We are tricked by the idea that, to be happy, we need to look happy always, even during the hard times of our life.
Indeed, we deny our real feelings to seem happy, and we aren’t able to tackle real issues that we need address in order to grow. This behaviour is particularly true during adolescence, since we don’t want to feel rejected from the group to which we belong.
As we get older, this habit of being nice and pleasing others just makes us more uncomfortable with ourselves and others because we are just faking our happiness.
As we know, happiness is a process, a path that is seldom filled with blissful moments. But we need to be aware that, those “hard times” are an essential part of our growth and we can’t afford to skip them if we really want to develop our character. Superficial character can only lead to superficial happiness. A deep and mature happiness requires a character built through both tough and blessed experiences. In fact, we cannot really getting to ourselves if we avoid difficult situations. It’s only after we face our great challenges that we can feel deep contentment. Without this, we may experience a feeling of incompleteness.
Often, because we don’t dare to face our greatest challenges, we may be inclined to a more “accessible happiness” which consist of imitating others and behaving as a conformist. We don’t realize it, but conformism is nothing more than an attitude we adopt to avoid confronting our challenges that may lead to personal growth. Sadly, conformism can only bring an ersatz happiness. It’s a mask that we can put between ourselves and others. The ultimate misery of existence is not dying unhappy but dying without trying to live our lives according to who we are.
