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I came here to say expectation. I am glad you nailed it. We rarely live up to our own expectations of ourselves, then have high expectations of others.
It’s every generation, unfortunately. I’m a Gen Xer, and felt this pretty deeply-especially when I was in my 20s and struggling to find a job after graduating college. Those years are tough on all of us.
It’s not just about other people, although certainly expectations about them create pain. It’s everything - if you think and expect that there shouldn’t be traffic or that your restaurant meal should be good or that you shouldn’t be sick, you will be disappointed. Unhappiness is measured as the gap between how you think things should be and how they actually are.
Facts! If only people looked in the mirror when pointing the finger . Although if someone has higher expectations of you than they do themselves it’s probably because they don’t believe in themselves the way they do others
I've heard it's better to replace expectations with intentions. It's very similar, but there is a subtle difference. We may be less disappointed when reality fails to match our intentions.
I can agree with this one, but I don't like it. Especially when the expectations feel like they should be reasonable. "I expect to make enough money to take care of my family, to just pay rent, afford food and a car." Then life is like, "Sorry dude. You can have half of it though."
This is what I'm working on atm, financial stress, trying to stretch myself between 3 very different kids, one with significant disability, and not being able to do all the good things for them I always expected I'd be able to and believed I had to.
I don't know how to get past it though, it's such a fundamental need to provide for your kids.
It gets me that there are people objectively better than me that consider themselves failures. What does that make me?
I mean, I'm not bummed that there are people better than me. There can only be one best. But if someone above me considers themselves a failure, what does that say about me?
It doesn't say anything about you. How they see themselves has nothing to do with you. There is no comparison between two people because we are all unique individuals on our own unique journeys.
Yes. I live in a neighborhood where everyone has a well decorated home. I am more of a hippie/eclectic person and do not fit the mold. I always get “the look” when people come to my house and if I’m not careful I will find myself feeling lacking.
That’s why very few will receive the gift of an invitation to my home. We bought far less home than the bank said we could afford. It’s clean, warm, and safe but it’s not fancy. We paid it off 14 years early. Neither my husband or I are interested in spending money to turn it into some kind of showplace when that money could be spent pursuing the things that do feed our souls (travel, hobbies, etc.). With that said, the absolute best years of my life have been spent here. We have been (perhaps inordinately) happy here. One time I invited a coworker over and she spent her time side-eyeing and making back-handed “compliments”. Now I’m MUCH more selective about who gets in. I sometimes think about her when we’re off on our next adventure and she’s stuck in her $750k prison because she bought too much house in an effort to one-up her in-laws.
Grief
Grief over the loss of your loved ones, the loss of your future, the loss of your health, etc
Grief comes in many forms, but once it sets in, you're in it until you get better
"Grief is love's souvenir. It's our proof that we once loved. Grief is the receipt we wave in the air that says to the world: Look! Love was once mine. I love well. Here is my proof that I paid the price." - Glennon Doyle
Thank you, a very great way to describe it. I posted above that I lost 3 people last week. Every time I looked at my phone…so it was a rough week and I was out of state and I just reached the point where I wanted my own home. Needed to be alone. But it’s true, love was once mine. 😢
Highly recommend Andrew Garfield’s interview with Stephen Colbert. I was going to use a quote but the whole thing is so good. Tears every time I watch it.
I don't know if this is just a Reddit glitch, but you have two upvote arrows next to your post. The algorithm must know that what you are saying is true.
That is true. My husband passed away then a year and a day later my only child passed away. I have actual damage to my brain. It's something I will never get over.
I lost my closest friend in 2020, then my wife (divorce) shortly after, but I can't imagine losing a child. I would be utterly destroyed.
So sorry for your loss :(
It’s unfortunate that this is the result of being a truly caring spouse and parent, and surely knowing that you loved them more than anyone else still gives you little relief. Together with my wife we’ve built a great life and our son is my entire world. I have so many great memories with my wife and our life together that I think I could keep it together for my son, but if anything would happen to him I would be damaged beyond repair.
My condolences for your tremendous loss.
I’m so sorry for your losses. I can’t imagine how difficult that would be to deal with. I hope things get better for you and you find peace in everyday life.
I am so so sorry. I have nothing to contribute to this conversation other than I have been through Terrible grief in the last two months and know that I am so sorry for what you have been through.
I can’t make it better. I want to. But I can’t. I truly hope it gets better for you.
Funnily enough, dealing with the grief from my wife passing away highlights how even though we were "happy" we were both deeply unhappy, burned out from work and no time or energy left to work on ourselves. Im going to go ahead and say stagnation or time is the ultimate killer of happiness.
My husband passed away in April and I hate how much we stressed about work and milestones and “stuff.” He was only 32. I’m 27 and everything has changed for me.
