27 The Surprising Ways Happiness Can Actually Hurt You

People work arduously to achieve happiness since it is frequently viewed as the ultimate aim in life.

But it’s crucial to understand that happiness can also result in bad things. In fact, studies have shown that having too much happiness can be harmful.

For instance, being too cheerful might result in a lack of empathy for other people, a lowered capacity for critical thought, and even physical injury.

To live a good and fulfilling life, it’s crucial to strike a balance between happiness and other emotions.

How Too Much Happiness Can Be Harmful?

The Hubris syndrome

The syndrome is associated with people who tend to be drunk on happiness. This syndrome usually makes a person find happiness when they bring shame to someone else and try to bring them down.

Hurting someone mentally and psychologically irritably drags them towards pleasure.

Hubristic people obtain peace and happiness when they treat others with mockery and meanness.

Hubristic people tend to have too much self-confidence and lack empathy and sympathy. They are restless and reckless and usually belong to the wealthier class of society.

The bipolar disorder or the mania of bipolar

How would a person feel if he/she is so busy being happy and experiencing frantic thrills that he/she can hardly sleep properly at night.?

These kinds of people spend most of their time awake, they can hardly have a good night’s sleep, and this, in turn, has other physical and psychological effects on them.

In this disorder, the patients experience a lot of mood swings and travel from one pole to the other of the happiness meridian, that is, from too much happiness to depression.

Trying to pursue happiness

People tend to look for the things that they feel will bring them happiness, like making new friends.

They try to make new friends because they feel the more the friends, the more the happiness or the inverse of it, the people who are happier tend to have more friends.

The above notion is wrong, and researchers have proved that loneliness can make you happier. When you push for happiness, you turn to be lonelier. Pursuing happiness can never be fruitful.

Thinking that happiness is the only way to get out of depression

The very first thing that you must keep in mind is that happiness is not the cure for depression or anxiety.

When you feel stressed out, you can take a break, give time to your loved ones, watch a movie, moreover, just try to get distracted from what stresses you out.

Similarly, when you are depressed, you don’t expect to laugh your heart out and forget everything, rather try to keep yourself busy and distracted from what depresses you. This way, you can better deal with depression.

When you feel that perfectionism will make you happier

Many people have a notion that being a perfectionist and doing and everything in the exact proper way will get their lives more organized and bring them happiness.

Once again, this is a wrong notion that people inculcate in their minds.

When you develop a perfectionist approach, you try to find perfection in everything and get afraid of failures.

You set unrealistic goals which bring to you depression and anxiety rather than happiness. A perfectionist suffers more than he/she stays happy.

When you feel that too much money can make you happier

Yes, obviously, wealth brings happiness with it. The richest people in the world are never depressed or unhappy because they have loads of money. Do you feel that this statement is true?

You might, because this is quite usual but don’t you think that they too are human beings and they also have other emotions that they portray apart from happiness.

Money is not the only source of happiness, and having it in large numbers can also bring you sadness and despair.

reasons why money can never buy happiness

When you find happiness in the outcome rather than in the process

Many people find happiness only if they get their desired outcome or result. They are the ones who are more result-oriented and do everything keeping a certain aim in mind.

Yes, it is good to have an aim and chase it, but it doesn’t mean you only focus on the result.

What one must keep in mind is that the journey towards the goal is equally important, if not more. If the result is not in their favor, they get more disappointed.

When you only care about happiness

People who only care about happiness often forget the other emotions that they carry as human beings.

They forget that happiness isn’t what they should only portray; there are other emotions which is equally important and that there must always be a healthy balance among the various human emotions.

When you only care about happiness, it seems abnormal to you when you experience sadness, or anger, or any other emotion as such, and this imbalance among all the emotions can be very harmful to your mental health.

When you only care about your happiness

The way you should not care about happiness only and give respect to the other emotions you portray; in the same way, you should not only care about your happiness.

You must keep in mind that there are others around you whose emotions need equal respect.

Caring solely about your happiness can often get you in trouble when you don’t respect others’ values and morals and often bring them down for your happiness. This also makes you appear way more self-centered and greedier.

When you do everything in search of happiness

This is a very bad attitude and an even worse approach towards anything you do in your life. Not everything can guarantee you happiness and peace of mind, and you should not also do something just because you will be getting happiness out of it.

Certain things can be great learning curves for you but not provide you the happiness you are expecting from it. Even if you fail, you will learn various things from that experience which can be beneficial in the future.

When you pressurize yourself to be happy

Let’s talk about a toxic relationship. This is where you agree to lose all your self-respect just to be with your partner, no matter how hectic it gets, no matter how toxic it gets.

In such a situation, you often let your anger or sadness die down, and you somehow pressurize yourself to be happy and accept everything that the other person does just to be with him/her.

This is how you don’t let yourself express what you feel, and this suffocates you in the long run.

Taking the greater amount of risks

It is a common psychology of human beings that when they experience a greater amount of happiness, they want that happiness to sustain, and that is when they indulge in stuff that is better to be kept at a distance.

