Why Are We So Obsessed With Happiness?
The key to happiness as a state of being rather than a forced, perpetual emotion is to take action in the face of challenging times.
“Healthy positivity means making space for both reality and hope. Toxic positivity denies an emotion and forces us to suppress it. When we use toxic positivity, we are telling ourselves and others that this emotion shouldn’t exist, it’s wrong, and if we try just a little bit harder, we can eliminate it entirely.”
― Whitney Goodman, psychologist and author of Toxic Positivity: Keeping It Real in a World Obsessed with Being Happy
Over a decade ago, when I was struggling in a toxic work environment, I got hooked on a podcast all about happiness. The host spoke with a vivacious, grinning roar, "HELLO! And WELCOME BACK …!"
Guests in psychology, academia, and healthcare talked about their findings, research, and experiences, all while trying to make the point that happiness is key to success and a fulfilling life.
Listening to the podcast while I drove in morning traffic to a shitty job wasn't much different than drinking a glass of wine to de-stress at the end of the day. It made me feel good in the moment, but the good feelings were fleeting.
As soon as I had to deal with a frustrating work email or a home maintenance issue, I would try and suppress the negative emotion, "No! I have to stay happy! Happy is the key to success!"
In 2010, a book titled The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor came out, but I hadn't read it until recently.
About 2 years ago, I read a book by one of my favorite psychologists on Instagram, Whitney Goodman. I admired her realness, and I couldn't wait to read her book, Toxic Positivity, and it didn't disappoint.
This was not only a turning point for me as it helped examine my relationship with happiness, but it was also the moment when I realized how obsessed our society is with perpetual happiness.
Why millennials were taught that happiness is the key to success
As an elder millennial who has been reading about self-help, leadership, and emotional intelligence since college, I'm seeing a major shift in our relationship with emotions, especially positive vs. negative ones, for the better.
Rewind to the time when I was entering college. To keep the millennial generation motivated at work (while stripping away benefits like 401K and pensions, keeping salaries stagnant despite inflation, increasing college tuition, and eventually hitting rock bottom with the 2008 recession), there was a lot of rhetoric around the idea that to be successful, you have to stay positive, be grateful, and above all — just be happy!
It was no wonder that only a couple of years into my first job, I was already feeling burned out.
"You're lucky to be here."
"Be grateful you have a job."
"Doing what you love is more fulfilling than making money."
^ I heard those statements time and time again, starting in college and through the first several years of my career. It made me feel as if something was wrong with me because I couldn't find job satisfaction.
In retrospect, there was good reason to not feel happy: I was working in a toxic environment, I was extremely underpaid, and I was buried in student loans.
In the book, Can't Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation by Anne Helen Petersen, she states:
"It took burning out for many of us to arrive at this point. But the new millennial refrain of 'Fuck passion, pay me' feels more persuasive and powerful every day."
With more light shining on the importance of understanding emotions and having more resources available in early childhood, higher education, and work organizations, we're now shifting towards a better, healthier relationship with our emotions and teaching kids and adults that all feelings are important.
If we make a habit of suppressing the bad ones, the forceful happiness can backfire, and it can be harmful. (How can suppressing emotions be harmful? Bookmark this Working It podcast episode about anger at work.)
Context is important: “happy” as in a feeling and “happy” as in a state of being
The goal of feeling happy all the time is inhuman, no matter who you are or what your circumstances are.
In happiness psychology, the advantages of happiness are less about always feeling the emotion but rather about a state of being:
Having an open mind
Seeking opportunity instead of focusing solely on threats
And taking care of yourself and your needs to feel a sense of groundedness
That type of relationship with happiness is much different than the pressure of always feeling happy and suppressing negative emotions, because life isn't always pleasurable and satisfying. It’s even spelled out in the Merriam-Webster dictionary:
When happy is an emotion we feel, it's oftentimes situational or environmental. It's what we feel after seeing a funny movie, falling in love, getting a job promotion, spending time with friends, or finishing a creative project.
The pressure to always feel happy is detrimental when something challenging happens. Feeling the negative feelings is like giving yourself a giant hug — it’s validating. Because whatever is challenging in the moment is challenging because you care enough to feel all 👏 the 👏 feelings 👏.
Imagine focusing on trying to be happy after a breakup only to truly feel sad or angry. Forcing yourself to feel happy is like someone telling you to "Get over it! He was a jerk anyway." It's not comforting or helpful.
Happiness is only an advantage when it leads to positive action
I watched a recent interview on YouTube with Hasan Minhaj and President Obama. During the interview, Hasan asks Obama, "Do you get depressed?"
There are a few points he makes in response to this, but my favorite is this:
"Malia [Obama's daughter] comes to me, she's 24, [and she says] 'all our friends, sometimes we talk about climate change and we feel like there's no way we're going to be able to solve this … a lot of my friends feel like what's the point? Because the world is burning and there's nothing I can do.'
And what I said to her is, 'look we may not be able to cap temperature rise to two degrees centigrade, but here's the thing, if we work really hard, we may be able to cap it at two and a half instead of three. Or three instead of three and a half.
That extra centigrade, that might mean the difference as to whether Bangladesh is under water. That might make the difference as to whether 100 million people have to migrate or only a few. That matters!"
Here, Obama isn't coming from a place of constant happiness, but a place of optimism (similar to hope, which he based his entire campaign around). What I took away from his response is that unhappiness can in fact be the driver towards positive change.
There's nothing more dreadful than feeling rightfully unhappy in response to a situation yet being forced to be happy as a response. But being open-minded, flexible, and allowing to feel all your emotions can help you take action — when you’re ready, of course.
The key to happiness as a state of being rather than a forced, perpetual emotion is to take action in the face of challenging times.
It's healthy to say to yourself, "Hey, things suck right now" and to also say, "But I know it won't always be like this, and it can get better." But here's the most important part.
Ready?
You have to believe what you tell yourself.
And the only way to do so is by taking action. That's the happiness advantage.
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