The Happiness Myths that Keep You Miserable
Your understanding of happiness may be the source of your unhappiness.
We live in a culture that is obsessed with happiness and deeply phobic of psychological discomfort. We’re socialized to perceive difficult thoughts and feelings as obstacles to a fulfilling life – problems that we must fix in order to live well. And there is no shortage of culturally-endorsed “solutions” for rescuing ourselves from psychological pain when it arises. These strategies generally involve avoiding, suppressing, or escaping psychological distress.
For example, ambitious professionals and students commonly attempt to avoid their psychological pain by drowning themselves in work, staying preoccupied with constant productivity, and chasing achievements (and the external validation, admiration, and approval that accompanies them). Many people binge-watch hours of mindless television, scroll endlessly on their phones, or sleep excessively. Others turn to alcohol, drugs, comfort eating, gambling, compulsive shopping, or risky sexual behavior to numb their distress. Some try to will their way into feeling better – suppressing their emotions, forcing positive thoughts, or hiding their pain behind a carefully curated mask of happiness.
These behaviors are all understandable attempts to cope – after all, who wants to experience any form of psychological pain? Such strategies often provide short-term psychological relief, which explains why individuals continue to engage in them despite their long-term ineffectiveness and hidden costs. However, over time these strategies can become destructive to our mental and physical health, diminish our quality of life, strain our interpersonal relationships, and ultimately exacerbate the very distress that we’re trying to escape. Before long, the same uncomfortable thoughts and feelings return, and we find ourselves trapped in an unrelenting pursuit of short-lived comfort. We’ve been socialized to handle psychological pain in unworkable ways.
Author Russ Harris identifies four culturally-endorsed happiness myths that motivate us to cope with our inner difficulties in this manner.
Myth #1: Happiness is the Natural, Baseline State of All Human Beings.
If you’ve ever wondered “What’s wrong with me?” during a difficult time, you’re not alone. Our culture treats happiness as our natural emotional state and views distressing thoughts and feelings as problematic deviations from it.
But happiness has never been the default setting of a normal human mind. This makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint: Your brain evolved to keep you alive, not to make you feel happy. It evolved to detect danger, anticipate problems, and help you avoid threats. This capacity for hypervigilance was highly adaptive in a world full of predators, famine, and tribal conflict. And today, this same capacity results in our tendency to worry, struggle with self-doubt, engage in worst-case-scenario thinking, and to experience countless other forms of psychological distress. Add to this the mind’s ability to readily retrieve painful memories, to evoke emotional distress as if the remembered events were actually occurring, or the mind’s tendency to create rigid self-judgments (e.g., “I’m a failure” or “I’ll never be enough”) that persist despite evidence to the contrary, and we have the perfect conditions for inner turmoil.
And the numbers clearly reflect this reality:
In 2021, approximately 1 in 7 people worldwide lived with a mental health condition (IHME).
A 2023 study published in The Lancet Psychiatry indicates that 50% of people worldwide will develop a mental health disorder at some point in their lifetime.
In 2022, 23.1% of all U.S. adults (26.4% female, 19.7% male) experienced some form of mental health disorder (NIMH).
In 2019, depression was found to be the second leading cause of disability worldwide (only behind neck and back pain) and anxiety disorders were identified as the sixth leading cause (WHO).
In a 2025 study, 66% of U.S. employees reported job burnout, including 81% of workers aged 18-24 and 83% aged 25-34 (Moodle).
In a 2022 survey, 59% of U.S. employees reported moderate to very high levels of job burnout (Statista).
Myth #2: If You’re Unhappy, You’re Defective.
Closely tied to the first myth is the belief that emotional pain is a sign of personal failure or psychological dysfunction. According to the cultural narrative, something must be wrong with you if you experience psychological distress.
But psychological pain isn’t a defect. It’s not evidence that you’re broken. As discussed above, it’s a natural consequence of having a human mind – a mind that remembers, imagines, compares, evaluates, and worries. In fact, the more deeply we care about something, the more likely we are to experience psychological discomfort from it. Love makes us vulnerable. Ambition brings fear and uncertainty. Hope opens the door to disappointment. Loss hurts because connection matters. As such, our psychological pain often reveals what is truly important to us – not what is wrong with us. It’s a marker of meaning, not a signal of defectiveness.
