The obligation to be (or appear) happy

The social imperative to show ourselves as happy people is achieving the opposite effect.

Who doesn't want to be happy?

I do.

Today that question is walking the streets, knocking on the doors of houses and entering the head of any person. Happiness is no longer a goal or a simple state to be enjoyed, happiness is an obligation.. We must be happy at all times, for everything and, as far as possible, share this happiness with others.

Finding happiness in self-help books

There is no consensus on an ideal of happiness. However, that doesn't stop bookstores from appearing on the shelves of self-help books. that does not prevent the bookstores from being infested with self-help books.. If this is all about self-help... why would the book of the same quack self-help charlatan sells us all a book of the same charlatan? The books are not very different from each other, nor are they very different from the neo-liberal doctrine that permeates this Europe of the 21st century. "You do it all by yourself that I will continue to give lectures paid with public money from your taxes.".

In the end you get someone who works 10 hours a day doing overtime for free and who, through their taxes or what they stop earning, pays a guy who goes to the company to tell them that they have to be happier, more employable, more positivewith activities to promote "teambuilding", which, to quote Nega, would translate into "doing the sucker"..

Happiness is not what we have been told.

I say again that I don't want to be happy. If happiness was this. I understand that happiness would have to be based on other things. For Freud or Flaubert in stupidity as the basis of happiness.. I prefer, as the song said, to think about health, money and love. In time to be able to enjoy. And little else. It is not too much to ask. Or yes, nowadays it seems to be too much to ask.

But one thing is that having money or time is complicated and another, quite different, is that you have to be happy for not being able to pay the house. Understanding happiness as that state of perpetuity of smiling, optimism and good vibes.. Evidently in any life there is room for good moments, of joy in spite of the difficulties. But it is impossible to achieve happiness 24 hours a day under certain circumstances. non-stop proposed by the gurus of the New Age, self-help, coaching and other coelhismo.

The dictatorship of appearing normal

Sartre used to say: "Let us not lose any of our time; perhaps there were more beautiful times, but this is ours".. I would not dare to say that there were better times, since this era has brought great advances, especially in life expectancy (we could evaluate whether extending life is good or bad in certain conditions, but it seems clear that almost everyone wants to live longer).

What I do believe is that there are better lives, people who are luckier (being born is a coincidence) but we cannot exchange ourselves so we must try to live ours as well as possible, the one we have, the one we have. we have to try to live as well as possible ours, the one we have.. But no one should come to demand anything from us and much less to be happy under their ideals of supposed happiness. To the famous phrase "each person has what he deserves" we should respond with violence. Let's say no to the posturing of wanting to pretend to be happy.

I have decided that I do not want to be happy

I do not want to be happy. Whenever I have seen myself in front of a dish that looked appetizing I have thought about eating it and not taking pictures, when I have been partying I have thought about continuing drinking and enjoying myself and not stopping to take selfies and if I have gone running, to the gym or any place that involves doing sports I have thought about doing it and then taking a shower, not about writing hashtags.

So I am not an example of happiness, rather the opposite. The thing is... what about you?