Do some people just lack the ability to be happy?

[Quitabix]

Like me.

I'm tired of trying to be happy. I've been trying to be happy for as long as I can remember. I'm definitely not depressed.

I know all the theory...practising gratitude, avoiding comparison, finding joy in the little things, finding your purpose etc etc...and I try and try, yet none of it ever works.

My life is just me constantly asking what the point of anything is, and darkly muttering...I didn't even ask to be born whenever something even vaguely inconveniences me.

I just think life is so so pointless and all these experiences we go through...so pointless.

This is me talking after protracted episodes of philosphising and therapy and research and medication...I absolutely know I am not depressed.

For me, it's a very rational conclusion that....life is pointless. I've accepted that life is pointless and try and just enjoy it for what it is, but I just don't think I have it in me to be happy.

Does anyone else relate?

@Debroglie I think the key is balance in all things including helping others and being of service. And also that balance does depend on knowing yourself and how much of service to others vs looking after yourself you need.

Yes. An ex colleague was dating Cameron Diaz and whinged about her eating toast in bed.

@mowglika

Btw studies on happiness and contentment show that doing things for others brings the greatest and deepest happiness, so maybe try doing more community/outreach stuff. Just a suggestion if you would enjoy that kind of thing.

I think that claim might reveal a correlation/causation problem. My friend who is miserable without a man -- I have tried so hard to get her into volunteering. She has a complete wall about it. She did a little volunteering but mostly turns down opportunities more or less saying "It's too inconvenient" (her only firm commitments in life are mortgage & a cat). Even volunteering for things that obstensibly she should enjoy (interacting with animals, mixing with other people her own age, etc). She wastes A LOT of time doing idle stuff on phone, especially dating apps. Great she enjoys flirting online, but not to exclusion of other healthy pastimes.

My thinking is that people who can appreciate how lucky they are to not have other people;s problems are the ones who get a lot of satisfaction out of volunteering. Keeps me sane, for sure.

I agree that volunteering can be a very positive thing but only if she wants to do it.
It can actually waste a fair bit of an organisation's money if someone goes into volunteering without wanting to commit to it.

@PollenIsland that resonates so, so much. Thank you.

I think low level depression can definitely play a role. I felt low level miserable for much of my childhood. I was ill a lot as a small child and my parents, while doing their best in their own ways, weren't particularly empathetic or tuned in to my sibling and me. They divorced when I was in my mid-teens but before that the atmosphere at home was just unpleasant, like walking on egg shells. I remember feeling regularly that life was pointless and a constant struggle and that happiness was for other people.

Then I left home. Went to uni, ended up moving 100s of miles away and guess what? I felt LOADS better. My whole negative thinking pattern was challenged, by friends at uni, by boyfriends, by people at work. I had a few 'normal' ups and downs (relationship breakup, fall out with a friend, disappointment not getting a job I applied for etc) but on the whole, I felt contented. Waves of happiness and wellbeing. Looking forward to things. I no longer care whether life is in itself meaningful, or pointless. I just like being alive. I love my OH and my children. Even through set backs, bereavement, the depressing political shit of recent years, covid etc, I've NEVER felt that emptiness and flatness and general low level unhappiness I felt as a child and teenager.

I believe it was directly linked to feeling trapped with parents who were deeply unhappy with each other and too emotionally immature and self-absorbed to think about my needs and happiness. But because I'd never known anything else, I thought it was me, that I wasn't cut out to be happy and that the world just was like this.

I get on with my parents now, and they've improved over the years, but I remember much of my childhood as a cloud of meh-ness where joy was always fleeting and with a mother who saw the negative in everything. It was like turning a tank but I feel SO different now.

I wonder what would have happened had I stayed within my family's orbit and never challenged those thinking patterns I was brought up with.

Btw studies on happiness and contentment show that doing things for others brings the greatest and deepest happiness, so maybe try doing more community/outreach stuff. Just a suggestion if you would enjoy that kind of thing.

I know some people who are 'rescuers' for want of a better word and doing for others makes them feel better about themselves and their own lives. Maybe it helps with perspective too, but with everything I think there's a balance and I can see it being used to stop them looking at their own stuff. This leaks out in the way they can talk about the people they are doing for, which often can sound quite disrespectful..... They've become genuinely kinder people when they've started to plight themselves first.

