Nothing dries faster than tears

I was inspired to write this article by Aeschylus’ quote :

”Nothing dries faster than tears.”

Aeschylus was an ancient Greek tragedian. Many also call him a father of tragedy. Generally, I like to read ancient Greek philosophers.

Their wise words and opinions are not outdated even though they were formed 2500 years ago. We can use their wise words as guidance in our lives today more than ever.

Nothing dries faster than tears. Because our tears can dry as fast as our mood changes from one moment to another.

Just take as an example the last funeral that you attended. In the beginning you felt sadness because of the of the loss of your beloved person, in this kind of moments you cannot stop your tears. But after few minutes of crying you will have the need to share your feelings with other people and it does makes you feel better. This is the moment when the memories begin to flow. Memories that you cherish in your heart of beautiful common moments that you had with the deceased. Those moments that you will always remember with joy. Some of those memories are also quite funny, so you will often see people laughing on the burials. This is even mentioned in a quote by Aeschylus:

”There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief.”

Have you ever wondered why do laughter, smiles and tears look so similar? Perhaps because they are all evolved from a single root. Sometimes when we laugh so much we are overwhelmed with the tears of joy. There are so many studies that deal with facial expressions and nonverbal communication. So many theories on how you can tell the difference between the real and the fake smile. Look at a smiling face, look at their eyes, see if the eyes “smile” as well. If you don’t see any change, it’s possible that they’re faking it. But Keep in mind that a fake smile doesn’t necessarily send a devious or sarcastic message, a person who puts on a fake smile maybe isn’t that happy to see you, but he’s being polite enough to show that he tries.

Long before written symbols, even before spoken language, our ancestors communicated by gestures. Even today quoted statistics say that 93% of all daily communication is nonverbal. Dr. Albert Mehrabian, in his book Silent Messages, conducted several studies on nonverbal communication. He found that 7% of any message is conveyed through words, 38% through certain vocal elements, and 55% through nonverbal elements (facial expressions, gestures, posture, etc).

Some said that people who don’t have empathy have difficulties to read and understand the nonverbal signs.

But all of this is not so relevant. By seeing someone who is crying, for instance, we might assume that this person is sad. But the tears themselves provide no information about the exact reason of somebody’s sadness. It can be so many different reasons like: I have no money, I lost my job, my dog just died, I am lonely and so on…

So verbal descriptions of somebody’s, emotional state are able to provide more precise information about the specific form of an emotion than nonverbal.

We talk with our friends and family very often about our or theirs present emotions and about those that occurred in the past. We also talk about others’ emotional experiences. In generally we express ourselves and our emotions all the time in a different ways.

When we interact with others, we continuously give and receive wordless signals. All of our nonverbal behaviors the gestures we make, the way we sit, how fast, slow or how loud we talk, how close we stand, how much eye contact we make or we don’t make, are able to send strong messages to others. These messages don’t stop when you stop speaking either. Even when you’re silent, you’re still communicating nonverbally.

Our emotions in general can be very hard to control, they can also make you feel and think things that are disproportionate to the situation.

So the best thing you can do is to minimize your reaction towards them. You can do this through different techniques that force you to acknowledge the way you are feeling and how you are reacting. Try to give yourself a moment to think, rather than immediately reacting. Even if you have a negative mood, don’t try to fight it and just pretend that you feel better even if it is not true.

There are so many ways to fix our mood. Some people like to exercise, other to relax, other use music, and so on..

But the best way is to try to keep up with your positive thinking so you can have a fulfilling life.

Just follow ancient Greek tragedian Aeschylus adage that says:

”Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times.”

Aeschylus also said:

”From a small seed a mighty trunk may grow.”

He taught us that every big accomplishment once had a small beginning. However, remember that in order to accomplish big things you must first start with the small. Your seed can be your idea, or a dream, or business, or whatever you want to accomplish in your life.