Life | Self Improvement

If You Want to Achieve True Happiness, Stop Trying to Be Happy

The truth about happiness I wish I had known from a long time ago.

What is happiness for you? What makes you happy?

I used to think a wonderful movie, an excellent book, a walk-in nature or a lovely meal could bring me happiness. But it turns out, spoiler alert: it couldn’t.

Since Aristotle’s time, happiness has been thought to consist of at least two aspects: hedonia (pleasure) and eudaimonia (personal fulfillment).

Now the problem with many of us today is that we are mostly searching for mere “pleasure” when we seek happiness.

Pleasure is the feeling of enjoyment, being in the state of “good mood”, and the positive experience of our senses.

I’ve seen many people mistook happiness for pleasure (hedonia) just like I did. You probably wonder: If it gives a positive experience to our senses, doesn’t that mean it could make us “happy”?

Well, yes, you are right. Pleasure can make us happy — for a moment. But that’s not true happiness.

Happiness is not only about pleasure

Don’t get me wrong, it’s totally fine to enjoy pleasure (that’s why it’s called pleasure.) Sometimes, getting a “quick dose” of happiness from buying an extra pair of jeans, taking a hot bath, or watching your favorite movie is indeed necessary. Self-care is beneficial and not a selfish act.

However, these sorts of things would be problematic if you rely on them for your all-around happiness.

When you seek pleasure intending to seek shortcuts to happiness, you’re looking for instant gratification. It makes you ignore some important long-term benefits for unimportant short-term desires that arise as temptations.

Those experiences that put you in a good mood will activate your brain’s reward center and respond by releasing dopamine. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter that tells your brain:

“This feels good, I want more.”

The not-so-good thing about dopamine is too much of it could lead to addiction. You can ask any drug addict how the sensory pleasure associated with the drug makes them feel. You can ask any “influencer” on Instagram (or even yourself) how addiction to social media affects their happiness.

Yes, they may feel good amidst the busy notifications, but what happens at night when they’re about to sleep and have to listen to nothing but the voices of their heads? Do those thousands of likes on social media bring them peace of mind? Are they happy?

Are you?

You can’t be happy all the time

Many people believe they should set very high standards for their happiness. They think they should be happy all the time, or extremely happy. Then, they subscribe to the “always be positive” ideology (including that popular “good vibes only” thing.)

I hate to break it to you, but this is actually toxic.

You can’t be happy all the time. Life has its ups and downs. It’s okay to feel like shit at times. It’s normal to feel sadness, fear, anger, or disgust. If you deny all of these negative emotions, it will lead to more prolonged negative emotions and emotional dysfunction.

What matters more is to accept those emotions once they come to the surface, then consciously act responsibly rather than letting them consume, control, or ruin your life.

You don’t need to be happy all the time. Even research shows that — believe it or not — a bit more stress will make you happier on an hourly, daily, and long-term basis.

Stop trying to be happy

The truth is, the harder you strive to be happy, the less likely you are to achieve that goal. This is the same common sense as the idea that the harder you try to forget someone, the less likely you are to forget them.

A study published by Perspectives on Psychological Science found people felt cheated after watching an upbeat film because of the disappointment of not achieving their expected cheerfulness.

“The best way to increase your happiness is to stop worrying about being happy.” — The study’s co-author, June Gruber.

When you’re doing something with the motivation or expectation that it is ought to make you happy, the very act of trying to achieve happiness will eventually turn on you and make you unhappy as the disappointment from failure.

Therefore, to achieve happiness, you need to stop expecting and trying to be happy. Truly fortunate people don’t need to look for ways to be happy — they just are.

So what is true happiness?

We’ve come to the main topic of this article. But before we go there, let me ask you a simple question: Have you ever wondered why some people feel miserable at their jobs, while others are super excited to go to work that you think they’re actually high?

No, they don’t spend their morning getting stoned.

But it’s because:

True happiness is the process of becoming your ideal self.

Those people who feel miserable all the time about their work — consciously or not — think they are not becoming their ideal selves by working at a job they don’t love. They aren’t in tune with themselves.

On the contrary, the ones who go to work feeling excited are working at the job that lets them be their ideal selves. Of course, they don’t go to work like a happy 5 years old all the time, but they know they are on the right track.

True happiness is about the process you take to become in tune with your ideal self. The “self” you want to be.

Think about the most meaningful moments and activities in your life; building a small business with friends, working hard and struggling to make money, completing a marathon, finishing school, raising a child, starting a new job or leaving an old one, etc.

What funny is — even though those moments involve pain, struggle, anger, and even despair, yet, once you’ve done them, you look back and get misty-eyed about them. Why? Because it’s the process that allows you to become your ideal self.

And that is true happiness.

Bruce Lee once said, “The meaning of life is that it is to be lived.” You only have one life. If you want to be truly happy, why waste your time on things that don’t support you to become your ideal self?

So live the life you want. You don’t have to look for happiness in you. Happiness will occur by itself when you decide to pursue what’s in you.

Make life worth living

True happiness isn’t only about the laughter, the good times, the amazing memories. But it’s also about the struggles, the pain, the crying, the time you spend doing your utmost effort where you stumble and fall.

Just like many things in life, happiness is a process. It may be long, arduous, and wearisome — but you can choose to make every second count, and make life worth living.

If you want to achieve true happiness, just live, man. Live. Chase your dreams, stop trying to be happy, and just be. Let the rest take care of itself.

As Carl Rogers once said:

“The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction, not a destination.” — Carl Rogers