Myths about happiness
And how to create a fulfilling life.
When we think of the term “happiness”, the emotion of it (a pleasant feeling of joy, content, ease) may come to mind. “Being happy” also tends to get interchanged with “fulfillment”, which is a deeper connection to life, despite a momentary emotion.
In either sense, there are myths about happiness which end up bringing us stress and pressure and actually further away from it. The more we debunk and re-think what happiness means, the closer we can get to a state of lasting fulfillment.
Myth 1: Happiness is a natural, default state for human beings.
This implies that if basic needs are met (food, shelter, and loving relationships), humans will simply be happy and experience that inner state of pleasure. The reality is that being a human means that we have an ever-changing flow of emotions that range from the highly unpleasant, difficult feelings (such as anxiety, fear, sadness, anger, grief) to the joyful, pleasant feelings and everything neutral and in-between. Sometimes life is stable and we can’t pinpoint an exact reason we might be feeling off; we jump to judgement (“everything is going well, why am I not happy?”). But our emotional states are influenced by many things, such as our deeper history and trauma, core beliefs occurring at the unconscious level, what we’re consuming (food, substances, social media, news), and world events which are inherently tragic and stressful, especially at this current time.
Myth 2: You need to get rid of “negative” emotions in order to live a happy life.
Difficult emotions are always going to come in and out until our last day on Earth. Attempts to never feel pain or get rid of it as quickly as possible don’t lead to a happy life; if anything this leads to emotional avoidance which creates a set of other challenges, including the difficulty to be present even during joyful moments. Difficult emotions certainly are unpleasant, but once we learn to navigate them, so that they don’t overwhelm us, we move through them quicker and with more resilience and this allows us to re-align to what will bring joy and meaning. The problem isn’t difficult emotions; it’s how we hold them, react through them, and cope.
Myth 3: Happiness comes from accomplishments, success and hitting desired milestones.
There’s no doubt that meeting our soulmate, landing the dream job, having children, or moving to a new city will bring excitement or joy. In fact, research shows that money does link to life satisfaction, because basic needs can be met. But in all these cases, the joy derived isn’t necessarily long-lasting. Even past a certain salary, lasting happiness drops. We mistakenly believe that “If I can just _____, then I’ll be happy”. We over-focus on a desired outcome and disregard how to make the process meaningful and how to connect with life in the meantime. Hedonic adaptation also kicks in: the psychological tendency to get used to the positive changes and return to a steady baseline (and thus wait or work towards the next happiness-hit). Unless we practice gratitude regularly, we end up taking for granted what was once a significant joy and deeply desired outcome. To de-couple fulfilling happiness from outcomes, we need to clarify our values and how we want to move through life. When we do this, the meaning we experience comes from internal energy and presence, rather than the goal or accomplishment.
Myth 4: You can control your thoughts and emotions to “just be happy”.
We can’t control a thought or emotion that’s going to arise, but we can learn to hold them in different ways. When we become an observer of our thoughts and emotions, we can tease out which thoughts are distorted and increasing anxiety, fear, and distress and work to reframe or get distance from them. When we observe our difficult emotions, without judgement and the need to get rid of them, they naturally pass. What we’re really controlling is our reaction, rather than the thoughts and emotions themselves. It often takes some deeper digging and both cognitive and embodied work, but it does lead to a place of ease.
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When we hyperfocus on the emotion of happiness or joy, we lose sight of the larger picture. While we do want to generate the emotion of pleasure and joy, its worth also considering the term happiness on the larger scale of fulfillment and the purpose we create.
Cultivating the deeper fulfillment comes from living in present-moment alignment with our values (qualities that are personally meaningful for us). When we re-orient to this way of thinking and being, even if an accomplishment doesn’t happen, or a goal is taking an extended amount of time, or we go through an emotionally low moment or season, we can feel reassured that we’re still living a life of purpose.
Read more:
The Happiness Trap, by Russ Harris
The Myths of Happiness, by Sonja Lyubomirsky
