The quest for happiness and its pitfalls

Wanting happiness absolutely or seeking it by certain ways can lead to pitfalls. Fortunately, there are also ways of passage.

The traps	The ways of passage

The ideal, the expectations, are a “happiness killer” that often leads to disappointment. It is the famous “When I will be, when I will have… then… ”	“The urgency lies in the definitive renunciation of childhood and adolescence, of illusions and impossible dreams… You have to know how to leave behind that which distracts you from accepting reality. Happy as a Dane, Malene Rydhal. Would it be possible to love, to enjoy what is? what we have? what others are?

The search for happiness can promote : – Individualism, and consequently loneliness. – The competition, and consequently the social comparison which weakens happiness.	Self-compassion emphasizes common humanity. Understanding that failure is part of the human experience helps to alleviate feelings of isolation and promotes connection. We are all in this together!

Positive thinking, sold as a path to success, often tries, without the power, to suppress “negative” thoughts. But what we want to ignore tends to grow. These approaches emphasize individual responsibility and give an illusion of control. The person who “fails” can be hurt twice: by the failure and by the feeling of guilt.	Rather than rejecting negative thoughts, take a step back “I observe that I have the thought that…”, and focus on your resources. Success is a gift, not a due. Lucidity is a key to understanding that the result of our actions does not depend entirely on us. So let’s learn to let go.