I'm always amazed by the sheer volume of negativity that seems to permeate our modern world.

It seems like we spend an extraordinary amount of time looking at every tragedy and failure with an array of magnifying glasses and microscopes... while such things as success and joy are relegated to "a footnote on page 74."

Yes, I know, bad news "sells." There's that old publishing truism "If it BLEEDS, it LEADS."

Tiny purple flower at the side of the road...

Something positive and heartwarming is a momentary sideshow, and then we dismiss it with "yeah, but that's not REAL life!" and move on to the next disaster.

Do We Even Care?

Mostly, it seem like people don't care.

People especially don't care about anything that might require them to engage in the process of creating their own happiness. In our quests to feel something, we reach for quick fixes based in the negative.

To wit, I am writing an article about having a positive outlook... which might get read fifty times... but if I were instead writing an article about "Katy Perry gets drunk and loses her panties and is embarrassed in public" it would probably be read fifty thousand times.

I find it a little disturbing.

Actually... more than a little disturbing.

So much of life seems designed around profiting/benefiting from the demise and failures of others, rather than their successes.

We tear down, rather than building up.

For many, success is sweeter when it comes at the expense of someone else.

Do these ducks worry about happiness?

Spiritual Paradoxes

As you might be aware by now, I spend a lot of time involved in — and writing for — the self-development and spirituality "industry."

In that particular field paradoxes abound and the negativity takes the form of an endless glorification of people's "wounds" and "suffering," while those who seem to dance through life unscathed and unwounded are dismissed as "deceiving themselves" or having "avoided real life."

Somehow, there's a semi-hidden subtext that the experience called life isn't "real" unless it's a miserable hell hole that beats the living daylights out of you and leaves you to bleed out in a metaphorical ditch, somewhere. And yet? The entire industry is based around the notion of seeking and creating happiness.

Odd, no?

If you actually have the thing you're questing for, you're evidently delusional.

Developing and maintaining a positive outlook is remarkably difficult... because even though we're told that's what we're supposed to be striving for, the road is paved with judgments largely designed to make someone who's actually happy feel like they have somehow "cheated" or "failed" to be real.

The brightness of the common dandelion... in extreme close-up

Punitive Happiness?

In many cases, we actually judge happy people negatively. Think about it. How many times have you been part of a situation where someone said/thought "Here comes Barbara-- she's always so annoyingly perky and happy. Clearly she's faking it! I can't STAND her!"

And so, here we have this bright shiny person... and we're judging her as a "fake."

I remember some years back, watching a TED talk in which Martin Seligman — regarded by many as the "father" of the positive psychology movement — pointed out that the psychology industry has done a fine job of helping people out of depression... BUT being in a state called "not depressed" is NOT the same thing as being "happy," and we're doing a lousy job — as a society — teaching people how to actually be happy and content.

Of course, Big Pharma doesn't want you to be happy, because if you were, you'd no longer be an obedient little consumer.

Society has no support system for "happiness." For an awful lot of people, life revolves not so much around striving to better themselves... as around looking at something totally awful and patting themselves on their collective backs because their lives are BETTER THAN "totally awful."

What a sad and low level of existence to aspire to...

How about YOU? Are you generally a happy and content person? Has anyone ever questioned the "sincerity" of your happiness? If that's not you, do you find "happy people" somehow fake and artificial? Do you think they are faking it? Do you think culture tends to glorify happiness as a "goal," while NOT being supportive of actually being happy? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!

(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Created at 190422 23:57 PST
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