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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.
Related: What Is the One Surprising Secret of Retaining Great Employees?