Cheering Words from Sigmund

from Civilisation and Its Discontents by Sigmund Freud

Anyone who has been born with a particularly unfavourable instinctual constitution and who has not properly undergone the transformation and reordering of the components of his libido - a process that is indispensable for later achievements - will find it hard to derive happiness from his external situation, especially if he is faced with fairly difficult tasks. As a last technique for living, which at least promises him substitutive satisfactions, he may take refuge in neurotic illness; this usually happens early in life. Anyone who sees his quest for happiness frustrated in later years can still find consolation in the pleasure gained from chronic intoxication, or make a desperate attempt at rebellion and become psychotic.

Well, that’s all right, then.