Remember: the time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself. Life's cruelest irony.
Douglas CouplandRead
Unhappiness is something we are never taught about; we are taught to expect happiness, but never a Plan B to use to use when the happiness doesn't arrive.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights society's focus on happiness and the lack of preparation for unhappiness.
Douglas Coupland's quote emphasizes the societal expectation of happiness and the neglect of teaching individuals how to cope with unhappiness. It suggests that while people are encouraged to chase after happiness, they are often left unprepared for the inevitable challenges and emotional struggles that life presents when happiness is elusive.
Themes
UnhappinessHappinessExpectationsLife LessonsCoping
In practice
Example use cases
In a therapy session where discussing emotional resilience is important.
More from Douglas Coupland
All quotes β...we're told by TV and Reader's Digest that a crisis will trigger massive personal change--and that those big changes will make the pain worthwhile. But from what he could see, big change almost never happens. People simply feel lost. They have no idea what to say or do or feel or think. they become messes and tend to remain messes.
Douglas CouplandRead
When the world throws you too much information, the only way you can stay sane or survive is to look for pattern recognition. Amidst all the blurs, is there a constellation that emerges, is there a straight line that's emerging?
Douglas CouplandRead
I'm not patient - and I'm getting more impatient as I get older - but I am disciplined about writing, and I want that on my tombstone: 'He wasn't patient, but he was disciplined.'
Douglas CouplandRead
If you waste five minutes of time a day, over the course of a year that adds up to one full work day. Think of five wasted minutes as a slow-release holiday drug. Savour it.
Douglas CouplandRead
When someone tells you theyβve just bought a house, they might as well tell you they no longer have a personality. You can immediately assume so many things: that theyβre locked into jobs they hate; that theyβre broke; that they spend every night watching videos; that theyβre fifteen pounds overweight; that they no longer listen to new ideas. Itβs profoundly depressing.
Douglas CouplandRead
Similar quotes
We used to think that aging was a lot like, as if we were cars made fresh and youthful and then we've entered this breakdown in diet. What we didn't realize until recently is that we're much more complex than a car. We fix ourselves if we're broken.
David Andrew SinclairRead
A man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river ββββββββββββββββββββbut then heβs still left with the river. A man takes his sadness and throws it away ββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββbut then heβs still left with his hands.
Richard SikenRead
People have hearts, they have kids, they get jobs, they get sick, they cry, they dance. They live, they love, and they die. And that matters.
Elizabeth WarrenRead
I don't think I would have been a writer if I hadn't been a mother. I wanted to construct something that contained some of these feelings that I had, some of these discoveries or revelations.
Carol ShieldsRead
You wake up in the morning, and lo! your purse is magically filled with twenty-four hours of the unmanufactured tissue of the universe of your life! It is yours. It is the most precious of possessions. No one can take it from you. It is unstealable. And no one receives either more or less than you receive.
Arnold BennettRead
Upon the demon-ridden pilgrimage of human life, what next I wonder.
Iris MurdochRead