Why You'll Never Be Happy No Matter What You Do

In 1998, I completed an assignment for my seventh grade health education class where I was asked to write a short paragraph about what I hoped to accomplish by the time I turned thirty. The point of the assignment was to teach young people how to set long-term goals. Common responses revealed that the majority of my classmates hoped to be: 1) college graduates; 2) married; and 3) the owners of a nice home. Ever the non-conformist, I wrote that when I was thirty years old, I just hoped that I was "happy."

My generation is mostly made up of the children of baby boomers. Referred to by many as "the entitled generation," we were born into a healthy economy full of promise. We were told by our parents and teachers that we could be anything we wanted to be, that the world was ours for the taking. We were also told that above all, the most important thing in life was "to be happy."

This idea stuck. Hard. Young adults all over the country began abandoning all notions of good sense to "chase their dreams." Kids were dropping out of college to become artists, musicians, and freelance writers. Empowerment and self-love propaganda dominated all educational media outlets. From the time we were kindergartners, my generation was made to believe that we were the smartest, most special, deserving, wonderful things in the entire world and that we should never settle for any way of life that didn't make us feel special and wonderful all of the time.

Image Source

Relationship advice we received in middle and high school taught us that we should immediately break up with anyone who ever pissed us off for any reason. If they were right for us, they would magically understand us perfectly and would never dream of treating us as anything less than the true princesses we were. We were taught that every single girl is entitled to her very own five-figure fantasy dream wedding regardless of the financial resources available. We were taught that anyone who won't hire us has failed to appreciate the unique brilliance that seeps from our very pores, and is therefore unworthy of the honor of having us under their humble employ. Essentially, we were taught that we deserve the world, and anything bad that ever happens to us is not our fault.

Experience has shown me that although many are not willing to admit it, the majority of my peers still buy into this school of thought. Yet hardly any of them seem happy. So what gives?

Image Source

Although my response to my middle school assignment seemed pretty clever to me when I wrote it, there was one thing 13-year-old Dana did not understand. In fact, it's something many people never understand, and something that, thanks to the misguided notions of contemporary culture, took me almost twenty years to figure out. The concept is surprisingly quite simple. Once I realized and accepted it, I experienced the most intensely liberating relief. Are you ready to hear my gospel?

Image Source

I am not happy. I will never be happy, because there is no way to "be" happy.

Before you protest, bear with me. I promise it will make sense at the end.

After years of mental anguish, I came to realize the reason why I could never find anything that made me happy for very long. The problem with the "be happy" philosophy is that it bases itself on a fundamentally flawed understanding of what happiness actually is. The philosophy construes happiness as a characteristic, and in doing so, it creates an expectation of permanence for something that is ephemeral by nature. Happiness, just like anger, fear, and excitement, is nothing more than a temporary emotional state. Any attempt to make the feeling of happiness last forever will inevitably fail.

Emotions are the highly effective tools your brain uses to persuade you to do things that it thinks (no pun intended) will benefit your health and the survival of your species. Different emotions are produced when your brain releases one or more specialized chemicals. Which chemical(s) get(s) released depends on the particular stimulus. For example, if your brain senses a threat to your safety, it releases epinephrine, or "adrenaline" to give you the strength and state of mind to either fight off the danger or escape. When your brain senses that you have found a potential sex partner, it releases testosterone and oestrogen, with the ultimate goal of coercing your body into reproduction. When our bodies need to rest, our brain releases melatonin to make us drowsy. When our brain thinks we need more food, it releases ghrelin. When it decides we've eaten enough, it releases leptin.

Image Source

The feeling we recognize as happiness is experienced in the brain in several different ways. When your brain recognizes that you have gotten or achieved something you wanted, it releases dopamine, the reward chemical. When you hold your baby or embrace your spouse, your brain releases oxytocin, the bonding chemical, which makes you more likely to take care of your baby and stay with your romantic partner. When you engage in an activity that requires a lot of physical exertion, your brain releases endorphins, which give you the sensation of "painlessness."

