If you lot have to try to exist cool, y'all will never be absurd. If you have to endeavour to be happy, and so you will never exist happy. People these days are just trying as well hard.

When you're raging pissed and throwing a socket wrench at the neighbor'southward kids, you lot are not self-witting most your state of acrimony. Y'all are not thinking, "Am I finally angry? Am I doing this right?" No, you're out for blood. You inhabit and live the anger. You are the anger.

And then it's gone. Hopefully earlier the cops arrive.

Happiness, like other emotions, is not something you obtain, only rather something y'all inhabit. It is temporary1. Always.

What this implies is that finding happiness is not achieved in itself, only rather it is the side effect of a particular fix of ongoing life experiences. This gets mixed up a lot, especially since happiness is marketed then much these days equally a goal in and of itself. Buy X and be happy. Learn Y and be happy. Merely you lot tin can't buy happiness and you can't achieve happiness. It just is—once you lot get other parts of your life in order.

Finding happiness: Tony Montana didn't seem too happy.
Tony Montana didn't seem too happy.

When virtually people seek happiness, they are actually seeking pleasance: good food, more than sexual practice, more time for Goggle box and movies, a new car, parties with friends, full body massages, losing 10 pounds, condign more than popular, then on.

Only while pleasure is bully, it's not the aforementioned equally happinesstwo. Pleasance is correlated with happiness but does not crusade it. Inquire any drug addict how their pursuit of pleasure turned out. Ask an adulterer who shattered her family and lost her children whether pleasure ultimately made her happy. Ask a man who almost ate himself to death how happy pursuing pleasure made him feel.

Pleasure is a imitation god. Research shows that people who focus their energy on materialistic and superficial pleasures finish up more anxious, more emotionally unstable and less happy in the long-run3. Pleasance is the nearly superficial form of life satisfaction and therefore the easiest. Pleasure is what's marketed to the states. It's what we fixate on. Information technology'southward what we use to numb and distract ourselves. Simply pleasure, while necessary, isn't sufficient4. At that place'south something more than.

A popular narrative lately is that people are becoming unhappier considering nosotros're all narcissistic and grew up being told that we're special unique snowflakes who are going to change the world and we have Facebook constantly telling u.s. how amazing everyone else'south lives are, but non our own, and so we all experience similar crap and wonder where it all went wrong. Oh, and all of this happens by the age of 23.

Pitiful, simply no. Give people a bit more credit than that.

For instance, a friend of mine recently started a high-risk business venture. He dried up most of his savings trying to brand it work and failed. Today, he's happier than always for his experience. It taught him many lessons about what he wanted and didn't want in life and information technology somewhen led him to his electric current task, which he loves. He's able to look back and exist proud that he went for it because otherwise, he would have e'er wondered "what if?" and that would have fabricated him unhappier than whatever failure would have.

The failure to meet our ain expectations is not antithetical to happiness, and I'd really argue that the ability to fail and nevertheless appreciate the experience is actually a cardinal building cake for happiness5 , six.

If you thought you were going to make $100,000 and bulldoze a Porsche immediately out of higher, and then your standards of success were skewed and superficial, you confused your pleasance for happiness, and the painful smack of reality striking you in the face will be one of the best lessons life e'er gives you.

The "lower expectations" statement falls victim to the aforementioned old mindset: that happiness is derived from without. The joy of life is non having a $100,000 salary. Information technology's working to reach a $100,000 bacon, then working for a $200,000 bacon, so on.

So, I say raise your expectations. Elongate your process. Lay on your decease bed with a to-practise list a mile long and grinning at the infinite opportunity granted to you lot. Create ridiculous standards for yourself and so savor the inevitable failure. Learn from it. Live it. Let the footing fissure and rocks crumble around you because that's how something amazing grows, through the cracks.

The key to finding happiness: not a fake smileChances are you know someone who always appears to be insanely happy regardless of the circumstances or state of affairs. Chances are this is really one of the well-nigh dysfunctional people you know. Denying negative emotions leads to deeper and more prolonged negative emotions and emotional dysfunction.

It'southward a unproblematic reality: shit happens. Things go incorrect. People upset us. Mistakes are made and negative emotions arise. And that's fine. Negative emotions are necessary and healthy for maintaining a stable baseline happiness in one'southward life.