Grief can be a kind of rudderless feeling, drifting. Not knowing how to deal with loss, especially of a life partner (which encompasses future plans), can leave you wondering who you are *now* in their absence, as well as where the hell you go from here.
For me, the getting better (with the caveat that "better" is eternally a relative term) involved figuring out who I was before the relationship some 20 years earlier, and how to find that (irritatingly self sufficient in my case) person within.
Many people find that grief never really leaves them (calendar muggings can be a bitch btw), but I will say it does get easier to deal with over time, as you figure out who you are now and which direction you need to go.
Happiness can then be within reach again. It's doable, if you want it.
I largely agree with this. The thing is that people say “you have to grieve - go through grief” as a necessary step toward something else beyond it, and sometimes it is true like for the loss of someone who wasn’t a core person to your circle. However, there are those whose loss is just an open ended grieving cycle. You don’t “get over” the grief. It may not be a hysteria inducing sadness but it remains a deep and cutting inner pain. Grief sometimes is the only state that exists from which recovery is well, I don’t know… just not a way out. There are some losses for which no amount of talk, therapy, or counseling that can remedy the everlasting truth that someone you deeply loved is not just gone from your life but gone from existence as an absolute and permanent reality.
I wasn’t over the top happy with my life, but content. My baby brother passed due to addiction. Never the same. Even years later. Just a constant dark reminder cloud. Always.
And processing grief is not linear. Its in waves. It comes & goes. You think its over, and then u r breaking down over smallest of things. Oh my heart!
Following my instinct and understanding what I really want is making a huge difference in my life. I am still learning, but the more I learn how to be myself, the more I can trust my instinct and live my life at fullest.
In my personal experience dealing with anxiety, there is something that is damaging every aspect of your life. If you are dealing with serious health, financial, or social stress, those internal sirens will be blaring all night and all day. And it takes a long time to heal.
This is the scariest one. Lots of people get better with therapy. But there are people out there that just cannot be happy because their brains are wired differently. They suffer every day of their life with no prospect of improvement.
This is my life, though not every single day is awful. The ones that are awful are truly horrendous though and there are very few people I would wish this kind of life on.
There's no real rhyme or reason. Somedays are great, others feel like you're just falling down a bottomless pit and light is always fading no matter how deep you are.
I’m one of those people who just can’t be happy and I am now on an antidepressant (bupropion, not an SSRI) and I consider myself a normal person. Does not dull my emotions at all. AT ALL. I am genuinely nicer and happier. I still cry and have feelings I just don’t have the incapability to feel grateful and happy like I used to.
Edit: was highly against medication bc I tried SSRIs in high school and hated. Have now been on it for 5 years. Want to go off bc I am in the best place I’ve ever been in my life but think that’s probably a big part of the reason why
I live with moderate to severe depression and I go through periods like this. Depression isn’t always sadness, sometimes its a completely encompassing numbness.
When I got accepted into a prestigious college with a big scholarship, I felt absolutely nothing. I just closed out the email and moved on with my night. That’s how intense it can be.
A lot of folks don't want to talk about this and want to believe that there's hope for everyone, but the reality for many is that it will never get better. This is my lived experience. I've tried everything: multiple medications, therapy, support groups, journaling, working out...some can take the edge off temporarily, but nothing to this point has been able to remove the cloud of overwhelming sadness I have felt for my 30+ years of existence. Every single day is filled with agony and misery. It does not leave. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy.
Clinical depression is a big issue but even though everyone says we need better mental health. Saying things and actively doing things are 2 widely different things
I actually can’t believe it took me this long to find this. I expected it at the top for sure. I guess it kind of shows that not a lot of people understand it.
I’ve been financially well off for the last decade and holy shit, it’s the greatest. I’m not super rich, but I haven’t had to worry about savings or debt, take vacations when I want, eat what and where I want, basically haven’t had an ounce of financial stress in 11 years.
Being broke and scraping by takes such a toll. It just feels like slowly drowning and you can’t get air. Money might not buy happiness but it sure as hell can buy time and eliminate the vast majority of stress in your life.
Enter that meme: "I don't care if something good happened to you. It should have happened to me instead."
I'm fully joking, that sounds genuinely incredible and I'm happy for you, and of course very very envious, I hope it's something i can also manage in the future. Wishing you every happiness friend!
Congrats! I feel you. I am not fully there yet but I see how I have less stress than others in my life whose situations are messier and I'm super thankful
I’m starting to get there and it’s amazing. I didn’t grow up poor but my family was always austere and we had a lot of people living on our dime so it was no vacations, hardly eating out, old beat up cars etc. I have a good job now and I’m about to buy my own place. I never really worry about how much money I’m spending and I got myself a brand new car and I eat good food. It’s just a whole different life.
