There is a fad of happiness that most would argue is a good thing. I'm here to argue the opposite. First, there is a difference between happiness and positivity and I am not here to say that positivity isn't important, because it definitely gets you through the day and helps you stay focused.True happiness isn't something that can just be created out of thin air. It takes hard work and years of being unhappy.
In a culture that tells you to just be happy, it's easy to subscribe to a fake or less authentic version that produces immediate happiness. Consumerism, for example, brings many people joy at the reception of a new gadget. However, most could agree that that gadget is not happiness. The idea of just being and that being is inherently happy sets a sort of dangerous precedent. Do we just accept what we're given? In this backwards world where people hate each other for the color of their skin, are we just going to be happy? Of course not. This applies to our personal lives as well. If we are just happy, then no problems exist, no progress is made, and we have nothing to work for.
It's an unhealthy fad as well as a marketed industry that buys and sells the idea of happiness. We take the best selfies to display for the whole world on how unique and content we are. We eat the best food. We do all the cardio. We donate to a charity of our choice because our money goes further than our time (it really doesn't) and if you throw enough money at a problem, it magically goes away. We go to bed early. We buy designer crap. Just for the sake of appearing well-adjusted do we do these things.
But this is not reality. These are all standards and measurements made by other fallible humans and I'm here to say that conforming to them doesn't make you happy and its not a healthy precedent for society to be blindly "happy". Happiness breeds complacency. People have emotion and emotion is often complicated and by placing happiness on not only a pedestal, but an easy-to-reach pedestal, we discount these genuine feelings. It's not okay to be a happy robot. Live in your humanity as a complicated and diverse individual with equally complicated and diverse emotion. Don't discount anger or sadness. Those are emotions as well (and important, life-changing emotions that get stuff done when things get tough). People change when they're angry. They grow and they fix problems that inorganic happiness would have covered up.
Don't live in other's expectations of constant happiness. It's toxic. When there is a problem, don't brush it under the rug because ruffled feathers might marsh someone's mellow. Say something. Do something so that needed change can come more easily and we can fix the problem that stifles the real, organic, and true happiness.
