I love 'The Greatest Showman but it makes me sad

[Shipley]

Especially the song 'Never Enough' and the love story between Carlyle and the dancer. Been married for 12 years and although those super strong feelings were there for a lot longer than most relationships, they aren't there now, although I don't want a life without him, I just miss the excitement and passion of not wanting to get enough of someone.

And we have a naice house in a reasonably naice area however an average working income and I wish we had more - mainly a house in the countryside (we cannot afford that) and to have a more sophisticated lifestyle with my daughter learning to horse ride her own horses etc. Thought our lives would be more like that by our mid thirties where we are at now.

Wow all that from one movie.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/forget-fomo-its-all-about-jomo-the-joy-of-missing-out-w6rmxgg9g?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1555148076

"Sit back and relax. A top psychologist says that underachievement is the key to happiness...

according to a Danish psychologist, Professor Svend Brinkmann, we can all relax. To be truly happy, you should forget about the to-do list and be generally less ambitious about life.

“If we constantly have this ‘must-do’ mentality, we end up being miserable,” says Brinkmann, a professor of psychology at Aalborg University in Denmark and bestselling author ofThe Joy of Missing Out — the Art of Self-Restraint in an Age of Excess. In other words, if we worry about what we don’t have, it’s impossible to be content.

We tend to think of the modern malaise we call FOMO (fear of missing out) as relating to events, but Brinkmann applies it in a broader sense: it also includes an unhealthy desire to constantly upgrade status and stuff. This realisation is key, he believes, to understanding the prevalence of depression and anxiety in the West. “In Denmark we often say ‘only the best is good enough’, but this means nothing will ever be good enough because no one knows what the best is.”

Well the themes running through greatest showman are risking it all to experience giddy heights, being true to yourself and not worrying about what people think about you and appreciating the genuine people around you.

However the real life Barnum was V different to the film, the bearded lady he bought as a baby and showed her as part of his "freak show" for years, he performed a live autopsy in front of an audience on another woman who had been part of the "freak show" circuit (and using freak show as that was what they were at the time, appreciate it is not language we use today). Whilst he was an amazing entrepreneur and also a politician it was much less romantic than the story. However totally love the story.

Leaving aside the merits (or otherwise) of the film, I do feel it's a real shame that your very high expectations of how your life should be by now have led you to feel dissatisfied with the life you actually have.

I'd never really given it much thought before, but maybe that's why I'm quite happy - I'd always 'just' wanted a happy marriage and financial security. I have both of those (and two children) and I'm genuinely satisfied with what I've got. If we want our children to be happy, maybe we shouldn't be teaching them to aim for the stars!!

I can't let go of the real story of PT Barnum enough to be able to enjoy the songs.

Plus, the way she sings "never enough for may, for maaaaaaay" makes me RAGE!

PS if you want to learn more about PT, you should listen to the Dollop podcast episode on him. Really funny. Episode 291.

I do get what you mean, though it's more books that do it for me. The Time Traveler's Wife was the one that made me very dissatisfied with practically every aspect of my life. I did get over it though!