I’m Struggling to Find Happiness And That’s Okay!

For those struggling to find happiness- A message to you.

They say instead of drinking it, smoking it, scrolling it away, or dating it away, sit with it because a big part of healing happens by feeling and facing your problems. So sit with them. Or write them down which is what I do.

This is something a lot of people face. At least I know I have! And from what I have learned, you change your scenery, the people you surround yourself with, what you do, and anything you can think of, but the results are only temporary. You still feel like being back to square one after some time has passed. It gets confusing and disappointing, it also leaves you feeling hopeless at times. To be honest with you, happiness is complicated however, the answer is somewhat “simple”. No matter what you change on the outside, nothing will ever change if the inside stays the same. Your life could be the best, or at least seem like it, but you still feel unhappy. A level of unhappiness is normal and expected but that’s not always the case.

Ask yourself what generally makes you happy and what currently doesn’t make you happy. If the answers are obvious then you can start from there to make the necessary changes and find happiness again. But if they aren’t, you may want to look into it deeper.

Taking into consideration that happiness is only a temporary emotion that comes with positive incidents in our lives, it’s fair to say that happiness as a general life attitude is harder to achieve.

Whether you want to achieve general happiness in your life or adopt a happier attitude (or both) it’s always important to start with yourself. It’s essential to keep in mind that struggling with happiness sometimes is associated with mental health problems (such as depression and anxiety) which when you manage to understand and work on, you’ll find the appropriate steps to improve your own happiness.

As I recently read in the well-known book “The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck” by Mark Manson, we are so obsessed with the idea of being constantly happy and we frantically try to get rid of our “negative” emotions that we end up feeling even unhappier or unmotivated or anxious (and so on) after. They named it The Feedback Loop from Hell. It’s basically a repetitive circle in which as the book mentions, we feel bad about feeling bad, we feel guilty about feeling guilty, we feel angry about getting angry, we feel anxious about being anxious, and so on. Have you ever noticed that sometimes when you care less about something, you do better at it? As Mark Manson said, “The desire for more positive experiences is itself a negative experience. And, paradoxically, the acceptance of one’s negative experience is itself a positive experience”. If pursuing the positive is something negative, then pursuing the negative generates the positive. So the solution is to simply stop caring as much.

The truth is exactly the opposite of what society teaches us! It’s okay to feel sad/disappointed/ unmotivated and do nothing about it. Somedays you just need to let your emotions be and not make yourself feel even worse by trying to change them or guilty for failing to change them.

At the same time, it’s important to always keep in mind that there are people out there who care about you and your well-being and who will be willing to help you. But even if you don’t have a support group you can always make the appropriate changes to build one. However, remember that at the end of the day, everything you need in order to feel better and change your life exists within yourself.

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