"put themselves first"

You say it's definitely not depression OP but isn't that what depression is? I constantly feeling of flatness?

I am very busy.

Pooh Bear might suggest this is a problem, maybe you are too busy?

My work gives me meaning and the helping others while also realising life could be a lot worse, keeps me grateful if not happy.

I've got plenty not to feel happy about (anxiety and 2 chronic conditions) but I'm always grateful it isn't anything worse.

I think I'm a happy person, but I can't remember how long I've been happy for or what the reason for it was. Growing up, I had anxiety and my childhood was not conventional (parents separated a couple of times and got back together, step siblings came and went), but I met and married my husband in my early 20s, got a career I love and I think I'm good at. It pays well and we have no financial issues. That's not to say everything is perfect, I'd like more friends in my life and would probably like to move to a new town, but I'm close to my family, love my husband and live to travel. I'm never happier than when planning my next adventure, I love learning languages and about new cultures, meeting new people and am excited by the opportunities that my life has to offer. And life is pointless, most of us are not going to achieve great things or leave a monumental legacy, my only goal is to experience this miracle that is my life!

I feel exactly the same as you Quitabix, word for word and I don't think I'm depressed either. I am capable of feeling short periods of happiness (hours not days), but I've never had a feeling of settled contentment - I can't imagine that it would be possible for me

People are suggesting keeping busy or helping others to get happy. Reminds me of a really useful exercise I first read in the self help book Feel The Fear. Draw a big square and divide it into 9 equal sections. Put an aspect of life in each section eg Family, Fitness, Work etc. One section has to be Community (eg helping others) and iirc she recommended one should be either spirituality or if you are atheist, nature ie the world bigger than our human selves and egos. She then suggested you do something to develop each aspect of your life for the better each day or week. Traeat them all as equally important.

I did this in my twenties and still do it in many ways. It really helps you lead a balanced full life without getting overly invested in one side of things.

Thanks for that tip gingerhills that sounds like a useful thing to help with self-awareness too. I wonder if that could be helpful to teach kids in secondary schools, maybe they already do.

@DowningStreetParty

Thanks for that tip gingerhills that sounds like a useful thing to help with self-awareness too. I wonder if that could be helpful to teach kids in secondary schools, maybe they already do.

I think it would be a brilliant thing to teach teens. I taught it to my DC and to my husband and they have all used it to help balance out their lives. DS2 suffered severe depression during lockdowns in his first two terms at uni as he literally met no one at all and was painfully lonely. In summer term he used this 9-squares set up and made some incredible friends as well as developing healthy self-care routines. He also uses it to manage depression - bit of exercise, bit of time with friends, bit of college work, helping at a soup kitchen etc. He lives a very full life because of it.

That’s a great endorsement and I’m really happy it’s worked so well ginger

I’d recommend Feal the Fear and Do It Anyway (Susan Jeffries) to anyone struggling with life. It’s so much more than overcoming fear. I should read it again.

• Susan Jeffers

It’s only £3.79 at the moment, free delivery:

www.wob.com/en-gb/books/susan-jeffers/feel-the-fear-and-do-it-anyway/9780091907075

It’s £1.99 on Amazon

@SparklingLime

I’d recommend Feal the Fear and Do It Anyway (Susan Jeffries) to anyone struggling with life. It’s so much more than overcoming fear. I should read it again.

I agree. The exercise I recommended above is from that book. It really is one of the wisest, most thoughtful self help books ever. It changed my life in my twenties. I am so thankful to the man who recommended it to me.

No one is happy. We all trick ourselves into thinking we're happy by making sure we're SO BUSY () that we never have time to wonder what is the meaning of life.

My mum gets bored in her non-busy life. She's chronically unhappy.

@CatOfTheLand

Yes. An ex colleague was dating Cameron Diaz and whinged about her eating toast in bed.

Well that is pretty nasty, so I don't blame him.

I have to go against the busy trend and say I've been a lot happier since I got less busy. I love having time to watch the birds, go for walks, read books etc not rush from one commitment to the next as though the world would collapse if i stopped.

@gingerhills

I have to go against the busy trend and say I've been a lot happier since I got less busy. I love having time to watch the birds, go for walks, read books etc not rush from one commitment to the next as though the world would collapse if i stopped.

I'm with you on that. I feel most content when I can stop and appreciate what is around me. Busyness can get in the way of that, not always of course, but sometimes.