Every Cloud has a silver lining.

Sickle Cell Anaemia sufferers have a selective advantage in regions where Malaria is widespread, this being that they are resistant to it. It struck me that even when things that happen to you feel like the worst case scenario there's probably a reason why they happened in the first place. Admittedly this isn't much of a comfort at the time, but I like to think it would inspire me to keep going until I figure out the reason why something happened. The fact of the matter is, pessimism pays off instantly, you feel angry, fed up and come to the conclusion that the world is conspiring against you and things are never going to get better. Optimism on the other hand, is a lot more hard work but when something does happen that doesn't make you feel like you're the butt of a global joke taking vicarious pleasure in your misfortunes (deep breath), you haven't wasted time feeling sorry for yourself.

There's nothing wrong with feeling rubbish when something bad happens, it's probably more healthy to feel your feelings so to speak then just to bury them and move on. My point is, when something s*** happens it doesn't mean that things will always be s***, and when you look back on it won't seem nearly as s*** as it did at the time (this applies to more trivial things, even as an eternal optimist I don't think I could really look back on something like death in a positive light, that's just really s***).

I'm not saying that Sickle Cell Anaemia sufferers are in any way compensated by this resistance to malaria, but maybe we can take something from the silver lining that's allowed generations of people to survive. I watched American Beauty the other day, I think that's what's brought this on, after all even if you wish you were dead, you're probably lucky to be alive in the first place. There's a reason why you're descended from that one sperm that made it to the egg. Maybe there were trillions of potential souls that didn't get the chance to find a body! Everything happens for a reason, otherwise why would anything 'bother' happening at all? I'm not really religious, but I do struggle with the idea that there is no greater reason for the existence of the Human race. Maybe I just have a complex about being needed...