This article on happiness has these objectives: to push the reader to accept the human condition (of suffering) and to divest on the illusion of happiness.

Advertising message Nowadays, inundated by social networks that overflow with witty photos, retouched and built ad hoc to attract the interest of others, our comparative spirit is extremely put to the test.
And the more insecure you are, the more threatened you feel by the positive condition of others.
We recently (and I would say finally) talk about Toxic Positivity, or toxic positivity, alluding to this search for forced happiness that leads to diminishing or blaming one's own experiences and referring to others the idea that living happily is possible and easy.
We know that we must not be fooled by the lives of others, we cannot know what is hidden behind a photo.
We know it very well: All that glisters is not gold, Aesop and Shakespeare wrote and the rich Hollywood stars, with their personal stories, remind us every day.
Comparison is a normal evolutionary process, even indispensable, in some respects, for evolutionary purposes: a necessary predisposition for the person to understand what are the rules and requirements for a good adaptation and insertion into the peer group.
Today, as centuries ago, the group is a fundamental resource for man and wanting to be part of it is a more than legitimate desire.
Am I contributing enough? These questions guide the behavior of the individual in a society, making sure that there is more growth of both.
Our mind warns us about the threat of being rejected.
It should therefore not surprise us, nor should we blame ourselves, if we have a tendency to improve, confront, or even get depressed if we don't feel fit enough.
That sadness must be the impetus for growth.
Rather than blaming ourselves for the reason why we cannot avoid putting ourselves in a position of confrontation, we should examine a decidedly more substantial mistake: that of considering happiness as the natural state of man.
Happiness, as we understand it in the classic sense of the term, that is, as a state of full joy and fulfillment, an emotion.
There is no reason why it should be our basic condition.
Man's primary emotions are six and have been studied by Paul Ekman (the psychologist who inspired the show Lie to me, for those who know him) who, traveling the world, was able to observe how these emotions were universal, i.e. intercultural and innate, as present in all men, of different races and ages, accompanied by specific facial expressions independent of culture and recognizable in any part of the world.
If you've seen the Disney cartoon Inside out you probably know five: joy, sadness, fear, anger, disgust.
Six primary emotions from which many other emotional states are born, secondary emotions, which instead undergo the influence of culture and society.
Each emotion has its dignity and its precise role: they all work for us, to guarantee us a good adaptation to the reality that surrounds us (fear, for example, warns us that we are in a dangerous situation, while the anger we are suffering unjustice) and thus guarantees us the best conditions for a good survival.
In fact, emotions are the most precious baggage that evolution has left us!
If our ancestors had only been happy they would not have realized that the food they were eating disgusted them and maybe even poisoned them, or that the lion was a threat, or they would not have cared for their family, because losing it would not bring them. to experience an emotion of sadness.
Instead, they always had to be careful to watch their backs, to protect themselves, to get food, water, shelter and sex.
We were designed to survive: what drives us is a brain device calibrated to find danger and save us.
And over the years and centuries, the human mind has honed its ability to predict danger and warn us, adapting to track down threats that have taken different forms over time: our enemies are no longer lions, but rather the opinion of others, which guarantees us acceptance and participation in a group, the loss of work, which offers us the possibility of having food and a roof, the social prestige that promises us power and better access to community resources and greater attractiveness sexual.
Threats have evolved with us, but the brain does not stop carrying out its protective function and continues to hunt them down: our mind does not cease to evaluate everything we encounter, judging it from time to time as adequate, sufficient, good, dangerous, useful, harmful, etc. (Harris, 2010).
Therefore it seems clear that, since we are structured to adapt to circumstances and improve ourselves and our environment in a continuous constant perspective of mutual comparisons and evaluations, happiness is only one of the many emotions that we can encounter during our days and it does not exist. why it must be the only one.
If I spend my life chasing happiness I will have a perpetually unsatisfied existence: happiness comes, lasts a while, and goes away.
Because this is how emotions work, no one has a particular permission to stay more than the others!