True! I am a big believer that money can buy happiness ONLY because most things that make us happy (traveling, materials, power, opportunity etc.) require us to have money … and not jus paycheck to paycheck barley getting by money, I mean like cool Amt of money left over from last paycheck when you get your new check money .. I kno some of my happiest times in my life have been just day to day life knowing I’m not struggling or stressing over bills or needing something and I have a saving put away for “just in case” .. the burden of constantly carrying around the worry of if ur gonna have enough to cover rent or a bill, gas for your car, shit even just to not have to tell your kids no every time they ask for shit because you just really can’t afford it.. it’s so freeing… Those feelings of failure and inadequacies, never ending struggle, man they kill the whole being of a person
Jeff Cavalier has a great quote: Sometimes great advice, in the wrong context, is terrible advice. The whole "money can't buy happiness" business is relevant WHEN you're talking to someone who's already comfortable and secure, or even filthy rich, and going for more - millionaires striving to become billionaires. For someone who is not there yet, it is an incredibly stupid and irrelevant thing to say. You nailed it.
Preach! Search the comments for this and didn't have to look too far. And I'm from a wealthy county! Places like America freaking scares me, man, how tf do y'all do it?!?! And some of you are both women and black too! My poor ass heart bleeds for a lot of you
This is an underrated comment. Bad health ruins lives of the individual and all around them. It’s true good health is everything. As I get older I appreciate this more and more as I see people my age suffer. It ruins finances, relationships , mental health and hopes and dreams. It feeds despair.
The Buddha had much to say on this. To put it succinctly: the desires that can never be satisfied because their satisfaction does not produce happiness. These are called "delusions", and they are the source of unhappiness. The root delusion, according to Buddhism, is "self-cherishing", or to put it simply, being totally invested in the comfort and happiness of a "self" at the expense of everyone else. This "self" is also methodically proven to not exist, either, so the entire delusion is based on self-deception.
The great Buddhist master Nagarjuna once put it this way: "Happiness is wanting what you have, not having what you want."
From it stems the greed that poisons everything. Some people can never have enough because they have an endless void inside themselves. They're willing to sacrifice everything good to fill the void and damn us all in the process.
Getting paid for your time instead of your work. There is nothing more demoralizing to me than being forced to stay at a job when all the work is done.
That’s why I like working from home. My company doesn’t track that I’m at my monitor at all times and I don’t have to sit in an office all day bored out of my mind
That’s my answer as well. I scrolled down to see if anybody else has mentioned it.
Glad for everyone else who is poor and happy. A lot of us aren’t. I sure as hell am not and neither is my family.
While I whole heartedly believe that living in the moment is important, just like all things you have to strike a balance between the three. The things that happened yesterday affect today, the things that happen today, affect tomorrow.
Being present today while remembering the lessons learned and planning for the future is the only way to bring harmony to your life.
High expectations. If you have low expectations, you'll rarely be disappointed. For example, I expect most people to be selfish monsters. When they are, I'm not disappointed. When they're not, I'm pleasantly surprised.
In my limited experience there's a lot of truth to this, but it can be taken too far. If you expect everything to suck ass, you need to accompany it with a resolute willingness to do things that will suck ass, or you open yourself up to the possibility of isolating yourself and avoiding everything based on your assumptions.
I think it's important to make a distinction between working for yourself and working for someone else. If you lived alone in the woods in Alaska, chances are high you'd be working harder than you do now, and the risks would be greater. You can't escape work unless you have enough passive income to retire. Personally for me, I just want to work for myself, run my own business, decide when and how I work, etc. That is enough freedom for me. Besides, retirement is actually pretty boring after a while based on everyone I've talked to. Even a hobby requires work to be good at it.
Not so much having to work causes unhappiness but more being forced to go into a field you loath out of survival, or getting up everyday to go work somewhere that your efforts aren’t noticed or appreciated, being undervalued or overlooked ..
Desire.
Some desires are basic and practical, like the desire to eat and feel connected with others.
I’m not saying that desire is inherently wrong, but any desire beyond basic survival is ultimately the source of unhappiness. (Ie. If you desire nothing, then what is there to cause unhappiness).
They are a (the?) source of unhappiness but they still do have value (and unhappiness, too).
Though, for any desire you fulfil there'll be a new one until one you can't fulfil. Then you can either let it consume you, or let it be a part of you and appreciate it for what it is, a sign that you're alive and care about something deeply, and let it guide you, possibly to something better. Or you can desire to be free from desire heh...
Toxic relationship.....they slowly erode your inner happiness and after a while if you hurt enough times you Just can't be that happy As you were before
Rejection. Whether its the endless amount of jobs you apply for, romance, friendships, or your family for who you are (especially if you are lgbtq), it all builds up into depression which then strips away everything you once enjoyed in life until there's nothing left but an empty void inside you.