When people experience happiness, they want it to stay and increase with time, so they end up taking life risks which include getting addicted to alcohol and drugs, getting too addicted to smoking, gambling, and other sexual behaviors, which can be very risky.

Going the extra mile which might not be worth it

When you are too happy regarding someone or something and are so pleased that you decide to do something extra, you decide, without thinking about the resulting consequences, that you would go the extra mile for that person or for that thing that gave you happiness and joy.

Sometimes doing extra and going the added mile doesn’t end up well for you. It doesn’t go the way you expect it to be, and you tend to get hurt and feel dejected.

Being happy for someone who doesn’t care for your happiness

It can happen with anyone at any point in their lives. It can happen in a relationship, in a friendship, or even in their families.

Even if it is a hard pill to swallow, always keep in mind that not everyone wants the best for you. Not everyone supports you.

Similarly, not everyone gets happy when you achieve something. It can be a huge moment, a huge accomplishment for you, but not for them, so it’s better to let a few things remain undisclosed.

Sometimes your happiness can be a reason for someone’s worry

This point mainly refers to the addictions people possess. Some get involved in smoking and drinking, some in gambling, some in other various addictions.

They all devote their time to these and earn happiness but seldom do they realize what their loved ones are going through, seeing them destroy their health and mental sanity.

People lose themselves when they indulge in addictions, and it all happens because they are so happy; they want to sustain it using these means which are harmful to them.

When you don’t know when and where to be happy

Some people don’t know when and where to showcase happiness. They get so much carried away with bliss and happiness that they laugh even at the worst of things.

These people tend to enjoy extreme happiness and find every situation to be humorous, no matter how grave that is.

These people can see the funny side of everything, but little do they know that sadness comes back in the most unexpected ways. If you are one of these people, learn to control your happy hormones.

When you make fun of someone who is trying

You all try various things; you all fail; you may fail several times and still try doing it because you want to succeed.

How would you feel when someone laughs at you for trying and failing every time? How would you feel when someone laughs at you because you might not be good enough in their eyes?

Yes, some people are inhumane like this. They never really understand the value of trying, even though failures might occur. These people do get hurt when it’s their turn.

When you laugh at someone’s appearance

There cannot be something worse than this. Laughing at someone for how they look can be the worst thing you can do to them.

This can drain them mentally and psychologically and pull all their self-confidence down. People don’t have control over how they look.

They are born in a way which they can’t change, and when you laugh at them, they feel helpless, they feel bullied, and get attacked by depression, anxiety, and insecurity.

ways to prevent others from making fun of you

When you make fun of someone’s past

Many of you have a past, a past that you want to forget and never want to get repeated. It is a phase of your life which you have overcome somehow, facing a lot of hurdles, and you don’t want anyone to bring it up again.

Certain people love bringing up others’ past and making fun of it. They are very sadistic and are somewhat bullies. These people do get it back in many ways, which are enough to make them cry.

When you laugh at someone’s financial conditions

Another very toxic trait that many people possess is that they love to laugh at others’ financial instabilities.

Not everyone is that strong financially, and it’s perfectly fine, but to these categories of people, it is a matter of joke to be not rich enough, and they never miss an opportunity to make fun of these hardworking people.

These people work tirelessly for a little amount, give their everything, yet they become a subject of comedy to these wealthy bullies.

Paying less attention to details

When you are in a happy state, everything around you seems fine, seem perfect. Happiness tells you that things are quite good.

When you feel this way, you tend to process and analyze global information first rather than local information.

When you process global information, you look at things in general, as a whole, rather than analyzing every single detail about it, which you do when you are sad, or in a neutral state. You pay lesser attention to details when you are happier.

Reducing creativity

Yes, happiness is beneficial to boost your creativity, but too much of it can be harmful. Positive emotions promote creativity and innovation but only when kept within moderate levels.

Researchers explain that when you are too happy regarding something, that is the only thing that stays in your mind for a long time, and you find it difficult to shift your focus towards something else.

Your brains cannot turn on the problem-solving mode when you are too happy, and this decreases your creative flow.

Too much happiness can be a burden

You all need happiness in your life, just like food, water, and oxygen, but it is not the sole perspective of your life to attain happiness.

Other emotions need to be portrayed and showcased, and a balance must be maintained among every emotion.

When you are too happy, as if you are drowning in happiness, it seems weird to experience any other form of emotion apart from happiness, and trying to stay happy becomes a burden on you. It drains you mentally.

When you are afraid to be happy

This disorder of being afraid of happiness is termed Cherophobia or aversion to happiness. This is a condition in which people fear being happy and are afraid of happiness because they fear that it will be taken away from them.

This is mostly faced by people who adopt a perfectionist mentality because they have a misconception that people consider happy people as lazy and useless, and shallow.

Another cause of this disorder is the fear coming from a past trauma like PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).

Verdict

From the above points, it can be concluded that happiness is just like any other emotion you experience. Y

ou should not be afraid to showcase it and also maintain a balance among all the other emotions, as too much happiness again can have loads of downfalls to it. Keep happiness within a limit, and don’t consider it to be the only goal of your life.