In fact, emotion by definition is an event of limited duration, not to be confused with feelings.
Emotion is an evaluative response to an event, imaginary or real, which determines a series of physiological changes and reactions (increase in heart rate, body temperature, sweating, etc.), expressive (verbal and non-verbal attitude) , cognitive (evaluations about activating events), motivational (behavioral action and reaction, such as attack or flight) and subjective (ie the feeling, the consequence of the cognitive processing of what I am experiencing).
It follows that the emotion is an intense response, but with a rather limited duration in time, aimed at managing the event that caused it.
When, on the other hand, the person begins to reflect on what he is feeling and elaborates his awareness (more or less lucid or deviant), we speak of feeling.
The feeling is the cognitive processing of what the mind and body have rapidly processed in response to an event, or an emotion.
fundamental, in fact they have an expressive, communicative and regulating function (to manifest what one feels in a polite and respectful way fundamental to one's well-being); of limited duration.
Studies on this aspect are limited, but it has been seen that each emotion has its own duration, which could range from a few seconds to several hours (Frijda et al.
Specifically, it has been studied that unpleasant emotions have a longer duration and that sadness in particular needs more time to be processed (Verduyn and Lavrijsen, 2014).
In a study that considered 27 emotions, sadness lasted the longest, while shame, surprise, fear, disgust, boredom, irritation and relief were the shortest emotions (Scherer and Wallbott, 1994). ; Verduyn et al.
Specifically, sadness has been seen to last up to 240 times longer than shame, which appears to be the shortest emotion.
However, in most cases, the differences in duration are much smaller (Verduyn and Lavrijsen, 2014).
When it happens that an emotion remains in our mind and in our heart and it seems to pitch a tent, not the emotion that decides to stay, not an initiative of its own.
It is we who, with a thousand thoughts and ruminations, anchor it in the mind.
What is most important to take into consideration in studies on the duration of emotions, in fact, is that this duration, as well as the intensity, are strongly influenced by the evaluations that we ourselves make of the event that triggered them and by the strategies we use to manage them.
It has been found that rather short-lived emotions are typically (but, obviously not always) aroused by events of relatively low importance, while long-lasting emotions tend to be about something very important.
Some of these implications may only become evident over time, which either maintains or strengthens the emotion, making it last (Verduyn et al.
In particular, the duration seems to strongly depend on the evaluation of a specific threat to which we attach importance: how compromising the event experienced is for the image that the person has of himself (Shott, 1979).
And here comes the social comparison: the more the evaluation I make of an event sends me an attack on my personal image, the longer the emotion will last.
Advertising message A second element linked to the evaluation that affects the duration of the emotion is rumination.
This is an unpleasant mental stratagem that deludes us that we can give ourselves a comforting answer to an event, or a new vision of the facts, but in reality it binds us more and more to what happened and reinforces, minute by minute, the emotion felt, feeding it (Augustine and Hemenover, 2009; Wells, 2009).
These mechanisms explain why some very similar emotions can have different durations: shame and guilt have many overlapping characteristics (Tangney and Dearing, 2002), but current data reveals that guilt is an emotion that persists much longer than shame. .
Similarly, fear and anxiety overlap with threat-centered states of aversion (hman, 2008), but fear is observed to be much shorter than anxiety.
In conclusion, wanting to give an example, let's imagine that we suffer an injustice that would lead us to feel anger.
But if our ratings activate a series of ruminations on the injustice suffered, the duration will be greater.
Furthermore, if in rumination there is a devaluation of our image, then it is to be assumed that the anger will last even longer.
The first of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism states: Life is suffering.
And this is because there is no escape from sickness, old age and death.
But not only that: the pain towards an event that has happened can be, as the studies themselves have found, determined by our thoughts of non-acceptance, of attachment and aversion towards a reality and it is precisely these thoughts that influence the suffering itself, enlarging it, keeping it more long.