The pull a fast one on with negative emotions is to 1) express them in a socially acceptable and good for you manner and 2) limited them in a way which aligns with your values.

Uncomplicated instance: A value of mine is to pursue non-violence. Therefore, when I get mad at somebody, I limited that anger, but I also make a indicate to not punch them in the face. Radical idea, I know. (But I admittedly volition throw a socket wrench at the neighbor's kids. Try me.)

In that location's a lot of people out in that location who subscribe to the "always be positive" ideology. These people should be avoided just every bit much as someone who thinks the world is an endless pile of shit. If your standard of happiness is that you're always happy, no matter what, then y'all demand a reality cheque.

I think part of the allure of obsessive positivity is the way in which we're marketed to. I recollect part of it is beingness subjected to happy, smiley people on television constantly. I think part of it is that some people in the self-help industry want you lot to feel similar at that place'south something incorrect with yous all the fourth dimension.

Or maybe it's but that we're lazy, and similar anything else, we desire the upshot without actually having to practice the hard piece of work for it.

Which brings me to what actually drives happiness….

Completing a marathon makes us happier than eating a chocolate cake. Raising a child makes united states of america happier than chirapsia a video game. Starting a pocket-size business with friends and struggling to make money makes us happier than buying a new calculator.

And the funny thing is that all 3 of the activities above are exceedingly unpleasant and crave setting loftier expectations and potentially failing to e'er meet them. Yet, they are some of the most meaningful moments and activities of our lives. They involve pain, struggle, even anger and despair, yet in one case we've done them we look back and become misty-eyed about them.

Why?

Because information technology'south these sorts of activities that allow us to go our platonic selves. It's the perpetual pursuit of fulfilling our platonic selves that grants u.s.a. happiness, regardless of superficial pleasures or pain, regardless of positive or negative emotions. This is why some people are happy in war and others are sad at weddings. Information technology's why some are excited to piece of work and others hate parties. The traits they're inhabiting don't align with their platonic selves.

The end results don't define our ideal selves. It's non finishing the marathon that makes us happy; it's achieving a difficult long-term goal that does. It's not having an awesome child to show off that makes us happy; information technology's knowing that you gave yourself upwards to the growth of some other human being that is special. Information technology'due south not the prestige and money from the new business that makes you happy, it's the process of overcoming all odds with people yous care about.

And this is the reason that trying to be happy inevitably will make you unhappy. Because to try to exist happy implies that you are non already inhabiting your ideal self, you are not aligned with the qualities of who y'all wish to be. After all, if y'all were acting out your platonic cocky, then you wouldn't feel the need to try to be happy.

Cue statements about "finding happiness within," and "knowing that you lot're plenty." Information technology'south not that happiness itself is in you, it's that happiness occurs when you make up one's mind to pursue what's in you.

And this is why happiness is then fleeting. Anyone who has set out major life goals for themselves only to achieve them and realize that they experience the same relative amounts of happiness/unhappiness knows that happiness always feels like it's effectually the corner, just waiting for you to show up. No matter where you are in life, you will always perceive in that location to be ane more thing you need to practise to be particularly happyvii. Simply it likewise, volition be a mirage.

And that's considering our ideal cocky is always merely around that corner, always iii steps ahead of usa. Nosotros dream of being a musician and when we're a musician, we dream of writing a film score, and when write a moving picture score, we dream of writing a screenplay. And what matters isn't that we accomplish each of these plateaus of success, simply that nosotros're consistently moving towards them, day after day, month after month, year subsequently year. The plateaus volition come and go, and nosotros'll continue post-obit our ideal self downwardly the path of our lives.

The Key to Finding Happiness Map

And with that, with regards to finding happiness, it seems the best advice is also the simplest: Imagine who yous want to exist so footstep towards information technology8. Dream big and and then do something. Anything9. The simple act of moving at all will change how you feel nearly the entire process and serve to inspire yous farther.

Allow get of the imagined result—it's not necessary. The fantasy and the dream are merely tools to go you lot off your ass. It doesn't affair if they come true or not. Live, human being. Just live. Stop trying to be happy and just be.