Never Adapt To What Doesn’t Make You Happy

Sometimes we do it, we adapt to what does not make us happy like someone who puts on a shoe by force thinking that it is his size, and after a while, he discovers that he is unable to walk, run, fly … Happiness does not hurt and therefore it should not oppress, rub or remove the air, but allow us to be free, light and masters of our own ways.

A few years ago, a soap brand that marketed its product for work environments launched a specific range that was quite successful. Printed on the bar of soap itself was the phrase ” Happiness is Busyness” .

Although it is true that lines such as the concept of “flow” Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi emphasizes the idea that concentrating on a task in body and soul can give us happiness, in this equation the factor that refers to whether that task should be added without a doubt must be added to this equation. is significant or not. In fact, many workers saw the slogan of these soaps with sad irony, because not all of them were happy to carry out a task that, although it brought them economic remuneration, what they did not have was psychological well-being.

We could say, almost without fear of being wrong, that a good part of us adapt almost by force to many of our daily routines, even being aware that they do not make us happy (or using the simile of shoes, which make us blisters ). It’s like going inside a Ferris wheel that never stops turning. The world, life, happens nervous and perfect down there, inaccessible and smiling, while we remain captive to our routines …

We adapt to feel safe

As children our parents tied our shoes or slippers with a double knot so that they would not untie and we would not trip. They tucked us under the blankets and the bedspread with great affection, they raised the zippers of our coats and jackets to the top so that we were warm, cared for, cared for.

Many of those times we were somewhat uncomfortable from all that body pressure, but if there was something we felt it was security. As we get older and take on adult responsibilities, that need to feel safe is still very much present. However, this indefinable drive for the continuous search for security often does not direct our behavior from our consciousness.

As curious as it may seem, the most sensitive to this need is our brain. They don’t like changes, risks, and even less threats. It is he who whispers to us that “adapt even if you are not happy, because security guarantees survival . ” However, and we must be clear about this, adaptation does not always go hand in hand with happiness; among other reasons because this adaptation often does not occur.

There are those who continue to maintain the bond of their relationship without there being a real love, without there being an authentic complicity or even less happiness. The important thing for some is to escape from loneliness and for this they do not hesitate to adapt to the size of a heart that does not suit their own.

The same happens at the work level. Many people choose to show what is known as “a low profile. ” Someone docile, manageable, someone who gets to lower merits and studies when writing his resume because he knows that it is the only way to adapt to certain business hierarchies.

It is as if in our mind there is a new slogan engraved, like that of the soap company mentioned at the beginning:  “Adapt or die, give up to survive. “

Now …   is it really worth dying of unhappiness?

Now, there is an essential aspect of which psychologists, psychiatrists, sociologists and anthropologists are well aware: a high IQ does not always go hand in hand with happiness. It seems that being happy and having a larger and stronger neural network does not always guarantee our psychological well-being. It is strange and bleak at the same time.

What is happening then? We have adapted to this information society but at the same time, we seclude ourselves in our comfort zones like someone who watches life go by, inventing a substitute for happiness, a white label that has expired for moments and leads us to stress and anxiety …

Perhaps we forget that to be happy we have to make decisions, that we have to get rid of tight shoes and dare to walk barefoot, we forget that love does not have to hurt, that docility at work ends us burning and that sometimes, we have to do it, we have to challenge whoever submits us and go out through the front door to create our own path. Our own happiness.

How about we start today?

Images courtesy of Ottdim and Hcojiscom