The Secret to Happiness

By Amy Stokely

“The greatest happiness you can have is knowing that you do not necessarily require happiness.” – William Saroyan.

I came across this quotation years ago whilst still in school and I remember reading it at the time and finding it completely bizarre. I couldn’t wrap my head around the concept that you could find or experience happiness without actually needing to be happy. In an age where our generation is constantly flooded with information from social media depicting ‘perfect’ and ‘happy’ lives and moments, understanding the concept that we do not require happiness in order to be truly content with our lives is hugely important.

Our group is dedicated to promoting positive wellbeing and helping you discover different methods of maintaining or creating ‘happiness’ but I’m here to tell you that you do not have to be happy all the time. In my mind, the secret to happiness is to allow yourself to feel your full range of emotions. It is easy for us to categorise normal, natural emotions as either ‘good’ or ‘bad’. We are often told things such as; “don’t cry,”, “there’s nothing to be disappointed about” or “why are you so stressed?”. We are often taught to try to avoid unpleasant emotions at all costs as many assume that, in order to be happy, we need to feel pleasant emotions and avoid the unpleasant ones.

We all get unwanted feelings; we all experience the stress and disappointment that comes from failure. Tough emotions are a part of our contract with life, you don’t have a meaningful university experience, build friendships with others or leave the world a better place without stress and discomfort.

I am well aware that a lot of this sounds counter-productive but emotions do have a purpose, feelings of stress and disappointment are there to signify a learning opportunity. By listening to these emotional signals, we have the ability to learn from our mistakes and grow to be better people. Instead of burying your emotions and pretending to be okay and happy, it can be healthier to allow yourself to feel. Emotions can be valuable regardless of whether they are pleasant our not. Feelings like stress and disappointment come and go but when we push aside normal emotions to embrace false positivity, we lose our capacity to develop skills to deal with the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.

Research shows that when you numb feelings of sadness, stress or disappointment, you also numb your experience of happiness and joy. By no means am I saying that it is easy to flick a switch and fully embrace all your feelings of stress and disappointment because I struggle with it a lot myself. The reality is that you cannot selectively numb your feelings and it is through the experience of your emotions at their full strength that helps you to develop your own coping strategies.

Ultimately, part of the amazing thing about being human is that we are able to have a range of emotions. Experiencing those ‘negative’ and tough emotions is part of what makes it so incredible to feel the positive ones and that, to me, is the secret to feeling happiness at its fullest potential.