The Problem With Conditional Happiness
Stop seeing happiness as a series of if-then promises
I used to think of my happiness as a series of if-then promises: If I had a partner, then I’d be happy. If I made six figures, then I’d be happy. If I moved to a big city. If I had a packed social life.
It’s an easy, and common, assumption to make — that happiness will come when your circumstances change, when you attain whatever it is you want to attain. And modern life is good at encouraging that assumption. Look at all the “motivational” hashtags on social media — #relationshipgoals, #bodygoals, #vacationgoals.
But what if happiness is an independent factor? What if it’s not something you can find or achieve, despite the world trying to convince you otherwise?
While it’s fine to find inspiration from others, it’s dangerously easy to scroll images of people laughing on vacation or hitting weight-loss milestones or announcing engagements, and think: “This is what I’m not.” We all have desires, and that’s a good thing. But thinking of happiness as something conditional means getting stuck in the pursuit of a target that will always be moving farther and farther away.
I’m a big believer in goals. We set them because we know what happens when we sit around and wait for good things to…
