Wisdom from Robert Greene’s 48 Laws of Power, specifically law 10, ‘Infection: Avoid the Unhappy and the Unlucky’:
“You can die from someone else’s misery—emotional states are as infectious as diseases. You may feel you are helping the drowning man but you are only precipitating your own disaster. The unfortunate sometimes draw misfortune on themselves; they will also draw it on you. Associate with the happy and fortunate instead.
Those misfortunates among us who have been brought down by circumstances beyond their control deserve all the help and sympathy we can give them. But there are others who are not born to misfortune or unhappiness, but who draw it upon themselves by their destructive actions and unsettling effect on others. It would be a great thing if we could raise them up, change their patterns, but more often than not it is their patterns that end up getting inside and changing us. The reason is simple—humans are extremely susceptible to the moods, emotions, and even the ways of thinking of those with whom they spend their time. The incurably unhappy and unstable have a particularly strong infecting power because their characters and emotions are so intense. They often present themselves as victims, making it difficult, at first, to see their miseries as self-inflicted. Before you realize the real nature of their problems you have been infected by them.
Infectors can be recognized by the misfortune they draw on themselves, their turbulent past, their long line of broken relationships, their unstable careers, and the very force of their character, which sweeps you up and makes you lose your reason. Be forewarned by these signs of an infector; learn to see the discontent in their eye. Most important of all, do not take pity. Do not enmesh yourself in trying to help. The infector will remain unchanged, but you will be unhinged.”
This is a law that I unfortunately have had to learn by experience. I’ve read Greene’s book a number of times, and never considered this one to be of great importance. Laws 3, 4, 16, 18, 20, 28, and 30, have been the ones I’ve given the most thought to. But, some lessons must be learned by experience, not from a book.
Happy, content people are usually good-natured, friendly, and willing to help. But they do have a flaw: their sense of guilt. That guilt is the thumbscrew that is turned by the unhappy individual into keeping their target tethered to them.
Another thing I’ve noticed is the truth of the phrase ‘misery loves company’. Happy people seek out solitude, the congenitally unhappy person needs a constant audience, a constant source of supply. I have no idea why this is. You’d have to experience the reality-warping unhappiness that the truly miserable feel.
It’s really not until you’ve been free of the unhappy individual for an extended period of time that you realize the debilitating effect they have had on your life. You’re former interests and passions return. You sleep better, the nagging feeling of having to buoy the spirits of the persistently miserable is gone, and replaced with a sense of freedom that you haven’t felt in several years.
I think that the goal, whether subconscious or not, is for the miserable person to successfully duplicate their unhappiness in their target. Their inability to accomplish this initially manifests in bizarre emotional states and behavior. When this person begins behaving in a satisfied or content manner, it’s probably time to look in the mirror, and get away as fast as possible.
