Pressure to be Constantly Happy

Being happy is the goal, right? It seems like what we’re all striving for. But what happens when you aren’t constantly happy? Have you failed; is there something wrong with you or your life? We feel pressure to be constantly happy as happiness is prized above all other emotions. Is this really in our best interest or even obtainable? Let’s explore some unrealistic expectations we’ve created around happiness. If you’d like one-on-one support to understand your happiness pressures, connect with Wingate Counseling for a free consultation.

Experiencing a range of emotions

Despite our best efforts to portray happiness, the reality is that no one is happy all the time! In fact, it’s healthy to experience a wide range of emotions. We tend to believe the lie that happiness is the baseline emotion rather than one of many feelings a person will experience. While this might seem obvious, many of us unconsciously expect to be SHOULD be happy all the time rather than the reality that feelings come and go.

Being unhappy is “bad”

Suppose we expect to be happy all the time. In that case, we might get mad at ourselves for experiencing a normal range of human emotions. If happiness has become a baseline expectation, you might be quick to pathologize other emotions. There’s nothing wrong with you (or your life) when you experience a slump. It’s expected to have tough days or seasons of life. Sometimes there’s no problem to solve when feeling bleugh; this feeling won’t last forever.

Learning from tricky emotions

Happy feelings are nice, but we can experience real growth when tricky emotions come for a visit! These difficult emotions we’d rather avoid usually have something important to tell us. Anger tells us when a boundary has been crossed, loneliness urges us to connect, and guilt illuminates what we value in life. If we learn to respect and listen to these emotions, we will start to understand their values and not be so quick to push them aside.

Good things shouldn’t make me unhappy

There’s an exaggerated pressure to be happy about the things we want out of life. Think about it this way, imagine if you got your dream job, but it was in a different city where you are mostly alone. You might feel unjustified when you’re sad in the new city because you wanted to move there. But putting pressure on yourself to be constantly happy is unfair! You are allowed to experience challenging moments without the requirement to be happy all the time. Even the things we want will make us unhappy sometimes, and that’s okay.

The Bottom Line

It’s normal to experience a range of emotions. You can take the pressure off yourself by accepting that. Want to take it a step further? Try showing some gratitude for the tricky emotions. Respect what they have to teach you and welcome them when they visit. It will be less work than resisting or blaming yourself for being human! You can learn to navigate whatever emotion comes to visit. For personalized support, check out Wingate Counseling for a free consultation.