I feel happy when I eat my favorite ice cream, joy when my 25lb Labradoodle sleeps on my lap or gazes into my eyes, and contentment when I can share the truest part of myself with trusted friends.
While most of us wish for happiness, very few of us ever define what happiness means to us or what happiness feels like.
If you can’t define what that happiness looks like to you, your life will suck. Self-help books on happiness are everywhere, but often do nothing more than remind you of exactly what you don’t have.
Here are 5 reasons why all this happiness shit is a lie—and how you can change your mindset:
1. Happiness Is Transitory
If you think about it, the transitory things in life are happiness-based. Once the ice cream is gone, we look for something else. Happiness claims our full attention for a few moments and then disappears as soon as it passes through our life. It doesn’t have the same heft as an emotion like sadness, joy, or contentment. It’s a bit of fluff; nice but of no real consequence.
We can be happy with a big house, a big career, and big diamonds. We can lose houses, careers, and material things. That does not mean we will live in misery.
How To Make It Work For You
Replace the stuff, people, and the problems they bring with a stillness that resides deep within you. It is exactly in that stillness that you will find the joy and contentment that resides within, dependent upon nothing external in order to exist.
2. Happiness Looks To The Future
Happiness relies on outside situations, people, or events to align with our expectations so that the end result is our happiness. It is linked to the hope that “someday when I meet the right person” or “when I have a second home,” or “when I get the right job.”
If we rely on external circumstances to make us happy, we are never in control.
How To Make It Work For You
Since happiness is reliant upon external circumstances, we tend to put our happiness off until some point in the future. Joyful people prepare for the future, but they also know they cannot control it.
Learn to adjust to the surprises that the future holds for you rather than lament how unlucky you are.
3. Happiness Suppresses Negative Emotions
I’m a big believer in positive thinking, but I also believe that negative emotions can teach us incredible lessons. The key is to be honest about what we are feeling; if it is negativity, get to the bottom of it. Pretending we don’t have negative emotions or tamping them down so they can’t surface is extremely unproductive and unhealthy.
Constant positivity is an avoidance system because it forces us to deny the existence of life’s problems. True happiness, joy, and contentment are found in our ability to work through our struggles, not deny they exist.
How To Make It Work For You
Negative emotions are a call to action. If they spiral downward into depression, take them to a professional therapist. But just because something feels good, it doesn’t mean it is good. And just because something feels bad, it doesn’t mean it is bad. Fear produces negative emotions, but we need to differentiate between a negative nagging emotion that is prompting us to move into action and those that are warning of a threat to our life.
4. Happiness Relies Too Much On Crappy Values
Most people have no idea about their personal values. They imitate what they see in others, in movies, or in books. If you don’t have a clue of what is important to you, you’ll never find happiness let alone the deeper emotions of joy and contentment.
Have the mental toughness to define what truly gives you happiness, and ultimately, joy and contentment. When you prioritize your values, you will see which values are worth suffering for and which ones are crap and should be thrown out.
Prioritize your values and you will notice that none of them will feel like your old idea of happiness.
Contentment and joy are deeply embedded in our set of values. They can’t be bought and they don’t rest on someone else’s behavior. We can get fired, dumped, or pulled through the coals and still feel joy deep in our hearts.
How To Make It Work For You
Fill in the answer to this sentence:
I value ______ because I need _______ and _______.
My answer: I value honesty because I need truth and authenticity.
Honesty, truthfulness, and authenticity are the values by which I measure my success and failure. These are the standards by which I judge myself and those around me. I seek out people, communities, and situations that will allow me to live by my truest values. This produces happiness, yes, but something even more important: joy and contentment.
What about you?
5. Happiness Denies The Value of Struggle And Pain
Some of life’s greatest moments are full of pain, suffering, and struggle. Ask any parent, small business owner, or marathon runner.
Our values are defined by what we are willing to struggle to achieve. If something holds value for us, we will endure the pain and struggle of making it happen. The person we are (or will become) is defined by the way we overcome our struggles, suffering, and pain. Our greatest moments in life will be defined by these things, not by our pathetic attempts at happiness.
