I put down the magazine, depressed. "Why do you keep reading these things?" Han asked in exasperation, after a relayed another story of misery that had been printed.
Why? Because they always caption it as being a tale of "inspiration." I always assume (ass, u, me) that there will be a happy ending, when the difficulty is overcome.
It usually ends in death or worse.
"These magazines," Han said, "seem to be confusing 'tragedy' with 'inspiration.'"
As someone who suffers from the genetic malady of "mitleid" (translation: "crippling empathy") I just can't take it anymore. Week after week, I am paying money for a glossy magazine full of dvar Torahs, recipes, and sagas of pain, pain, and more pain, couched as "inspiration."
It's not inspiration! It's just SAD. So sad I'm in near tears every Shabbos morning. "Can you imagine? They lost not one, but two children; they have a child with an insurmountable disability; these brothers were still unmarried when both their parents died; her baby died in utero; she's just 18 and she was diagnosed with a death sentence."
I'm not trying to be in denial here. I know bad things happen. Bad things have happened to my family, too. I have an overactive imagination enough, contemplating the million ways one can die or be maimed.
What about the good things? Good things happen too. Aren't those stories more inspiring than others involving a gravestone?
For my sanity, I walked past the glossy display this week. I need some time off.
I read a murder mystery instead.
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