Pessimism

Whenever I am happy, I wonder when it will crash. Not "end," but "crash," when everything goes entirely wrong and all hope for anything good or happy or simply "not going wrong" has been entirely destroyed by whatever disasters crescendo around me. I worry that this is, in fact, my glimpse into the true state of the world and not just a symptom of my faulty brain chemistry and bad attitude.

I am aware that mine are problems of an overly-educated, middle class, American white girl. Most of the world is just trying to survive. (Do people in places defined by war and abject poverty feel happiness? Am I mis-defining happiness?) That is why I also fear that my little version of pessimism is actually optimistic in comparison with the rest of the world.