Why you can’t be happy, in 10 easy steps

Literally every day, I’ve been seeing a new article on happiness on my Flipboard: “Are You Sabotaging Your Own Happiness?” “17 Things Happy People Say Every Day” “10 Scientifically Proven Ways to Stay Happy Forever.” Why are we so obsessed with the idea of happiness? What do we even mean by happiness?

Webster’s dictionary defines happiness as “the state of being happy.” Well … OK, that doesn’t truly help. Next, happy is defined as “feeling pleasure and enjoyment because of your life, situation, etc.” Well, I guess that helps? But, culturally and socially, our lives and situations do not make us happy. Most Americans live in such an extremely lucky reality. Sure, some things could be improved, but overall, we’re lucky for the freedoms and privileges we have.

In today’s world, too much focus is on appearances, wealth and materialistic foundations. Upon these foundations, we build our unstable, fluctuating emotions. The idea that our happiness, such a complex and deep emotion to feel, can be summarized into 10 ways is offensive. If it were that easy, everyone would be happy.

While many of these articles do provide decent advice such as “be grateful” and “obtain adequate sleep,” happiness has a lot more nuance to it than that. In addition, people who do not meet these qualifications or “say these 17 things every day” will often feel more unhappy with their situations after reading these articles, which set standards that some of us are incapable or unwilling to meet. Even if you sleep well, exercise often, and say thank you, you aren’t guaranteed a happy life. These steps may provide a better building, but the foundation is still wobbly.

So here’s my own definition of happiness. Its true foundation is loving yourself. Accepting yourself for who you are and loving yourself for it is truly freeing. However, you also have to accept and love those around you. On top of this, you must accept the world for its reality. You have to create happiness inside yourself and your environment. Don’t rely on objects and ambitions to make you happy. Learn to be happy in an independent and self-reliable way.

And with true happiness comes sadness. Every force has an equal but opposite force. Without the opposing forces, we would lack a fulfilling spectrum of emotions, and life would be hollow. We need to accept that our lives will not be perfect and consist of “everlasting happiness.”

That’s not realistic or real happiness. That’s a facade that many of us try to hide behind. But it’s only keeping us farther away from the goal: finding realistic happiness and embracing the ups-and-downs of life with perspective.

This story was originally published February 11, 2015 at 2:36 PM with the headline "Why you can’t be happy, in 10 easy steps."