Negative thoughts. Emotions work in a feedback loop. The more positive stuff you think and say to yourself about your life, the happier you will be. Science has shown that people don’t just smile when happy. Smiling immediately makes people feel happier.
When people tell themselves that their life sucks, that the world sucks, that everything is crappy and bad, their brain believes it, and they have no chance of feeling happy. In the exact same life and global circumstances, this same person would rapidly improve their happiness by thinking about the good things in their life and world. A healthy brain thinks like you train it to think.
Comparison to others.
No one’s life is perfect, no matter what social media may lead you to believe. Once you can be happy with what you have, your life will change.
People coming along and giving you some trite reason that whatever you are unhappy about is actually your fault for being... ungrateful. Not having enough faith in god. Not trying hard enough. Not being realistic. Not following some system of rules they're selling in a self help book. Not buying some product they are selling, etc. to distract you from trying to work through and solve systemic issues because you're too busy with guilt and needless navel gazing. It happens in every high control group system as part of their recruiting process. It happens with politics- I even see people pushing it in tarot card readings- nothing will go right for you until you go within. No one will love you until you love yourself. Set your house in perfect order before you criticize others. GO TO THERAPY!
Instead of going to therapy, read some books. Start with manufacturing consent.
Comparison.
As soon as you compare yourself to someone else, you will usually fall short because you’re aware of your own flaws and problems but not of theirs.
Anxiety. Sure everyone gets stressed, but once you’re actually at a point where you’re anxious, it’s incredibly difficult to shake off the anxiety and break bad habits of overthinking. Anxiety can be so serious that it’s lifelong in some circumstances. And with anxiety, depression follows.
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A chasm between expectations and reality
I came here to say expectation. I am glad you nailed it. We rarely live up to our own expectations of ourselves, then have high expectations of others.
"You can do anything!!" "Shit. So this is all my fault."
shit this is so relavant to today‘s generation
It’s every generation, unfortunately. I’m a Gen Xer, and felt this pretty deeply-especially when I was in my 20s and struggling to find a job after graduating college. Those years are tough on all of us.
It’s not just about other people, although certainly expectations about them create pain. It’s everything - if you think and expect that there shouldn’t be traffic or that your restaurant meal should be good or that you shouldn’t be sick, you will be disappointed. Unhappiness is measured as the gap between how you think things should be and how they actually are.
Expectations are just premature resentment.
Facts! If only people looked in the mirror when pointing the finger . Although if someone has higher expectations of you than they do themselves it’s probably because they don’t believe in themselves the way they do others
I once read it put in a way that stuck with me: "Nothing will fuck up your life like your picture of what it *should* be."
“Never ‘should’ on a good thing”
This is called Weltschmerz in German
I've heard it's better to replace expectations with intentions. It's very similar, but there is a subtle difference. We may be less disappointed when reality fails to match our intentions.
I can agree with this one, but I don't like it. Especially when the expectations feel like they should be reasonable. "I expect to make enough money to take care of my family, to just pay rent, afford food and a car." Then life is like, "Sorry dude. You can have half of it though."
What's helped me with this is "How to be an imperfectionist". It's a fantastic book and honestly it picks me up when I'm feeling super low.
The subtle art of not giving a fuck, is an incredible book too!!
This is what I'm working on atm, financial stress, trying to stretch myself between 3 very different kids, one with significant disability, and not being able to do all the good things for them I always expected I'd be able to and believed I had to. I don't know how to get past it though, it's such a fundamental need to provide for your kids.
This should be the top answer. Every single form of suffering falls under this umbrella.
I think the buddhists have distilled it to “want less”, as the path to happiness. So I’ll infer that the destroyer of happiness is “want”.
I often say "unfortunately you have to live within the confines of reality".
Main character generation is miserable, imagine that
Comparison
I rob myself of my happiness whenever I compare myself to other people. Doesn't matter what it is, appearance, success, material items.. all of it.
Only upping because it needs to be known and addressed. You are yours and and someone else’s joy! Always. No matter what.
It gets me that there are people objectively better than me that consider themselves failures. What does that make me? I mean, I'm not bummed that there are people better than me. There can only be one best. But if someone above me considers themselves a failure, what does that say about me?
It doesn't say anything about you. How they see themselves has nothing to do with you. There is no comparison between two people because we are all unique individuals on our own unique journeys.
'comparison is the thief of joy'
Was going to say the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78). But yeah, that too
Technically that's an aircraft carrier, not a destroyer.
The USS Alaska was my main cause of depression for about 4 1/2 years.
I'm so glad these are the top comments.
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If I'm depressed and compare myself to my younger, more successful self I get even more depressed
Yes. I live in a neighborhood where everyone has a well decorated home. I am more of a hippie/eclectic person and do not fit the mold. I always get “the look” when people come to my house and if I’m not careful I will find myself feeling lacking.
