To succeed is to build a building in three dimensions: material, relational and emotional. In other words: to achieve its objectives, while maintaining good relations and a good image, without sacrificing its well-being. A social success that would leave us unhappy is no longer considered by our contemporaries as an ideal of successful life. But as much the material and relational dimensions obey a certain logic, as much the emotional dimension of a successful life, with its unconscious aspects (our neuroses) and biological (our temperament) proves more difficult to control.
Human beings have always known the immense difficulty in achieving happiness. “the wise do not aspire to pleasure, but to the absence of suffering.” “Happiness is the silence of misfortune. How, then, do not make yourself unhappy? Here are seven tips, seven directions rather, which already represent a whole program …
1) Make the decision to go well
“You have to want to be happy and put your own. If one remains in the position of the impartial spectator, leaving only entrance to happiness and open doors, it is the sadness that
enter. It is always easier, less expensive in psychological energy, to indulge in misfortune. Conversely, prolonging well-being requires effort.
To explain this, there are first personal reasons: there are clear differences between individuals in their ability to feel good. And factors specific to the human race: evolution seems to have favored the existence of negative emotions, whose function is to increase the chances of survival of the species. Fear encourages flight or combat, anger intimidates adversaries or rivals, sadness attracts compassion, etc. But nature, if it had the concern of our survival, did not have that of our quality of life. The spectrum of positive emotions and moods is much smaller, more labile, and more costly in terms of psychological energy.
2) Do not leave too much room for the feeling of unhappiness
If negative emotions are occasional, unsustainable, and moderately disruptive to our daily lives, we can wait for them to disappear on their own. But flirting with misfortune, particularly valued by romanticism in the nineteenth century, involves certain dangers that psychology begins to study better. To give free rein to a negative emotion may prolong its duration. It was previously believed to have a certain cathartic effect: to complain was to alleviate his suffering, for example. It seems that this is often the opposite: the repeated and unanswered complaint can turn into a victim of life. And unhappiness feeds on itself: the more we let ourselves go, the longer we extend it. Moreover, abandoning oneself to the feeling of unhappiness will gradually make a negative emotion – one feels unhappy – a lasting negative vision – one has an unhappy life. Finally, it prepares the return of the subsequent negative emotions: the phenomenon is well known in depression, which has a very strong tendency to recurrence, and it has been shown with respect to the daily sad mood.
3) Take care of yourself, especially when you’re not doing well
Still obvious? Yes, but a thousand times contradicted by observation. Most anxious and depressed people do exactly the opposite. The more they go wrong, the more they mistreat themselves (by not seeing their friends anymore, by not practicing their favorite hobbies anymore …) and the more they mistreat each other, the more they go wrong.
The vicious circle is then engaged. Doing nice things when you’re not doing well is not obvious, because you do not want to. However, all available work shows that it is necessary to reinitiate this desire by initial efforts (such as restarting an engine that stalled). And that we should not be mistaken: when we go wrong, the purpose of pleasant activities is not to make us happy, but to prevent the malaise from getting worse or worse.
4) No perfectionism or obsession with well-being
Flaubert, speaking of happiness, wrote: “Have you thought how horrible this word has brought tears? Without that word, we would sleep more tranquil and live at ease. No need to take the dear Gustave to the letter, but all the same … The search for well-being must not become obsessed, and the right to happiness – inscribed for example in the American constitution – should not be transformed into a “duty of happiness”, according to the expression of the writer Pascal Bruckner.
Especially as the feeling of unhappiness, which is part of existence, can sometimes be useful, making us think; or necessary, by opening our eyes to unpleasant realities. We can not avoid his meeting, but it is within our reach to make good use of it.
5) Faced with daily worries, think, do not ruminate
The study of the psyche of anxiety shows that they always have troubles in their head, but that, paradoxically, they never address them effectively: their ruminations do not bring them solutions. It is that the vocation of worry is to be a warning signal (to draw our attention to a problem) and not a way to see the world or to face its problems. This is why one of the priority objectives of psychotherapies, especially cognitive ones, is to make people consider their misfortunes as problems to be solved and not as curses.
We then use a so-called “Socratic” approach, which consists of a tight questioning on these concerns: what is the facts and what is the interpretation or anticipation? Does continuing to worry me bring me something? What is my disaster scenario? What are the chances of it happening in my life? Etc. Rude, but instructive.
6) Do not feed hostile emotions
Much of our misfortune comes from the exaggerated place we place on “hostile” emotions. They are sometimes intense and turned against specific people (resentment, resentment, jealousy, etc.). Most often, they thrive because we favor our need to be right (“They are wrong, they must be punished”) to our desire to feel good (“I am the first victim, as much to reflect on what I can do something useful and move on. “)
In other cases, these negative emotions are irritability towards the defects of the human race, and make a critical or cynical look on the world and its inhabitants: “That one, if she thinks herself beautiful …” The lack Benevolence is often evidence of ill-being, and always a source of misfortune.
7) Enjoy the moments of well-being
The best weapon against misfortune, and the most enjoyable to use, is probably to enjoy even better times that life offers us. Savoring well-being when it is there, intensify it, densify it is a very good vaccine against the feeling of unhappiness. You may not avoid the disease, but it will be in a weakened form! As always, it’s not that easy.