Surely, you have been told countless times that happiness is a choice. And, of course, it is a basic human need to be happy.
Sometimes happiness can be a choice for sure. There are plenty of situations in which you can choose to react in a certain way to avoid suffering, disappointment, conflict, complicated and painful situations. However, is it desirable to react this way every time?
Many people would say yes; if you can be happy, why would you not choose to be happy? Well, many psychologists advise you otherwise. According to them, sometimes it’s better to give up happiness in favor of personal growth. Here’s how and why.
If you always choose happiness over discomfort, you will never grow.
So many people choose to stay happy and comfortable instead of facing difficult situations. This can be beneficial at certain times of life, but not always.
If you never push yourself and challenge yourself, you will never give yourself a chance to grow and learn new things. Most of the time, growing involves at least a small degree of discomfort.
So don’t be afraid of it!
If you always choose happiness over uncomfortable discussions, your relationships will not evolve at all.
No doubt, you too have, at one time or another, avoided an uncomfortable discussion with someone for the sake of “preserving” the relationship. You lied to yourself that you were “letting go” just this time, and refrained from starting an argument. However, the situation has been repeated several times, and you have started to get a bad taste for the friendship or relationship.
A little reminder for you: sometimes relationships need conflict to evolve and grow stronger. Permanent happiness does not mean that everything is fine; on the contrary, there can be a lot of frustration lurking in a relationship.
If you always choose to be happy instead of facing your frustrations and talking about them, you will never know what your shortcomings are.
There is such a thing as toxic positivity. You are told to be grateful and happy, which is not wrong at all, on the contrary. However, when the idea of never complaining is encouraged, you may never become aware of or express your grievances.
The question is, how do you know what you can improve in your life if you never acknowledge your shortcomings? It’s almost impossible, so you shouldn’t hesitate to accept moments of frustration and express your needs. Only from this point will you be able to fulfill your desires and start having an abundant life.
If you always choose happiness over anger, you will never be able to stand up for yourself and do justice to yourself.
You know those people who say that peace and quiet characterize them? Sometimes such people can perfect this appearance to the point where they can never be caught angry. Once they get frustrated, they prefer to avoid conflict as much as possible.
Well, such an attitude can, over time, lead to very little self-confidence. If you deny anger and cover it with false happiness, you will store up a lot of trapped emotions and will never be able to do yourself justice, even when it is truly necessary.