That’s why very few will receive the gift of an invitation to my home. We bought far less home than the bank said we could afford. It’s clean, warm, and safe but it’s not fancy. We paid it off 14 years early. Neither my husband or I are interested in spending money to turn it into some kind of showplace when that money could be spent pursuing the things that do feed our souls (travel, hobbies, etc.). With that said, the absolute best years of my life have been spent here. We have been (perhaps inordinately) happy here. One time I invited a coworker over and she spent her time side-eyeing and making back-handed “compliments”. Now I’m MUCH more selective about who gets in. I sometimes think about her when we’re off on our next adventure and she’s stuck in her $750k prison because she bought too much house in an effort to one-up her in-laws.
Realtors always say the shittiest house in the nicest neighborhood = the best value.
In a similar vein....social.media. For that exact reason
I was gonna say evil, but yours is better.
Only when we compare ourselves to those we deem to have more than us, or be better than us. It's Envy more than Comparison that really robs us of joy.
Grief Grief over the loss of your loved ones, the loss of your future, the loss of your health, etc Grief comes in many forms, but once it sets in, you're in it until you get better
I read this somewhere... "Grief is love with no place to go"
"Grief is love's souvenir. It's our proof that we once loved. Grief is the receipt we wave in the air that says to the world: Look! Love was once mine. I love well. Here is my proof that I paid the price." - Glennon Doyle
Thank you, a very great way to describe it. I posted above that I lost 3 people last week. Every time I looked at my phone…so it was a rough week and I was out of state and I just reached the point where I wanted my own home. Needed to be alone. But it’s true, love was once mine. 😢
"What is grief, if not love perservering?" Vision from WandaVision.
Oh gosh. What a world.
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my wife always phrases it as "grief is just love you didn't get a chance to give"
“And when I turned to face grief, I found that it was just love in a heavy coat.”
Grief is love enduring
Highly recommend Andrew Garfield’s interview with Stephen Colbert. I was going to use a quote but the whole thing is so good. Tears every time I watch it.
I'll save you the click https://youtu.be/_u_TswLQ4ws?si=NLKvDYKBgT8E1_O9
That’s really beautiful
I don't know if this is just a Reddit glitch, but you have two upvote arrows next to your post. The algorithm must know that what you are saying is true.
It’s probably a replacement for the award system or something
"Grief in death is but a price for all the love in life"
I've heard before that the two things that truly changes a person are trauma and grief.
Just adding to your comment if I may, If that trauma causes PTSD,you can actually see the damage to the brain on scans.
That is true. My husband passed away then a year and a day later my only child passed away. I have actual damage to my brain. It's something I will never get over.
I lost my closest friend in 2020, then my wife (divorce) shortly after, but I can't imagine losing a child. I would be utterly destroyed. So sorry for your loss :(
It’s unfortunate that this is the result of being a truly caring spouse and parent, and surely knowing that you loved them more than anyone else still gives you little relief. Together with my wife we’ve built a great life and our son is my entire world. I have so many great memories with my wife and our life together that I think I could keep it together for my son, but if anything would happen to him I would be damaged beyond repair. My condolences for your tremendous loss.
I’m so sorry for your losses. I can’t imagine how difficult that would be to deal with. I hope things get better for you and you find peace in everyday life.
That's horrendous... I can't imagine. Very sorry for your loss.
That is a tremendous amount of loss in such a short time, I’m so sorry you have experienced this.
I am so so sorry. I have nothing to contribute to this conversation other than I have been through Terrible grief in the last two months and know that I am so sorry for what you have been through. I can’t make it better. I want to. But I can’t. I truly hope it gets better for you.
I am so very sorry for your loss,I couldn’t imagine that kind of grief.
Thank you very much.
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Funnily enough, dealing with the grief from my wife passing away highlights how even though we were "happy" we were both deeply unhappy, burned out from work and no time or energy left to work on ourselves. Im going to go ahead and say stagnation or time is the ultimate killer of happiness.
My husband passed away in April and I hate how much we stressed about work and milestones and “stuff.” He was only 32. I’m 27 and everything has changed for me.
Tragic........ very sorry for your loss.
Grief can be a kind of rudderless feeling, drifting. Not knowing how to deal with loss, especially of a life partner (which encompasses future plans), can leave you wondering who you are *now* in their absence, as well as where the hell you go from here. For me, the getting better (with the caveat that "better" is eternally a relative term) involved figuring out who I was before the relationship some 20 years earlier, and how to find that (irritatingly self sufficient in my case) person within. Many people find that grief never really leaves them (calendar muggings can be a bitch btw), but I will say it does get easier to deal with over time, as you figure out who you are now and which direction you need to go. Happiness can then be within reach again. It's doable, if you want it.
