Happiness is the Wrong Goal

How our fixation on happiness is making us miserable

Our obsession with being happy all the time is making us less happy.

It’s okay feel sad. Anxious. Bored. Scared. These emotions aren’t problems to fix. They are part of being alive. The goal isn’t constant happiness. That’s impossible. The goal is having the emotional flexibility to experience a wide range of feelings—and still showing up for what matters.

A famous thought-experiment gives you the option to choose from two alternatives:

1) You can enter into a tube and never leave it for the rest of your life, but while you’re in the tube, you’d be injected with a steady stream of drugs that make you feel euphoric and forget that you’re in a tube.

2) You could continue living your life, with all its hardships, hopes, relationships, projects, and uncertainties.

Almost nobody chooses the tube.

Life’s not supposed to be perfect. Long-term satisfaction always includes short-term challenges. Everything worthwhile requires effort. Perhaps happiness, particularly in a culture saturated with shallow and superficial varieties—with toxic positivity everywhere—is the wrong goal altogether. A better alternative is to stop obsessing over happiness and focus on developing skills in worthwhile pursuits, while opening your emotional aperture to a range of feelings along the way.

You can—and probably will—experience:

Tragedy and optimism.

Struggle and reward.

Intensity and joy.

Fear and courage.

Acceptance and progress.

Boredom and excitement.

When I am deep into a book project, at week nine of a challenging twelve-week training cycle in the gym, or engrossed in coaching my son’s basketball team, I wouldn’t say I am happy. These endeavors require real work. Yet there are few things I’d rather be doing and few feelings I’d rather have.

These pursuits give my life texture. They give my life meaning. What I am is fulfilled.

There is a difference between happiness and flow, or a state of full absorption in what you are doing. When you’re deeply in the zone, you aren’t worried about whether or not you are happy. You are too engrossed in your activity. You are simply doing the thing. Even when it’s hard. The best days are when you get into a groove, when you experience flow over time. You don’t get there without work, but it beats happiness any day.

Research shows that Nordic countries consistently rank as the happiest. What’s fascinating is that in these countries, there isn’t an obsession with happiness. Rather, the culture is focused on autonomy, mastery, and trust. There is an expectation that life will be hard at times, but that you are supported and resilient. Nordic countries orient around belonging and meaning more than happiness. And as a result, they are the happiest!

A mindset shift can be a powerful tool.

Give yourself permission to release from the pressure of trying to be—or worse, feeling like you should be—happy all the time. It’s an unrealistic goal. You’ll judge yourself for falling short, and then be even less happy.

Instead of obsessing over happiness, focus on pursuing worthwhile activities. Focus on finding flow, on things that make you feel alive. At times you’ll be happy, sad, and everything in between. But over the long haul, you’ll find fulfillment and satisfaction.