It is hard to be happy within and so most people don’t try. They live lives which look good on the outside but rot on the inside. It is hard, but we have no choice.

It is not hard to be happy. We make it hard. The human society has been wired in a way that he/she makes it extremely difficult to be happy. That makes it hard to be happy. We need to fix a lot of things to make ourselves a happy society, by choosing happiness over everything else.

We need to redesign our lives and we need to realign our priorities. A society that it not designed to find happiness will find it harder to be happy. It is actually a bizarre question. I look around myself and I see people addicted to pain. It appears, at least on the surface that they are enjoying being in pain and do not want to be happy.

I am not sure. Do people want to be happy or am I wasting my time in writing this blog and trying to make the world a happier place. I am struggling so far in trying to sell this idea of happiness to people. So, may be, I am wrong in thinking that people do want to be happy.

However, for the purpose of this article and this happiness blog, we will assume that people do want to be happy but they struggle to find happiness. That is true that it is difficult to be happy. It is extremely hard to live a truly happy life. There are too many variables at play and they don’t necessary work in congruence.

Why is it so hard to be happy?

1. We are not looking for happiness

Who is looking for happiness? It is a messed up society. People do not look for happiness. They do not define their happiness but internal standards.

Albeit, they do so as a way of living a life similar to what other people live. They want to be like other people. They want to behave like the fucking crowd. The crowd isn’t quite thinking for itself, because it is well, the crowd. In a mob, nobody is thinking. They are just doing what everybody else is doing because some fool said that that is the right way to live life.

Look around you. People want things. They do not want happiness. They want an iPhone, the new symbol of materialistic pursuit in the world. People are living their lives from one iPhone to another. They plan their lives in tune with Apple events and buy a new iPhone as soon as it is launched as if that makes their lives successful in the eyes of their peers. Quite weirdly, it does.

May be, it’s a new car, or a house. May be, it is another thing.

Who is chasing happiness?

Do things buy you happiness?

This blog disagrees. Things do not buy you happiness. Things buy you happiness for a certain duration of time and then life takes over.

2. Comparison with the rest of the world

People do not want to be happy. If they would, they wouldn’t be comparing their lives with the rest of the world. They would try to be happy themselves. It is weird. Nature has not designed us to be similar. Nature has designed all human beings differently and that should tell us that no two lives are meant to be similar.

If no two lives are not meant to be similar, then why the hell are we comparing our lives constantly through our lives with the rest of the world? Why do we want to do things that others want to do, and not take some time to decide what do we want to do?

As long as we keep comparing our lives with everyone else’s, we will not find happiness. You find happiness by focusing on your life and not by comparing your life with those of others and feeling sorry about yours. It is stupid no, because if you keep comparing your life with those of others, you will always find something missing in your life. You will not be happy because you don’t care enough about your life and then you ask why it is hard to be happy.

3. The society is designed around misery

If we are not designed with happiness as the goal, we are designed for misery since that’s what we are achieving. The rates of depression are rising around the world in spite of increasing wealth. People cannot cope with their mental health.

Relationships are deteriorating because people value things over people.

Materialism has taken over inner happiness. Showing off is the route to success and that’s how you prove that you have really arrived in life. The society is designed around misery and that’s what it is getting.

If we need happiness as a society, we need to build an architecture of happiness.

4. Incompatibility in relationships

Compatibility is the most important factor in relationships. Compatibility creates happy relationships and lack of compatibility means pain. If two people who live together are trying to build a life together value different things, it will become painful to live together since they would end up arguing about what matters. Two people who value similar things fundamentally would make it easier for each other to follow what they together value.

Life is inherently difficult and it is already difficult to live a disciplined and happy life. It only helps if you have someone with you who values what you value. If you live with someone who values different things, then it makes life even more difficult since they wouldn’t care about you value and would make it difficult for you to live your life the way you want to live it. Similarly, they wouldn’t be happy with you since you can’t get yourself to value what they do, whatever it may be.

That people value anything else over compatibility in relationships makes happiness difficult.

5. Prioritizing success over happiness

Success is not happiness. Happiness is success.

The problem with the world is that it is geared towards success and success is not internally driven. Success is externally driven. People judge each other’s success and they want to be like them. People live lives to impress other people and those people in return lives to impress them.