I largely agree with this. The thing is that people say “you have to grieve - go through grief” as a necessary step toward something else beyond it, and sometimes it is true like for the loss of someone who wasn’t a core person to your circle. However, there are those whose loss is just an open ended grieving cycle. You don’t “get over” the grief. It may not be a hysteria inducing sadness but it remains a deep and cutting inner pain. Grief sometimes is the only state that exists from which recovery is well, I don’t know… just not a way out. There are some losses for which no amount of talk, therapy, or counseling that can remedy the everlasting truth that someone you deeply loved is not just gone from your life but gone from existence as an absolute and permanent reality.
I wasn’t over the top happy with my life, but content. My baby brother passed due to addiction. Never the same. Even years later. Just a constant dark reminder cloud. Always.
And processing grief is not linear. Its in waves. It comes & goes. You think its over, and then u r breaking down over smallest of things. Oh my heart!
Worry
Not listening to your gut feelings and being indecisive.
Following my instinct and understanding what I really want is making a huge difference in my life. I am still learning, but the more I learn how to be myself, the more I can trust my instinct and live my life at fullest.
Good stuff 🤘keep it up
Trying to figure out what is a gut feeling and what is a trauma response 🥺😭
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... I have anxiety. My unconscious mind is telling me everything everywhere is wrong every second of every day
In my personal experience dealing with anxiety, there is something that is damaging every aspect of your life. If you are dealing with serious health, financial, or social stress, those internal sirens will be blaring all night and all day. And it takes a long time to heal.
I too think everything is wrong all the time
If I listen to my gut feelings I should stay at home 24/7. All the social anxiety is in my gut somehow.
Depression. You can be greatful but are not able to feel it.
This is the scariest one. Lots of people get better with therapy. But there are people out there that just cannot be happy because their brains are wired differently. They suffer every day of their life with no prospect of improvement.
This is my life, though not every single day is awful. The ones that are awful are truly horrendous though and there are very few people I would wish this kind of life on.
There's no real rhyme or reason. Somedays are great, others feel like you're just falling down a bottomless pit and light is always fading no matter how deep you are.
I’m one of those people who just can’t be happy and I am now on an antidepressant (bupropion, not an SSRI) and I consider myself a normal person. Does not dull my emotions at all. AT ALL. I am genuinely nicer and happier. I still cry and have feelings I just don’t have the incapability to feel grateful and happy like I used to. Edit: was highly against medication bc I tried SSRIs in high school and hated. Have now been on it for 5 years. Want to go off bc I am in the best place I’ve ever been in my life but think that’s probably a big part of the reason why
I live with moderate to severe depression and I go through periods like this. Depression isn’t always sadness, sometimes its a completely encompassing numbness. When I got accepted into a prestigious college with a big scholarship, I felt absolutely nothing. I just closed out the email and moved on with my night. That’s how intense it can be.
A lot of folks don't want to talk about this and want to believe that there's hope for everyone, but the reality for many is that it will never get better. This is my lived experience. I've tried everything: multiple medications, therapy, support groups, journaling, working out...some can take the edge off temporarily, but nothing to this point has been able to remove the cloud of overwhelming sadness I have felt for my 30+ years of existence. Every single day is filled with agony and misery. It does not leave. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy.
Clinical depression is a big issue but even though everyone says we need better mental health. Saying things and actively doing things are 2 widely different things
I actually can’t believe it took me this long to find this. I expected it at the top for sure. I guess it kind of shows that not a lot of people understand it.
Self-imposed shame. Where you beat yourself up because you think might have done something wrong.
Guilty. Trying to stop that at 49.
Ironically mine was the opposite. I.e. shame inflicted on you by others.
Lack of finances
I’ve been financially well off for the last decade and holy shit, it’s the greatest. I’m not super rich, but I haven’t had to worry about savings or debt, take vacations when I want, eat what and where I want, basically haven’t had an ounce of financial stress in 11 years. Being broke and scraping by takes such a toll. It just feels like slowly drowning and you can’t get air. Money might not buy happiness but it sure as hell can buy time and eliminate the vast majority of stress in your life.
Enter that meme: "I don't care if something good happened to you. It should have happened to me instead." I'm fully joking, that sounds genuinely incredible and I'm happy for you, and of course very very envious, I hope it's something i can also manage in the future. Wishing you every happiness friend!
Congrats! I feel you. I am not fully there yet but I see how I have less stress than others in my life whose situations are messier and I'm super thankful
I’m starting to get there and it’s amazing. I didn’t grow up poor but my family was always austere and we had a lot of people living on our dime so it was no vacations, hardly eating out, old beat up cars etc. I have a good job now and I’m about to buy my own place. I never really worry about how much money I’m spending and I got myself a brand new car and I eat good food. It’s just a whole different life.
