All the days of the oppressed are wretched, but the cheerful heart has a continual feast (Proverbs 15:15).

Pretend, for a moment, that you have NOT read the verse above (Proverbs 15:15).  Imagine that you've only been given the first half of the Proverb and then been asked to complete it as Solomon might have done (i.e. in keeping with other Proverbs, using similar thought processes and poetic devices):

"All the days of the oppressed are wretched..."

How would you naturally think the Proverb should be completed?  Most of these ancient Hebrew Proverbs are composed of a compound sentence, using two simple sentences or thoughts joined together with a conjunction like "but," or "and," or "as."  Now, if I were completing the Proverb, going off a first half like "All the days of the oppressed are wretched..." I might tend to guess something like, "...and the subjects of a tyrant cry out for mercy," or maybe, "...but a free man lives contentedly with the work of his hands."  You know -- I'd try to come up with a phrase of equal moral and/or lyrical weight and then use it to either reiterate the first half of the Proverb or offer an opposite alternative (compare Proverbs 15:2 and Proverbs 15:3, for examples of these types of Proverbs).  And if the main themes of the first-half prompt were oppression and wretchedness -- then I would naturally think in the direction of synonyms and/or antonyms for these two themes to fill out the second half of the Proverb:  victimization and sadness, freedom and well-being, injustice and misery, justice and joy... You know what I mean?

So I think it's absolutely fascinating to compare what my natural expectations of the Proverb might be to what was actually written.  In this case, it's pretty surprising:  "All the days of the oppressed are wretched... but the cheerful heart has a continual feast."  I personally would have never thought that oppression could be counter-weighted by the cheerful heart.  Doesn't oppression typically speak of one person's positional relationship to others?!?  Yet here, in the second half of Proverbs 15:15, it would seem that the opposite of oppression has nothing to do with one's position in life -- but rather with one's own attitude, regardless of the particular position in life.  Perhaps this Proverb is suggesting that oppression is a MINDSET!  Maybe we're only as oppressed as we choose to let ourselves be oppressed.  When we face difficult circumstances, we can choose to be miserable, wretched, and depressed about effectively being oppressed by our situation -- or we can choose to be cheerful, positive, and celebratory towards the things that remain positive (however small they may be).  Immediately, the story of Corrie and Betsy ten Boom comes to mind, in which they find joy and beauty in the midst of a Nazi concentration camp -- even thanking God for the flea infestation that allowed their barracks to be left unsearched so that their Bible was not confiscated (if you've never read "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom, I could hardly recommend it highly enough!).  But really, the same things hold true for all difficult circumstances.  Even though I love my job, I can sometimes feel like it's oppressing me.  Even though I love my family, I can sometimes feel like it's oppressing me.  Even though I love my church, I can sometimes feel like it's oppressing me.  But instead of trying to extricate myself from the circumstances, under some faulty assumption that the oppression is a result of external factors, I can instead focus on developing a cheerful heart.  And if I can find my cheerful heart, I can make a feast out of any circumstances.

I'm not sure how astute my dissection of this particular Proverb might be, but I'm challenged to consider the subverted expectations that are there, beneath my casual gaze.  And I'm particularly challenged to consider how much oppression really may be a state of mind.