“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”
?Albert Camus
Let’s face it. Every time you turn around, you find new advice on being happy. Books promising to reveal the true secret of happiness. Blog posts telling you, “Write down three things that make you happy today.” Friends saying, “Move on!” and, “Cheer up!” after you’ve had a bad day.
And maybe you’re wondering… what’s wrong with that?
Happiness is a good thing right? Well, yes. Of course it is.
But we are being taught that our lives should be a straight and narrow path toward happiness.
We are taught that we should strive for happiness, and happiness alone in everything we do.
And that if we’re not always feeling happy, then something is terribly wrong.
The truth is, happiness should not be our only focus, and continuously striving for it, to the detriment of everything else, can actually cause us to make lots of mistakes. Here are seven such mistakes, and how to fix them:
1. We view setbacks and growing pains as failures.
When we actively pursue happiness, anything that makes us feel unhappy can seem like a failure – such as a simple setback or challenging moment – when in reality these things are unavoidable, normal parts of personal growth. Sometimes it’s just easier to feel depressed and trapped by these experiences and let them get the best of us.
Think about a time in your life when you faced a challenge. Maybe you lost your [Read more…]