Pursuit of happiness is stressful
The Western World has turned the pursuit of happiness into a commodity. The American Psychological Association defines happiness as “an emotion of joy, gladness, satisfaction, and well-being”.
The well-being industry has hijacked happiness making us believe we should feel like Mary Poppins around the clock.
There’s a valid argument that the positive psychology movement is making us miserable.
In 2022, around one in six adults aged 16 and over reported moderate to severe depression worldwide – this report was slap bang in the middle of Covid, so it makes sense.
But at the same time positive psychology came to the fore promising to unlock the secrets to a happier life.
We are bombarded by messages telling us to feel gratitude, journal, feel joy, but it’s not on trend to feel anger, rage or down in the dumps.
We’re drowning in positive mantras on social media.
Where is the meme for ‘I feel miserable’?
The positivity industry often places the burden on the individual, encouraging us to get fit, get out into nature and never feel down.
But what if you are an asylum seeker or one of the 13,318 homeless in our country?
How are you expected to remain positive when you don’t have your basic needs met?
The happiness business is thriving, full of self help books, workshops and programmes promising to unlock the meaning of life.
They exclude people who don’t have the budget to get happy.
Smartphones spy on our shopping habits and can be equipped with apps to help us monitor and enhance our mindfulness.
Leading airlines use “happiness blankets” that take stock of our moods.
Even the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, features mindfulness sessions with monks in robes. Companies have well-being officers who nobody dares complain to for fear their job will be at risk as we navigate the cost of living crisis. A survey out this week sums it up. A Barcelona university studied indigenous populations with low incomes and found there was little correlation between happiness and wealth. Happiness is fleeting and natural and the key thing is it’s free. It shouldn’t be peddled as something we need to attain.
The message that we all need to feel happy constantly is an ideology that marginalises those who are on the cusp of burnout.
Happiness is not a product we consume, we have enough of those.
By continually striving to put the happy face on, it’s another goal we add to the list.
We all need to feel miserable in order to truly feel joy.
I was walking home with my little girl from school in the puddles of rain this week.
She said: “I love feeling the rain on my hair, it’s like a little hair wash.”
I cracked up laughing – now that’s pure joy and it didn’t cost a thing.
Happiness is natural and supposed to be free – not peddled to us