In cognitive psychology the causes of suffering are partly superimposable to what is stated in Buddhism: a purpose is generated in the person's mind due to a disparity between what one wants, or needs, and what is has; the compromise of the purpose creates suffering and this suffering is then maintained by a mechanism of non-acceptance of the fact that one's purpose is compromised or threatened (Mancini and Perdighe, 2012).
The purpose can be something external, an event that happens or is feared (having a job, having a boyfriend, not having an illness), or internal, an emotion, a thought (I don't want to be afraid; I don't want to think about this thing. ; I want to be happy).
This is a further confirmation of how the trap of happiness works: I want to be happy (because I think it is possible), but the compromise of my purpose (determined by all the factors listed above) generates a state of suffering.
Not accepting this condition maintains and aggravates the unpleasant situation, perhaps leading to ruminations and blame (because others seem to succeed).
To silence this suffering it is necessary to work on three points (Mancini and Perdighe, 2012):
In a nutshell: divestment in our compromised purpose or acceptance of the circumstances.
This article on happiness has precisely these objectives: to push the reader to accept the human condition (of suffering) and to divest in the illusion of happiness.
In conclusion we can say that: the only goal we have every day is to be happy, that is to reach our goals, to make sure that the desired and real state match.
We try to achieve happiness in a thousand ways, with great efforts.
Punctually for, despite our efforts, we find ourselves feeling bad for one reason or another.
And it even happens that we blame ourselves for not being happy (as everyone can!).
Here is the bad news: happiness exists, but a momentary and transitory state as well as sadness.
But there is also the other side of the coin: even unpleasant emotions are transitory.
If this is not the case, perhaps a blockage has been created, it is necessary to ask for help from a specialist.
Since happiness is a transitory state and, by definition, as animals in constant struggle for adaptation and progress, we live in a state of constant suffering, are we therefore destined to live in unhappiness?
It will be tough on an emotional level, but very rewarding.
The most recent cognitive psychology, defined as third wave, is observing how at the basis of a person's well-being there must be a predisposition to accept circumstances that cannot be changed.
This, for example, is the principle on which ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) works.
The concept of happiness understood as a state of contentment and joy (which is typical of emotion) is replaced from a new perspective, that of a rich and meaningful life.
One no longer chases a fleeting and unstable state of well-being, but a profound sense of a life well lived, in line with one's fundamental values, fully experiencing the full range of emotions, both positive and negative, learning to deal with pain ( which is inevitable) at best, with compassion and acceptance, reducing its deleterious effects to a minimum (because I accept and not brood).
This is achieved through deep work on oneself, because acceptance requires knowledge and compassion.
The most recent psychological approach uses Mindfulness in this direction: a form of meditation that helps the person to be with their emotions and thoughts, observing them without judging.
a valid tool to approach one's own experiences with a curious and compassionate eye, which trains the acceptance of what is, as well as what is.
The solution is therefore to abandon the vain and illusory hope of a happy life in the extreme sense, and to opt for a full, conscious, meaningful life.
This is the compromise that life offers you, every day.
Do not resign, Live Consciously, accepting even what is unpleasant, but inevitable.
You will find a new happiness that accept compromise, that live the present moment for better or for worse, staying there, without running away.
This is a Choice, which must be made and practiced every day.
Contemporary happiness, also composed of small pleasures, detaches itself from the achievement of goals, from control and from excessive utilitarianism.
On the relative efficacy of effect regulation strategies: a meta-analysis.
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The duration of affective phenomena or emotions, feelings and passions.
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How to stop tormenting and start living.
The role of non-acceptance in the genesis and maintenance of emotional suffering.
Fear and anxiety: overlaps and dissociations.
Haviland-Jones (ed.), Handbook of Emotions (3rd ed., Pp. 709729).
Evidence for the universality and cultural variation of the differential emotional response pattern.
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(1979) Emotion and Social Life: A Symbolic Interactionist Analysis.
The relationship between extraversion, neuroticism and aspects of the affective trait.
Which emotions last longest and why: The role of event importance and rumination.
Profiles of the intensity of the emotional experience over time.
Metacognitive therapy for anxiety and depression.

From Stateofmind