Misperception “If only things were better, then I could be happy”.

Misperception “If only things were better, then I could be happy”.

These days our stress levels are at “alarming levels” due to issues like the ongoing pandemic, the wars, dirty politics, unemployment, paper leaks, and rising inflation. These society-wide stressors are on top of the personal stress we deal with daily, from strains at work and taking care of kids to dealing with traffic and difficult people.

With all these our default belief is that our happiness depends on our situation. If we’re unhappy, it must be because something isn’t going right. If only things were better, then I could be happy.

But many of us, tie our well-being to all kinds of things that are outside of us:

? Material wealth: a car, a house, our income, our clothing

? Prestige: fame, accomplishments, social standing, a job title

? Other people: their opinions about us, whether they agree with us, how they treat us, whether they appreciate us

? Other circumstances: politicians, the weather, the traffic, illness, how much sleep we got last night

The key to finding true contentment is to “recognize the sorts of external events that tend to cause unpleasant psychological and emotional states.” This is exactly the approach we take in CBT i.e., Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, in which a person is invited to note the events that trigger painful emotions. Once we’ve identified the trigger and the associated thought, we’re in a good position to take a hard look at the thought to see if it’s accurate. “If we can challenge those beliefs and expectations properly, we can diminish our sufferings,”. “We can diminish the intensity of our anger, despair, etc., and also diminish the frequency with which we fall into those conditions.”

“The challenges of the human condition haven’t changed that much over the past couple thousand years,” according to various philosophers. “Technology has changed, but we are still relatively small and frail and ephemeral, and the world is large and powerful and mostly takes no heed of our interests.” And like the Stoics, we still meet the same end. The world is going to kill us, and it’s going to beat the hell out of us between now and then.”

Many of us have observed that the world is a rough place. Only a materialistic life can save us from the hazards and will provide us with a happy and smooth place.

But we must learn from history the philosophy of success and must keep on moving ahead with the concept that we are here to make the path on which others will follow and we reach our destination. Once we reach our destination, then this roughness looks so smooth like a red carpet or we can say that it is of red rose petals.