The Mentally Healthy Person

From the Lake by Georgia O'Keeffe

 Mental health, like physical health, is a dynamic, ever-changing condition.  Some days you are bound to be in better shape than others.  The mentally healthy person does not experience wide personality swings--on the moon one day and in the dumps the next.  He has the qualities of  sameness and predictability.


Mentally healthy people think well of themselves.  They do not waste time and energy worrying if every hair is in place, or if they made a favorable impression on Ms. or Mr. X., or if they used the right fork or wore the right attire.


On occasion when every hair is not in place, or they may have used the wrong fork or wore the wrong clothes, they don't agonize over it.  They have a good sense of priorities and a sense of what is really important.


Mentally healthy people accept the inadequacies and shortcomings of others.  They do not feel the need to overhaul everyone who does not fit into the mold they have decided is "correct."  They are satisfied to live and let live.


Mentally healthy people are able to accept whatever life visits upon them without going to pieces.  This means financial reverses, illness, death, divorce, separation, unrequited love--the list is endless.  And they have the ability to withstand the cruelties and inequities of life, to regroup, re-energize, think their way through a problem and go forward in a positive, constructive way.