This has created a sort of vicious cycle in the society which is causing pain. Success is not internally driven, and hence the external nature of success makes people want to live lives for other people, rather for themselves. This creates unhappiness, since happiness can only be found inside of you.

6. Lives driven by fear than by love

Love and fear are the key human motivations. The problem with the world that we live in right now is that over 90% people are driven by fear. They fear if they will get a job, if they will lose it, if they will find a partner, if they will lose them, if they will find respect, if they will lose it, if they will find status or if they will lose it. You see, on the other side, people who are driven by love care about if they would be able to create a life based on love or if they will live a shallow life inside? They care if they would be able to make a positive contribution to the world, or if they would find a partner they truly love and respect.

If we are to create a happier world, we need more people driven by love, than by fear.

7. Tying happiness to a destinations than to the journey

People think they will be happy once they finish school. Once they finish school, they tell themselves that they will be happy once they finish college, then work, then marriage, kids, then retirement and voila, their entire life goes away in front of their eyes and they do not find true happiness because they always postponed it to do things which others value and never really making time for things that made them happy.

The thing with happiness is that it is a journey and not a destination. You cannot hope to be happy on a certain distant day in your life. Either you are happy today or not. You can be happy today regardless of where you are in life. You can work to improve your life while finding happiness in just being alive. Happiness is a journey and not a destination.

8. Lack of gratitude

The lack of gratitude in our lives is absolutely shameful. People are not grateful for their lives, their partners, their work, their health. They are grateful for nothing and then they wonder why they are so unhappy! They find all the time in the world to crib and complain about the things that are lacking in their life and they just can’t find any gratitude.

Gratitude is the key to contentment and happiness and it is not even a made up thing. It is legitimate. You and I did not earn life. It was given to us and we have every reason in the world to be happy. You can read this- that means on the top of life, you also got the benefit of education. You can read this on a device, which means you have access to technology and the internet. There is just so much to be grateful about that we shouldn’t have the time to feel sad. Still, people find reasons to be sad and unhappy because they are always looking at what’s missing.

How can you be happy if you are always looking at what’s missing from your life instead of what you have?

9. Not looking inside for happiness

Happiness doesn’t live outside of you. It lives inside and the only way to truly find happiness is inside. Meditate, observe your thoughts, spend time with yourself and learn about what your life is about. Those are the key sources of happiness. We need to create a framework of happiness where our lives fit in, so that we can live happily.

The problem is we are all seeking happiness outside, when it lives inside of us. If we don’t go inside to find it, we will keep looking outside for the whole of our lives and never find joy.

10.  Lack of purpose

Happiness follows purpose and most people lives purposeless lives. They do not care enough to understand themselves, their strengths and their purpose. It is purpose that creates meaning and happiness in our lives, which connects the dots. Purpose gives us a reason to create our lives around.

It is hard to be happy because it takes a lot of internal work to find purpose which most people do not invest in. Rather, they find It is easier to live a life like most people do and so most people live lives to live a life to impress others, who lack purpose. Purposeful people spend time with purposeful people who think for themselves and do things they care about them.

11. People give up on happiness

People give up on happiness and compromise with life. They do not try enough and they do not stay the course. Think about it. What is the alternative to a deeply happy life? A life that looks good on the outside but is miserable on the inside. That’s what majority of the world is living- A life that looks good on the outside but is miserable on the inside.

12. Negativity feeds unhappiness

Negativity is the umbrella term for comparison, for lack of gratitude, for looking at what’s missing all the time, among other things that make us feel weak emotionally. We can’t be happy if we are always looking at the negatives of life.

In order to be happy, we need to embrace optimism.

It is hard to be happy because you are not seeking happiness. We seek success which is outward. Happiness is inward. It needs a lot of work to turn it around. People are unhappy because they focus on negativity, don’t practice gratitude, compare themselves with each other, and do not have a purpose. In order to make the world a happier place, we need to do the opposite of things we have discussed here and hopefully one day, we will have a happier world.

Thank you for reading.

The purpose of this blog to help you find your happiness. Please read the other posts on the blog, and follow so that you get updates when new posts are published. Please share any posts you like with your friends so that they can also find their happiness. If you have any feedback for me, please leave it in the comments and I would be happy to work on it. If you would like to support my writing and this blog, you may please send a donation through PayPal here.

I appreciate the time you spent in reading the blog and wish you happiness.

Love,

Amarvani