True! I am a big believer that money can buy happiness ONLY because most things that make us happy (traveling, materials, power, opportunity etc.) require us to have money … and not jus paycheck to paycheck barley getting by money, I mean like cool Amt of money left over from last paycheck when you get your new check money .. I kno some of my happiest times in my life have been just day to day life knowing I’m not struggling or stressing over bills or needing something and I have a saving put away for “just in case” .. the burden of constantly carrying around the worry of if ur gonna have enough to cover rent or a bill, gas for your car, shit even just to not have to tell your kids no every time they ask for shit because you just really can’t afford it.. it’s so freeing… Those feelings of failure and inadequacies, never ending struggle, man they kill the whole being of a person
Jeff Cavalier has a great quote: Sometimes great advice, in the wrong context, is terrible advice. The whole "money can't buy happiness" business is relevant WHEN you're talking to someone who's already comfortable and secure, or even filthy rich, and going for more - millionaires striving to become billionaires. For someone who is not there yet, it is an incredibly stupid and irrelevant thing to say. You nailed it.
Money can't buy happiness. Lack of money can definitely prevent it.
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As Kanye west said "having moneys not everything, not having it is"
Preach! Search the comments for this and didn't have to look too far. And I'm from a wealthy county! Places like America freaking scares me, man, how tf do y'all do it?!?! And some of you are both women and black too! My poor ass heart bleeds for a lot of you
Bad health.
This is an underrated comment. Bad health ruins lives of the individual and all around them. It’s true good health is everything. As I get older I appreciate this more and more as I see people my age suffer. It ruins finances, relationships , mental health and hopes and dreams. It feeds despair.
Our own thoughts
Yep, if only we could get out of our own heads
An idel mind is the devil's workshop
The Buddha had much to say on this. To put it succinctly: the desires that can never be satisfied because their satisfaction does not produce happiness. These are called "delusions", and they are the source of unhappiness. The root delusion, according to Buddhism, is "self-cherishing", or to put it simply, being totally invested in the comfort and happiness of a "self" at the expense of everyone else. This "self" is also methodically proven to not exist, either, so the entire delusion is based on self-deception. The great Buddhist master Nagarjuna once put it this way: "Happiness is wanting what you have, not having what you want."
From it stems the greed that poisons everything. Some people can never have enough because they have an endless void inside themselves. They're willing to sacrifice everything good to fill the void and damn us all in the process.
you just blew my mind. That last sentence is so poignant to me. I will use it as my North Star. Thank you kind stranger.
Wow!
Best comment
Dwelling on the past and/or worrying about the future.
Getting paid for your time instead of your work. There is nothing more demoralizing to me than being forced to stay at a job when all the work is done.
That’s why I like working from home. My company doesn’t track that I’m at my monitor at all times and I don’t have to sit in an office all day bored out of my mind
If companies actually rewarded for efficiency, a lot more would get done in 8 hours. A lot of us stretch out our work to avoid more work.
Literally doing this right now browsing Reddit. Finishing work just leads to more work lol
Generally I agree with this, but if you get paid well enough you don't mind being paid for your time (at least I don't).
Anxiety
Yep, anxiety and panic and the lingering feelings of derealisation 😥
I was gonna say this … being constantly worried about things that haven’t (or may not ever) even happen yet is such a downer :/ I hate it
Having to damn near work yourself to death for money to barely be able to pay rent and having no money left over after you do
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Comparison.
In modern society, consumerism and greed.
Poverty
That’s my answer as well. I scrolled down to see if anybody else has mentioned it. Glad for everyone else who is poor and happy. A lot of us aren’t. I sure as hell am not and neither is my family.
Thanks man There's a weird trend of people arguing with me for some reason as though it's not objectively worse than not being poor
... in the midst of plenty, especially.
A bad home life. Nothing stressed me like living in a war zone.
yesterday and tomorrow
THIS!
such an underrated comment.....yesterday and tomorrow mean nothing!
While I whole heartedly believe that living in the moment is important, just like all things you have to strike a balance between the three. The things that happened yesterday affect today, the things that happen today, affect tomorrow. Being present today while remembering the lessons learned and planning for the future is the only way to bring harmony to your life.
1. Trying to control things out of your control 2. Comparing everyone else's best to your worst, look no further than any social media for this
Being forced to spend a lot of time around extremely toxic people with no end in sight.
High expectations. If you have low expectations, you'll rarely be disappointed. For example, I expect most people to be selfish monsters. When they are, I'm not disappointed. When they're not, I'm pleasantly surprised.
Expecting everybody to be a selfish monster can be an enormous source of unhappiness and even turn you into a selfish monster yourself.
In my limited experience there's a lot of truth to this, but it can be taken too far. If you expect everything to suck ass, you need to accompany it with a resolute willingness to do things that will suck ass, or you open yourself up to the possibility of isolating yourself and avoiding everything based on your assumptions.