Happiness feels good for a reason. From a biological standpoint, in rewarding you for behaviors it views as beneficial to your survival, your brain must make enough of an impression on you so that once the emotion passes, (and it always will) you will still remember how good it felt. If successfully done, the result will leave you motivated to do whatever it takes to feel that way again. The "be happy" mentality misconstrues our interpretation of the human brain's natural reward system. Instead of teaching us to gracefully weather our inevitably changing moods, it propels us blindly down the path of a never-ending, doomed quest for that one elusive person, place, job, or thing that will finally give us that eternal bliss we have been taught to seek.

Image Source

The "be happy" philosophy ignores the fact that all chemicals, including the ones that make us feel happy, are released only in limited quantities. Your brain spends twenty-four hours a day releasing different hormones in a highly specialized rhythm depending on what it thinks your body needs. No one's brain releases one particular motivational hormone all of the time, because it wouldn't be conducive to our survival. For example, if your brain released adrenaline all of the time, you would never be able to rest. If your brain released melatonin all of the time, you would be too sleepy to ever do anything. If you don't believe me, just ask anyone with a chemical imbalance. Chances are they'll tell you that for them, life is always tiring/painful/sad depending on what type of imbalance they have.

The happiness hormones are no different. That's why they can't be produced 100% of the time. If your body released dopamine all of the time, you would bask in a perpetual euphoric stupor and never be motivated to find your next meal, paycheck, or adventure. If your body released endorphins all of the time, you would have no way of knowing if you were injured or ill. If your body released oxytocin all of the time, you would never be able to separate yourself from your loved ones long enough to get anything done.

Photo Credit: Jake Wyman

You can "feel" happy, in the same way you can feel afraid. On the other hand, trying to "be" happy is about as futile as trying to "be" surprised. No matter how successful you are in your career or how healthy your marriage is, there will never be a point in your life where you feel happy forever. You're not meant to. In fact, if you did, you would probably die.

Don't believe me? What if I told you that we already have plenty of real-life examples that offer conclusive evidence of this theory? As it so happens, there is one sector of the population that has achieved "being" happy. We commonly refer to them as junkies. Substances like heroin trick your brain into over-releasing endorphins, while crack-cocaine and crystal meth do the same with dopamine. Theoretically, as long as you can stay high, you will continue to "be" happy. The problem is that most drug addicts are extremely unhealthy because their brains have stopped chemically motivating them to do what their bodies need. Instead of telling them them to eat, sleep, or work, an addict's brain solely motivates them to get more drugs so they can force the release of the "feel-good" chemical again. After the first time, you won't have as much stored-up chemical left to release, so the highs will keep dwindling over time while more and more substance will be required to produce the same effect. As you can see, even if artificially induced, your body is incapable of sustaining the feeling of happiness forever. Try as we may to find it, there is no "hack" to the system of life's emotional roller-coaster. On the contrary, the roller-coaster is what actually keeps us alive.

Image Source

Once you accept that you will never "be" happy, you can start to appreciate the emotional ups and downs of each day for what they are - strong behavioral suggestions. You will learn to recognize your feelings as being separate from your self. There will always be times when you won't feel happy. Next time you experience a negative emotion, instead of wallowing in your despair, try to decipher what your body is trying to tell you. What is it that your brain thinks your body needs? If it is something that your rational mind (which is totally separate from your emotional center) concludes is necessary, then try to think of how you might accomplish it. If your rational mind concludes that it isn't necessary for your well-being, then recognize that suggestion as being nothing more than a thought. Distinguish that thought from reality, and let it pass. Often it is necessary for our rational mind to override our emotional impulses.

My life is far from perfect. But it's a lot easier knowing that the idea of "happily ever after" is just that - an idea. I am not happy, and I am not sad. I'm just a person who sometimes feels happy and sometimes feels sad. I am not defined by my feelings. I am defined by how I allow them to manifest in my actions. My late grandfather often used to say, "Most people, given all the circumstances of their lives, are doing about the best they can do." I think he had the right idea. Instead of trying to find a way to be happy, just try to always do the best you can with what you've got. If you do this every day, you won't always be happy, but do you know what you will be? You will be fine.