Why happy is hard

Life is pretty good right now. My job feels secure and my kid is off the payroll. My dog is behaving and my love interest loves me back. And yet, I can’t quite get comfortable.

What’s up with that?

In her book Daring Greatly, Brené Brown wrote that one of the ways people try to protect themselves from vulnerability is by foreboding joy. In other words, by worrying that any minute our whole happy house of cards will collapse, we prevent ourselves from fully experiencing joy.

She says, instead of shutting out the shudder of terror that accompanies our moments of joy, we should practice gratitude.

So, thank you for reading this far!

My favorite subject—and I think it inspires you, too—is the hero’s journey. She’s called to adventure. She’s tested. She suffers. There’s yearning and heartbreak. Resilience and reward. Sure the girl triumphs in the end, but the drama is what makes her interesting.

She’s not just happy. She’s also sad. And mad. And scared. She feels all the feelings.

I read somewhere that the happiest people actually are the ones who allow themselves to fully process so-called “negative” emotions, along with the more positive ones. Psychologists call this emodiversity—the ability to experience a diverse range of emotions in equal measure.

If we can feel happiness, and still feel fear and anger and sadness, we’ll be more grateful for what is good. We’ll take nothing for granted.

So here we are at Thanksgiving. Appreciating our plenty. Acknowledging the people we love. But it’s also okay to feel a bit afraid. What if this is the last time we’ll all be together? What if someone’s cells go rogue? Or an accident takes them away?

Even on Thanksgiving—especially on Thanksgiving—our emotions are rightfully mixed. It’s okay to feel vulnerable. Impermanence is a thing.

But let’s try to be grateful for all the good. And sit with just that for today.