Happy: feeling or showing pleasure of contentment.

There are tons of self-help books, podcasts, and shows about "how to be happy."

There's a big push in society, especially now to be happy all the time. You should be happy overall, but you should not be happy all the time.

Happiness is not the only emotion you should be experiencing. We as humans are so incredibly complex. Our brains are absolutely magnificent things that allow us to experience life more deeply than any other creature.

Some of what we experience evokes positive emotion, like happiness, and other experiences may result in unhappy feelings.

Constant happiness is not realistic nor healthy.

You should feel sad after losing a loved one. You should feel hurt when someone wrongs you. You should feel angry when you are mistreated. While these emotions are certainly not fun to feel, you definitely are going to feel negative emotions from time to time in life. This is the human experience.

Remember the movie, Inside Out? It takes more than one emotion to make us who we are.

Instead of trying to be "always happy", learn better ways to deal with all your emotions. Figure out what is healthiest and best for you when you're feeling down. Do some soul searching and figure out when and why you feel jealous of certain things. Try different healthy techniques to manage your anger. Don't avoid your emotions but rather learn how to use them to cultivate your best self.

You are going to struggle and feel pain occasionally in life. Some days you may not feel your best. This is our reality. Experiencing such a wide range of emotion is what it is to be human. Happiness is wonderful, and I truly hope that you experience it often, but just know that not always feeling super happy is actually super normal.

Emotions - whether positive or negative are normal and good. It may take more than just happiness to help us grow.