Why You Don’t Believe in Happiness Anymore
Photo by Saneej Kallingal on Unsplash
When you start with big dreams, full of youthful enthusiasm, happiness always seems within reach. Over time, challenged by obstacles and hardships, your commitment to those dreams is tested. But you’re still young, so you push on and persevere.
Then you get hit with big disappointments, letdowns in your career, love life, or friendships. You feel unsupported and alone. “Why is this happening?” you wonder, “I’m a good person. I didn’t do anything to deserve this.”
Then you face a health crisis, lose a loved one, suffer injuries, or financial hardships. Unforeseen stressors continue to pop up and dash your plans.
You start to lose hope.
Losing the confidence in happiness
When you’re struggling, it’s natural to want to give up. You may look around and feel that everyone has an easier life than you. You forget that no one is exempt from suffering, and some of the most outstanding individuals in history faced overwhelming personal hardships.
But no matter. The longer you stay in a place of hopelessness, the harder it is to believe that you’ll ever be happy again. You may justify your unhappiness by proclaiming your powerlessness. You even start to question the concept of happiness.
“Happiness is an illusion sold by the media to make money,” you decide. “Happy relationships? Happy families? Happy friendships? Bah! That’s not real life.”
Five conditions that cause people to abandon happiness
1. Heartbreak
Deep wounds to the soul come in many forms, but for me, the word “heartbreak” captures the catastrophic pain of unforeseen loss. No matter what form heartbreak takes when your heart is broken, gravity shifts, your body and mind feel sluggish, color is drained from the world, and every day is a battle with yourself.
2. Social isolation
You withdraw from the world. Stop seeing friends or family and embrace loneliness. The more you live in isolation, the more your thoughts and feelings become deluded. You distort even the simplest of interactions and grow paranoid and suspicious of others. No one is who they seem to be.
3. Pessimism and bitterness
Complaining becomes your baseline functioning. You see fault in everyone. You watch people and judge them; no one escapes your criticism. “Phonies!” you think. “I’m better off alone.” You convince yourself that the world has gone to hell. Even death seems like a welcome relief.
4. Creative stagnation
You have no curiosity. You stop exploring new experiences and become a slave to bad habits. There is no balance in your life. You eat too much or too little; you sleep too much or too little; time feels like it moves too slowly or too fast. Your reschedule has no consistency, and you feel permanently out of sorts. You don’t like leaving the house, so you don’t take walks, attend classes, lectures, or workshops. You stop going to performances. Creativity is gone from your life. Eventually, you grow disinterested in everyone and everything.
5. Living in the past
When you lose hope, you will start to live in the past. You revisit memories and embrace nostalgia, confident that the best times of your life are long gone. You stop living in the moment and lose your sense of wonder. There’s nothing left to look forward to. “Weekends? Weekdays? Holidays?” you counsel yourself, “What does it matter? Nothing changes.”
Steps to move your life in the direction of happiness.
Recently, a patient asked me, “When will my life get better?” I answered, “When you decide it will.”
Needless to say, she was displeased. She met all five of the criteria for abandoning happiness. But I could sense she was holding tight to a childlike wish to be saved. As if someone would swoop down and save her from herself by blessing her with happiness.
The best advice that I can offer is this: In adulthood, no one is responsible for your happiness but you. The wish to be saved by someone else will drive you to make reckless choices or ultimately reinforce the five conditions for abandoning happiness.
Breaking the cycle of unhappiness starts by taking a hard look at the choices that you make that breed unhappiness. Until those conditions are addressed, happiness will remain elusive. To move in a new direction is going to require new choices.
To disrupt the conditions that cause you to abandon happiness, click on these posts:
