Why you especially shouldn't want to be too happy

‘The idea that life should mainly be fun is the disease of our time.’ That sentence hits home because yes, it is true.

I read this and thought: how does this happen? We never have enough. We always want more. More salary, more fun at work, more freedom, more friends, more love, more passion, and more happiness. But do you know what happens when we all think like this? We are never happy anymore. We should actually want to be unhappy sometimes. Be happy when we act foolishly. Be happy when we have a good cry. Be happy when we have a terrible crappy day.

It’s partly due to the self-centeredness of today. We think too much about ourselves and too little about others. We believe we can shape our entire future exactly as we want. We determine our own success, we think. But you know what? That is not so. Because if I have learned anything in the past few months, with my first pregnancy, it is that you can’t plan and organize. Real life happens to you, so let’s just stop focusing on our own happiness. It doesn’t make sense anyway. What happens, happens anyway. You are happy at the moments when you are not busy trying to be happier.

If you let go of the idea that you need that other job because everything will be better there, if you let go of the idea that you will only have a great life when you are twenty kilos lighter… Then things will start to improve for you. Don’t hold on to the idea that everything is better when something changes. Look for happiness in the things nearby, that you already have. Your family, your best friends, that good book you can enjoy reading, simply because you have time. Sometimes I can genuinely be happy in my house in Amsterdam while doing nothing. Then I think: wow, what a nice city I live in, what a lovely roof over my head, and how lucky I am to live here with my great love and that such sweet friends live a few streets away. There is pure happiness in realizing what you already have. Not always doubting what more there is.

Allow yourself that crying fit, be really angry, grumpy, and sad, and before you know it, one day you suddenly wake up and think: wow, I am actually a very happy person.

Source: Brainwash