You feel guilty being happy when others are suffering

This guilt comes from a good heart, which is why it deserves an honest, gentle examination. Your joylessness does not lighten anyone's suffering — denying yourself happiness eases no one's pain by a single gram; you have only added your own small misery to the total, so the self-denial is not a gift to the suffering but a waste that serves nobody. A joyful person helps more than a guilty one — the nourished, warm person with energy to give does more good than the depleted, guilty one, so your joy is the fuel from which you help, and guilt has the arithmetic backwards. And let joy and compassion live together — you can be moved by the world's pain and still savor a sunset, grieve what should be grieved and still laugh, for a heart open to both sorrow and delight is the only kind that can bear the world without breaking. Whose suffering makes you feel you can't be happy?