the other way around - It destroys everything around it, except itself . Self pity will destroy relationships, itll destroy anything thats good, it will fulfill all the prophecies it makes and leave only itself. And its so simple to imagine that one is hard done by, and that things are unfair, and that one is underappreciated, and that if only one had had a chance at this, only one had had a chance at that, things would have gone better, you would be happier if only this, that one is unlucky. All those things. And some of them may well even be true. But, to pity oneself as a result of them is to do oneself an enormous disservice. I think its one of things we find unattractive about the american culture, a culture which I find mostly, extremely attractive, and I like americans and I love being in america. But, just occasionally there will be some example of the absolutely ravening self pity that they are capable of, and you see it in their talk shows. Its an appalling spectacle, and its so self destructive. I almost once wanted to publish a self help book saying How To Be Happy by Stephen Fry : Guaranteed success. And people buy this huge book and its all blank pages, and the first page would just say - Stop Feeling Sorry For Yourself - And you will be happy . Use the rest of the book to write down your interesting thoughts and drawings, and thats what the book would be, and it would be true. And it sounds like Oh thats so simple, because its not simple to stop feeling sorry for yourself, its bloody hard. Because we do feel sorry for ourselves, its what Genesis is all about.” ― Stephen Lucy Fry stephenfry/moab/influences/ tags: americans, depression, depression-humor, happiness, marriage-advice, morality, narcissism, oscar-wilde, pride, relationships, self-help, self-improvement, self-pity, sin, sins, the-key-to-happiness, vice
Posted on: Sun, 13 Jul 2014 21:43:06 +0000
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