Joy is a lasting attitude while happiness is an ephemeral emotion. Demand more from life than a few fleeting moments of an emotion that draws its power from others. Instead, dare yourself to dig down deep and find joy.
It is in our choices that we become mentally tough. We learn to prioritize our emotions, thoughts, and behavior so we can pick what is important to us based on our values and beliefs.
How To Make It Work For You
Good values are achieved internally; bad values rely upon external circumstances. Once you’ve defined your values, prioritize them. What are the values you place above all else? These are the ones that influence the decisions you make in work and life.
© 2017 LaRae Quy. All rights reserved.
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Author of “Mental Toughness for Women Leaders: 52 Tips To Recognize and Utilize Your Greatest Strengths”
This is definitely one of my favorites from you. YES!!!!! I see people all the time who are not struggling with depression but struggle to be happy or to stay happy or to even know what it means to be happy. It comes down to taking action – we are not a victim of our lives but in a position to create it – it starts with thought, introspection, and choice.
Alli
Well said, Alli! We are not a victim of our lives…we have the power to create it! Thanks so much…
Interesting humanism but this is also temporary BS. Ignorance of history and Truth plague modern people. Mideval people were better off. Why? Because many of them had true trust and belief of the true purpose of life. Most of you will laugh. But the ressurected Jesus was/is the historical reality that is the only thing that results in true lasting contentment. Understanding why the creator created you, results in true knowledge. Read the Bible. Compare with the overwhelming historical accounts of the reality of the ressurction of God the Son. If you are convinced that your purpose is to worship and enjoy Him forever. Then you will have found that you have true contentment. Apply the above list in your article by filling in this answer. Don’t just have blind Faith. Study it and maybe the Spirit of God will call you. Maybe God the Father will drag you to the Son who will then never let you go as is revealed chapter 6 of John’s Gospel.
Actually, when you think about what it means to live a life of value and meaning, it means coming to terms with the true meaning of life. That might be different things for different people but I agree—we need to clearly understand our purpose.
Love this post, LaRae as you write about the critical idea of happiness. It is true that each of us defines happiness differently and that means we need to look inwards for the answers. Your “fill-in” exercise is wonderful!
I agree with you that when we experience pain or disappointment we learn so much about who we are and what is important in the end.
Thanks so much and will share today!
Thanks so much Terri…my “fill-in” exercise is something I go back to frequently! It’s a good reminder of how I want to spend my time 🙂
Great post. Its a powerful message. The constant focus on “finding happiness” is a huge misnomer! Thanks for this.
We focus so much on happiness that it’s turning us into a very vacuous society…it’s also something that needs to “instant” so that fewer and fewer people are actually willing to take the time for something deeper than a fleeting bit of fluff called happiness…
LaRae,
I track and enjoy your posts and have for some time. I don’t often comment on LinkedIn posts but definitely felt moved after reading this one. Chasing after happiness is elusive but focusing on the most important aspects of our lives seems to bring the joy and contentment that last. I especially agree with your comments about controlling the future being an impossibility and the ideas that there is value in struggle and negative emotions. It took me well in to my adult life to recognize that happiness and joy are very different things. Thanks so much for this great post!
Andy Mazzanti
Thanks so much Andy…I totally agree with you. We need to focus on the important things in life that will bring us lasting joy and contentment. It’s something I’ve struggled with as well…
What a great article LaRae, thank you so much for sharing. Reminds me of one of my favorite poems. “He who binds himself to joy, does the winged life destroy, but he who kisses joy as it flies, lives in eternity’s sunrise.”- William Blake
Great to hear from you Marty! I love that poem…thanks so much for sharing 🙂
I always find your writings inspiring and personality changing materials just ordered the book and read the other one at the end of this article love it
You cant define the temporary, transient, and transitory. Life sucks at times get over it. Trying to define something that is all 3 of the T’s is a recipe for being unhappy. The root cause of unhappiness is trying to examine, define, and create that happiness. People try to live life in photos or short snippets of perfection, thanks to the comparative society we live in today. That fleeting moment is happiness and then the other 95% of it is the stuff everyone seems to confuse with not being happy, LIFE.