Last update: June 08, 2015
We usually think that people go out of their way to achieve pleasure and happiness, avoiding suffering, worry and sorrow. But if you take a look around you, observing family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances, you will realize that many people are in bondage to their problems.
Some even feel good in their "unhappiness“, Even if they spend the day complaining about their bad luck. So why, if they are sick, do they keep turning their finger in the sore instead of trying to solve their problems?
The addiction to unhappiness, according to experts, has several possible explanations. The first takes into account people's insecurity or lack of self-esteem. They believe they don't deserve happiness, and therefore don't they struggle to change things and to improve their condition.
The second theory holds that the fault lies in the way we were brought up, given that if during our childhood we were given overly rigid discipline or unrealistic expectations, we have assimilated unhappiness as something normal, everyday and tolerable.
Thirdly, it is said that whoever lived different negative or traumatic experiences unconsciously feels a desire to return to the "status quo" of unhappiness, since he is the only one he knows, and therefore represents his comfort zone. That is, he doesn't know what it means to be happy.
The other reasons a person may develop an addiction to unhappiness have to do with their extreme realism in the face of what happens: they believe it is best to always focus on the negative side, and not delude yourself thinking positively. They are those people who always see the glass as half empty.
Some, because of the bad decisions they have made, they feel guilty and chastise themselves by forcing themselves to be unhappy.
It can also happen that you are afraid of happiness: some people are sure that after a moment of joy and serenity there will always come one of disappointment and sadness. For example, this is the case with people who don't want to fall in love again because they have suffered a lot from a breakup. They deny themselves happiness for fear of suffering again. There are also cases of people who do not want to find a life partner because they are afraid of being betrayed or abandoned. All these people often complain about their bad luck in love all the time.
On the other hand, many feel that if they are happy, they will never achieve their goals, because without sacrifices it is not possible to achieve success. These people think that if they have not suffered to achieve what they want or if they have achieved it too easily, their success is likely to be of lesser value, and they cannot enjoy it.
Finally, chronic unhappiness can appear when there is a real psychological disorder at the base, such as anxiety or depression. The most interesting thing is that people who are truly addicted to unhappiness do not correspond to the image they have of themselves or that we have of them.
Negative emotions, according to research from the Universities of Florida and California, do not rule out positive ones. This means that we can experience both, even at the same time. Unhappy people sometimes reach a certain state of "peace" with the world, even though it may not make sense to others.
The characteristics of a chronically unhappy person
This short list will help you figure out if you are addicted to unhappiness, or if someone around you is. People who can be defined as "chronically unhappy":
- They always find a reason to be unhappy, even when life actually gives them beautiful things.
- They prefer to play victims and blame others, instead of taking responsibility for the decisions they make.
- They compete with friends to prove that they are the ones who have the most complicated situation of all. Their problems are always the most serious or the most difficult to solve.
- They set themselves goals that are impossible to achieve, only to be able to complain about their bad luck or defeat.
- They never fight to recover after adversity or when something does not go as they would like.
- They feel enslaved by their emotions and what happens to them. They are fully convinced that nothing will change their present or future.
- They keep putting a spoke in the wheel by themselves when something was going right.
- They never say anything nice about life, neither theirs nor that of others. When someone gives them good news, they always look for the negative side to belittle it.
While it is true that many people are unhappy from past events in their lives, trauma or painful experiences, this shouldn't be an excuse for not seeing the good side of life. It is always possible to find it, even if you have to make an effort to look for it.
If you don't believe it, how would all the people in the world who have fallen and stood up, managing to overcome problems and be happy, would have done? Why do other people manage to have peaceful and peaceful lives?
And above all, ask yourself: What is the reason why, even if we have everything (health, love, work, friends, food), we cannot be happy?
