WHY Constantly Searching For HAPPINESS 'MAY' Lead To UNHAPPINESS

WHY Constantly Searching For HAPPINESS 'MAY' Lead To UNHAPPINESS.  Is this worth our time for today?  Me thinks this topic may NOT be the hottest one we can pick BUT it's HOT enough, at least for today.  So, is this true, WHY Constantly Searching For HAPPINESS Can Lead To UNHAPPINESS?  OR are we into a play of words here?  NO sirrrrrrrs.  This is serious stuff.  Many [and likely everyone] of us did hit these rough patches along the away📘📙📗

YES, we all agree that HAPPINESS is a key ingredient of our well-being.  It is thus reasonable to expect that valuing HAPPINESS will lead us to beneficial outcomes.  We would tend to argue that this may NOT always be the case.  Instead, valuing HAPPINESS could also be self-defeating in the sense that WHEN the more people value HAPPINESS, the more likely they will feel disappointed💥💥💥

Psychologists shared that this could commonly apply to positive situations in which people have every reason to be happy.  NOT being an American, I do note that even in their U.S. Declaration of Independence, they included the provision that HAPPINESS is an 'inalienable right'.  But, setting that aside, let's face it that there is substantial variation in the extent to which people value HAPPINESS.  WHEREAS some view it as a nice thing to have every now and then, others see it the other way around.  True, at first glance, valuing HAPPINESS should lead to POSITIVE outcomes because it has always been [safely] assumed that the more one values HAPPINESS, the happier one will be.  BUT at a closer glance, however, a particular feature of our human pursuit may lead to POSITIVE-NEGATIVE outcomes of valuing HAPPINESS.  There's an interesting twist in this though😀😀😀

Looking back, I do realize that people's values determine NOT only WHAT they want to achieve BUT it even creeps through our own pre-set of standards against WHICH we would tend to evaluate our own achievements.  And the person WHO highly values academic achievement and wants to achieve high grades is bound to be disappointed at times WHEN he falls short of his own high standards.  BUT in the case of academic achievements, though, this may NOT matter for the goal at hand❌❌❌

Our takeaway:  The mother of all ironies here is that people WHO highly value HAPPINESS set HAPPINESS standards so high to an extend that it becomes difficult to achieve OR obtain, leading them to disappointment along the way.  Analogously, the paradoxical effect of valuing HAPPINESS should depend on the emotional context at hand.  LIKE people are unlikely to get disappointed WHEN they do NOT if they fail to be happy after hearing a close friend had an accident.  For now, can we pause to filter those pursuits of HAPPINESS that will [ironically] lead us to UNHAPPINESS❗❗❗