We all seek to be happy, without always understanding why we cannot achieve it. Antonio Ríos, doctor and psychotherapist, identifies the mistake that many of us make without knowing it.
Happiness is a universal quest: it occupies our thoughts, guides our choices and nourishes our hopes. Yet, despite our best efforts, many people feel a disconnect between what they are experiencing and what they hoped to experience. How to achieve happiness? To be 100% happy? Antonio Ríos, doctor and psychotherapist, delivers an answer that is as simple as it is surprising.
For him, being happy does not mean leading a perfect life. Have everything, right away. Wanting to master everything. Never experience the slightest annoyance. All of this would be exhausting and might even make us anxious. This search for perfection, far from appeasing us, weakens us: by striving for the ideal, we expose ourselves even more to disappointment.
The basic rule for being happy according to the specialist is “learn to live with 25% frustration. In plain language “understand that you cannot have everything and accept that there will always be a gap between expectations and reality” he shares in the Spanish media El Confidencial. Perfect contentment does not exist. These moments when we come close to our ideal exist, but they never last. Accepting that there will always be a gap between our expectations and reality alleviates the pressure we impose on ourselves. Frustration is then no longer a personal failure, but a normal stage of our evolution. Because the real trap is to transform every desire into a requirement: the slightest obstacle then becomes a defeat and fuels dissatisfaction.
Our times do not facilitate this learning. The culture of immediacy, constant comparisons on social networks and the injunction to constant happiness give many the feeling that their life is never worth that of others, even when they benefit from real stability. Antonio Ríos, however, advocates neither resignation nor renunciation. On the contrary, it invites us to review our expectations and to admit that no success, however desirable, is sufficient on its own to guarantee lasting happiness. Arthus Brooks, specialist in social and psychological sciences at Harvard, advised to be happy to “let go of our burdens (the gaze of others, our ego, our education, family expectations) to get closer to our true nature and our real needs“.
How to accept dissatisfaction without suffering it to find happiness? Antonio Ríos relies on three qualities: emotional flexibility, resilience and the ability to adapt. It’s not about giving up on your dreams but about pursuing them without demanding perfection. Emotional maturity precisely means accepting that well-being is constantly evolving and necessarily imperfect. The most fulfilled people are therefore not those who always ask for “more”, but those who know how to appreciate what they already have, frustrations included.