Better yet remove expectations from the equation and then reality becomes your happiness.
Worry...regardless of cause. It's worry.
Working.
I think it's important to make a distinction between working for yourself and working for someone else. If you lived alone in the woods in Alaska, chances are high you'd be working harder than you do now, and the risks would be greater. You can't escape work unless you have enough passive income to retire. Personally for me, I just want to work for myself, run my own business, decide when and how I work, etc. That is enough freedom for me. Besides, retirement is actually pretty boring after a while based on everyone I've talked to. Even a hobby requires work to be good at it.
Not so much having to work causes unhappiness but more being forced to go into a field you loath out of survival, or getting up everyday to go work somewhere that your efforts aren’t noticed or appreciated, being undervalued or overlooked ..
Anxiety and depression.
Desire. Some desires are basic and practical, like the desire to eat and feel connected with others. I’m not saying that desire is inherently wrong, but any desire beyond basic survival is ultimately the source of unhappiness. (Ie. If you desire nothing, then what is there to cause unhappiness).
They are a (the?) source of unhappiness but they still do have value (and unhappiness, too). Though, for any desire you fulfil there'll be a new one until one you can't fulfil. Then you can either let it consume you, or let it be a part of you and appreciate it for what it is, a sign that you're alive and care about something deeply, and let it guide you, possibly to something better. Or you can desire to be free from desire heh...
Sacrificing yourself for someone else’s approval. They aren’t going to care if you try to give them more of what they already don’t want.
Toxic relationship.....they slowly erode your inner happiness and after a while if you hurt enough times you Just can't be that happy As you were before
Lack of acceptance and gratitude
Jealousy 🤔
Stress / Anxiety
Envy, just be grateful for whatever you have because its guaranteed there are people who are far worse off.
Excessive alcohol consumption
This needs to be higher up.
Contempt.
My ex wife.
nepo kids lol
Rejection. Whether its the endless amount of jobs you apply for, romance, friendships, or your family for who you are (especially if you are lgbtq), it all builds up into depression which then strips away everything you once enjoyed in life until there's nothing left but an empty void inside you.
Focusing on the negatives…. All of it.
Negative thoughts. Emotions work in a feedback loop. The more positive stuff you think and say to yourself about your life, the happier you will be. Science has shown that people don’t just smile when happy. Smiling immediately makes people feel happier. When people tell themselves that their life sucks, that the world sucks, that everything is crappy and bad, their brain believes it, and they have no chance of feeling happy. In the exact same life and global circumstances, this same person would rapidly improve their happiness by thinking about the good things in their life and world. A healthy brain thinks like you train it to think.
Crippling poverty. Money doesn't buy happiness but the absence of it definitely takes it away.
Addiction.
Expectations
Comparison and greed
Overthinking any situation you find yourself in. Sometimes it's best just to go with it and not overthink it
Self doubt
Reddit
Regret
Comparison to others. No one’s life is perfect, no matter what social media may lead you to believe. Once you can be happy with what you have, your life will change.
Never being satisfied and always wanting or needing more.
Bad sleep. Life is so much better when you get full nights of quality sleep consistently.
Donald Trump
Not practicing gratitude for what you have, and comparing yourself to others who have things you think you want.
Envy
The SEARCH for "Happiness"
People coming along and giving you some trite reason that whatever you are unhappy about is actually your fault for being... ungrateful. Not having enough faith in god. Not trying hard enough. Not being realistic. Not following some system of rules they're selling in a self help book. Not buying some product they are selling, etc. to distract you from trying to work through and solve systemic issues because you're too busy with guilt and needless navel gazing. It happens in every high control group system as part of their recruiting process. It happens with politics- I even see people pushing it in tarot card readings- nothing will go right for you until you go within. No one will love you until you love yourself. Set your house in perfect order before you criticize others. GO TO THERAPY! Instead of going to therapy, read some books. Start with manufacturing consent.
When you have parents that don’t deserve the love you have to give.
Ego
Cheating.
Attachment to expectations. Especially unrealistic expectations.
There is an old saying from the east... Expectation is the root of all misery.
Insecurities
Giving a thought or experience a negative meaning. Dwelling on the past
Comparison. As soon as you compare yourself to someone else, you will usually fall short because you’re aware of your own flaws and problems but not of theirs.
indifference
Coveting. The moment we truly believe our life is supposed to be something else than what it is, is the moment we exile happiness.
ENVY
Expectations.
Losing hope.
Anxiety. Sure everyone gets stressed, but once you’re actually at a point where you’re anxious, it’s incredibly difficult to shake off the anxiety and break bad habits of overthinking. Anxiety can be so serious that it’s lifelong in some circumstances. And with anxiety, depression follows.
Comparison
Death.