It’s Alright to Feel Unhappy
In fact, being unhappy may lead to a more meaningful life
In the past, whenever I felt unhappy about my life, I would get mad at myself for feeling that way — which would make me even unhappier.
I would get mad at myself because we are all constantly bombarded by books, internet articles, and morning news segments telling us how to be happy. With this abundance of instructions, I figured if I was unhappy then it must mean I wasn’t putting in enough work to be happy. I thought being unhappy was my fault.
For several years I tried to live according to all the advice I could find on happiness. I spent more time with friends and family, went for walks in nature, and volunteered at my children’s school. It didn’t work. While all those activities were certainly enjoyable, and I’m glad I did them, I was still no happier than before. I started to assume I just had a defective brain.
I finally decided to stop getting mad at myself, and instead to spend time delving into the psychology of happiness. After doing some research, I realized it’s fine not to be happy all the time, or even most of the time. More importantly, I realized I wasn’t actually searching for happiness. If you are like me and find that all the books and internet articles on happiness don’t make you happy, perhaps it’s because happiness isn’t what you desire — what you really desire is meaning.
Happiness versus meaning
Before going any further, let me define happiness and meaning. Happiness is more than just joy in the moment — happiness means that on the whole, one’s life is more pleasant than painful. That is why most advice on happiness tells us to spend time with family and loved ones, and pay other people to do the things we find unpleasant. To be happy, the balance sheet of your life must contain more pluses than minuses.
One problem with the balance sheet approach to happiness is that it doesn’t consider how we compare ourselves to others. Even if the positives outweigh the negatives in our lives, we’ll flip through social media and suddenly our balance sheet doesn’t seem nearly as great as it does for a coworker or celebrity. There will always be someone else who has more money, a better-looking spouse, and no obnoxious boss.
Meaning, on the other hand, goes much deeper than happiness. Meaning is defined as fulfilling one’s true potential in life.
Alright, but what is exactly is one’s true potential?
Dr. Carol Ryff, a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, argues that achieving one’s true potential involves several elements, including personal growth, self-directedness, and purpose. Of these, having a purpose in life seems to be the most important element to finding meaning.
Given this definition of meaning, you can understand why books and articles focus on happiness. It’s a whole lot easier to give advice on spending more time traveling than it is to give advice on how to find purpose and build a meaningful existence.
The relationship between happiness and meaning
At first glance, it doesn’t appear that happiness and meaning have much to do with each other. Research suggests, however, that they are intimately related.
Psychological studies have found that people in creative professions — such as musicians, artists, and writers — tend to be very dissatisfied with life. It’s not that those professions make people unhappy; instead, individuals are drawn to those professions because they find the dull routines of life to be deeply unpleasant. These individuals overcome their dissatisfaction with life by focusing intently on creating something new. By pushing themselves to create, they are building a purpose in life. In other words, by not being happy with life, people in creative professions are able to find meaning.
Does this suggest we all need to act like tortured artistic geniuses to find meaning in life? Of course not. What these studies show is that unhappiness may be the greatest motivator for living a meaningful life.
I have several purposes in my life — raising compassionate children, helping protect the environment in my career, and writing about topics that are important to me. It occurred to me only recently that my dissatisfaction with my life is what drives me to undertake each of those purposes. If I were happy all the time, I probably wouldn’t care as much about any of them. You pull the thorn from your side because it’s hurting you, not because it’s caressing you.
Unfortunately, living a meaningful life and fulfilling your true potential may be extremely difficult, requiring many unpleasant tasks. Creating something new as an artist, or working to make the world a better place, is difficult to do. At the end of life, a person who has fulfilled their true potential may have had more negative experiences than positive experiences — the books and articles would seem to conclude that the person has led an unhappy life.
Living a meaningful life, though, leads to a deeper form of happiness. Michael Steger, a professor of psychology at Colorado State University, has found that having a purpose in life makes people more resilient and more deeply happy. The psychological research shows that finding one’s true potential results in a much more sublime version of happiness than can be found by simply tallying positive and negative experiences.
Whenever you are feeling unhappy, just remember that it is alright to feel that way. In fact, feeling a bit unhappy may be the exact motivation you need to find the true meaning of your existence.