Myth #3: To Create a Better Life, You Must Eliminate Negative Feelings.
This myth is everywhere. It informs many self-help clichés, wellness trends, and quick-fix promises of improved mental health. We are bombarded with the misconception that a better life is only possible if we first eliminate our uncomfortable thoughts and feelings.
It’s an appealing idea. Who wouldn’t want to feel good all the time? But the belief that we must eliminate our painful thoughts and emotions leads directly to the avoidance, suppression, and escape strategies mentioned above. In turn, this belief traps us in a cycle of perpetual, unwinnable struggle with psychological reality; the harder we try to silence our inner discomfort, the more entangled with it we often become. We turn away from the situations, people, and goals that matter to us because we fear the discomfort that they might bring. We chase momentary relief instead of long-term meaning. And we live smaller, more restricted lives because we were taught that we must be free of psychological discomfort before pursuing things that are important to us.
Myth #4: You Should Be Able to Control What You Think and Feel.
From a young age, many of us are taught – explicitly or implicitly – that control over our inner psychological experience is both possible and expected. We hear messages like “Don’t be sad,” “Cheer up,” “Calm down,” “Stop worrying,” and “Just snap out of it.” These messages suggest that we should be able to consciously change our thoughts and feelings.
Additionally, this myth intensifies our distress whenever we experience psychological discomfort. Because of this myth, we are likely to attribute our difficult thoughts and feelings (and our inability to make them readily disappear) to personal inadequacy or incompetence. As a result, these self-critical thoughts and the added emotional distress that they generate amplify our initial psychological discomfort.
Of course, we do have some influence over our internal experience. Practices like mindfulness and self-compassion can help us change our relationship with our thoughts and feelings. We can also engage in self-care behaviors that foster emotional resilience, support psychological well-being, and may reduce the intensity and frequency of distressing thoughts and emotions. But this is very different from having direct control over our moment-to-moment inner experience. In any given situation – especially during emotionally charged circumstances or when we’re grappling with things that matter to us – we usually aren’t able to choose which thoughts emerge, how we feel, or when the discomfort will pass. This doesn’t mean we’re powerless to our inner experience – only that we need a different approach to navigating it.
Deconstructing Happiness Myths and Constructing Your Best Life.
Many people spend years – sometimes their entire lives – chasing happiness and wondering why it remains elusive. These individuals often don’t realize that the harder they pursue happiness, and the more they do so by attempting to avoid psychological discomfort, the smaller their lives become and the more they suffer.
Here’s the radical reframe: your internal distress is not the problem. The real problem is the way that you have been taught to relate to that distress; the belief that you must eliminate it before you can begin living a full and meaningful life.
When we stop fighting our inner experience and start learning how to navigate it more effectively – mindfully, compassionately, and with intention – we create the possibility of a purposeful and fulfilling life (even during periods of psychological discomfort). This alternative path allows us to recognize that uncomfortable thoughts and emotions are part of the human experience – not barriers to it.
When we shift from resisting our inner experience to actively embracing it, we make space to act in alignment with what matters most to us. We learn to bring our psychological discomfort along for the ride without letting it drive. And in doing so, we can begin to reclaim our energy, our time, and our freedom – not by getting rid of pain, but by building a life that’s worth showing up for, even when things feel hard.
And as you learn to embrace your inner experience in the service of living your best life, you may find yourself feeling more alive, more connected, and yes . . . even a little bit happier.
Consider Thrive Theory PsychologyTM
If you’re tired of chasing happiness, struggling with self-doubt, or feeling stuck in patterns that no longer serve you, you don’t have to navigate it alone. At Thrive Theory Psychology, we help driven professionals and students build fulfilling lives that are anchored in meaning and purpose. Our approach is grounded in evidence-based methods including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and mindfulness-based interventions. Together, we’ll focus on what truly matters to you and develop practical tools to help you move forward – not by eliminating difficult thoughts and feelings, but by learning how to thrive alongside them.
You don’t have to wait until you feel “better” to start living better. Learn more about our services here, explore answers to common questions here, and schedule your free phone consultation here. We look forward to connecting with you!
Disclaimer: The content of this blog is intended for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute clinical advice or establish a therapeutic relationship. If you are experiencing psychological distress or need professional support, please consult a licensed mental health provider in your area.
