Law of conservation of misery

The law of conservation of misery is a popular adage stating that in a closed system, misery - as energy - always remains constant. It could be said that misery "...is not created nor destroyed, merely transformed". This is a parody of the Law of Conservation of Energy.

The spirit of this law is shared with Murphy's law in its implementation: if something good happens, something equally bad will compensate it.

In 1955 Samuel Beckett expressed a similar view in his two act play Waiting for Godot. The character Pozzo remarks: "He's stopped crying. You have replaced him as it were. The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep, somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh. (He laughs.)"

es:Ley de conservación de la miseria