Throughout our lives our mood fluctuates due to a multitude of events and sometimes it happens that we feel sad, worried, stressed or discouraged. Often these sensations are directly related to events in our daily lives, such as a couple argument, problems at work, illness, etc.
In any case, it is essential not to blame ourselves for experiencing a negative state of mind at a given moment and I would even dare to say that we should not be too demanding with ourselves in order to feel one way or another, since it is normal that our temperament is conditioned according to the variability of factors that can affect us as individuals.
We have to be humble enough to understand that we cannot exercise absolute control over our emotions and, far from it, over the total circumstances that happen to us. However, beyond the emotion, what is really interesting is to observe the type of response that we are capable of giving to a certain event.
It is precisely to this capacity (especially thanks to the publication of the best-seller from Daniel goleman) to what in recent times has been called as "Emotional Intelligence". In any case, already in antiquity the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus warned that "No one can bathe twice in the same river", suggesting in this way that both from an internal and external perspective to the individual, everything is in a process of constant change.
Therefore, as emotional beings that we are, I consider that it is essential that we understand that according to our own experiences that we have throughout life, different emotional states will take place in us, without this necessarily implying something good or bad..
Now, if a "negative" emotion (such as sadness) persists over time, it is evident that it is warning us of a possible psychopathology (such as depression). In this case, it would be a kind of constant signal that when activated, forces us to stop and pay attention to what is happening. Sometimes, when the person does not have enough capacity to solve this situation on their own, it may be entirely convenient to resort to professional help.
However, far from sadness, depression and any other pathology, it often happens that people experience a continued feeling of inner emptiness, of lack of meaning or purpose in our life without apparently there being an obvious cause. And we are surprised (and sometimes also distressed) by feeling that nonspecific discomfort.
So, we conclude that something is wrong in our life and we start something like our particular "pursuit of happiness". This search can include an infinite range of tones and colors, depending on each one and often involving personal changes. Changes that are sometimes necessary ... In this way, we strive to free ourselves from all our sufferings and seek to find happiness.
Now, although this "search" can sometimes be beneficial to us and also be very useful to know more about ourselves, deep down it carries within itself a contradiction that is difficult to resolve: maintaining the desire to achieve happiness in the future is intrinsically associated with a renunciation to achieve happiness in the present.
In the same way, it is evident that everything that is done from effort implies a certain level of tension. And, it is logical to think that from the tension it is very difficult to achieve harmony. So surely "The pursuit of happiness" contains a paradox that contains in itself an unsolvable contradiction. And even more, when we may not be clear about what exactly what we are looking for consists of ...
In order to solve it, we must understand that to achieve happiness, the first step we must take is precisely to question the ideas that we have learned socially about this term. Well, they may not exactly correspond to reality.
First of all, we must accept that there is no manual, guide or recipe to obtain happiness. Surely, if we reflect carefully, we will see that in the end happiness, far from external events, personal circumstances or particular emotions, has a lot to do with a certain state of consciousness. A state that implies calm and tranquility towards oneself. Something like a "Natural flow". And this in turn is closely related to our own coherence as human beings..
That is, with the fact of maintaining a balanced state between what we think, feel and do. The truth is that, starting from the very nature of our psyche, coherence is intrinsically linked to the assumption of an optimal mental state. As early as 1957 the psychologist Leon festinger, through his theory of "cognitive dissonance", explained the atrocious effort that our mind makes unconsciously in order to avoid conflicts between opposing thoughts that we can harbor simultaneously, even going so far as to establish mental strategies to "deceive ourselves"Or"convince ourselves”Of something, in order to avoid the inner discomfort that incongruity in our belief system produces.
Now, in my opinion this mental process is still a kind of "mental defense mechanism" what requires keeping our cognitive system activated and in constant tension and, therefore, something absolutely far from the state of peace of conscience to which we are referring. In the end, this mechanism would be something like cheating the solitaire ... And losing the game!!
In any case, the lack of coherence between the different dimensions of the person is directly related to the feeling of inner emptiness, which we talked about earlier.. That is, it is very difficult to feel good about yourself when, for example, we think in a certain way and act in the opposite way.. Or when we want something "with the heart" and we repress it "with the head" at the same time.
So perhaps it would be good to stop assimilating happiness to things like success, joy, love, pleasure, health, or wealth and understand it more as a sense of total integrity with yourself. If we understand it in this way, we will see that it would not be incompatible to include happiness, without excluding it from the negative emotions or circumstances that a person may experience at a given moment..
Ultimately, therefore, to be happy it would be necessary, on the one hand, to dedicate enough time to "Know yourself" (as the Oracle of Delphi) and act accordingly and, on the other hand, to be honest enough to accept the very nature of life. That is we are not exempt from fragility, vulnerability or pain. In this way, happiness would be understood much more as a decision and personal commitment regarding the path that a person decides to undertake in life in coherence with himself (accepting the good and the bad moments), beyond any other consideration..
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