What if our way of seeking happiness produced the opposite effect? Psychologist Valentine Hervé reveals the keys to being happy.
It’s everyone’s dream: to achieve absolute happiness. Yet despite our best efforts, many of us fail to experience this state on a daily basis. How to finally find happiness? Our psychologist, Valentine Hervé, gives us his three fundamental keys to achieving this.
For her, the first trap is to be mistaken about what happiness really is. In our ultra-connected modern society, “the promotion of the image of happiness which is made an imperative” completely distorts our bearings. By comparing ourselves, we forget that “a constantly happy person probably doesn’t exist, except on social media”. Wanting to master everything and impose permanent joy on yourself is an exhausting illusion, because “happiness is not enjoyment, nor ecstasy.” For the specialist, “in our modern society, we confuse well-being and happiness”. True happiness is not a series of ephemeral pleasures, such as buying expensive clothes, having multiple meals in chic restaurants or accumulating useless objects, but a much more global and profound feeling.
The first piece of advice for moving forward peacefully is to definitively free yourself from miracle recipes and injunctions to happiness. Wanting to follow a universal user guide is counterproductive. “These injunctions, I think they can produce the opposite effect to that which is sought”warns the psychologist. By striving for an unattainable perfection, “When we don’t succeed, it fuels frustration and guilt, even anxiety.” To protect yourself, you must abandon this “junk happiness, often based on the idea that having more would fill an inner lack”. Remember that “what makes you happy does not necessarily make others happy” and that “everyone builds their balance in their own unique way”.
The second pillar consists of reviving and maintaining one’s desires. Be careful, desire is not limited to compulsive purchasing or the immediate satisfaction of a need. In reality, “desire designates what deeply animates us, what sets us in motion and gives direction to our existence”. Whether it is returning to sport, launching a project or realizing a childhood dream at an advanced age, it is this engine that keeps us alive, because “always being in movement creates vitality”.
But what to do when you still can’t achieve daily happiness? This is the third and final advice from our psychologist: accept the imperfection of existence without suffering it. To live peacefully, “you have to accept having non-happy moments”. The doctor and psychotherapist Antonio Ríos explained in particular that accepting dissatisfaction without suffering it allowed one to find happiness. Conversely, some people lock themselves into dissatisfaction, blocked by “an anxious wait” of the worst that prevents them from enjoying the present. However, trials are an integral part of our balance, because “a normal life involves frustrations, losses and contradictions”. At the end of the day, “a happy person experiences an overall feeling of satisfaction over time, while being able to overcome difficulties, frustrations and moments of sadness.”
