One foreigner told me: “You Russians are very afraid to be happy. You are always so gloomy, "stressed", aggressive... You can read from your faces that everything is bad with you. But we don't blame you. It seems to me that you have such a history and such a life that you are simply afraid to rejoice.
He was Italian. The nation that introduced the concept of dolce far niente ("sweet doing nothing") knows how to rejoice. To me, a real Russian woman, born in a real Russian village, in childhood, for doing nothing, I usually flew in memory of my grandmothers and great-grandmothers, who at my age dug, plowed and cooked dinner for a family of eight Human. And I lay down here, you know, watch cartoons.
We love to suffer and do not know how to rejoice
At first it jarred me, and then I realized that he was right. Many perceive happiness as something indecent or something, exclaiming: “Why am I doing this? What did I do to deserve it?" And then doubts begin, self-digging, an analysis of the fact that fate does not give gifts, that all this will end soon, that since a big plus has collapsed on you now, then you will have to pay for it in full.
This is not the case with suffering. Many of us perceive negativity in our lives as a well-deserved retribution. And then obedience to fate follows, which famously taught us a lesson and put us in our place.
I listened to audiobooks by a psychologist who said that many of us take life with a minus sign as a given, and, moreover, elevating us above those who are doing well. They say that life in suffering and deprivation ennobles and elevates. A person learns to be content with little, becomes an ascetic, does not expect anything from anyone, only counts on himself and, what is most terrible, he does not expect anything good from life and does not strive for it, considering it excess.
And I’ve been looking for a long time, but I can’t find an answer to the question: is happiness really a heavy burden, something indecent, or something for which you have to work for a long, long time, diligently deserving it? Is it possible to live your whole life with a smile on your face, without looking around in anticipation of something bad?
happiness is not for me
It turns out that the fear of happiness is not a far-fetched whim of melancholic girls, but quite a psychological phenomenon. It is called the term "xerophobia" (cherophobia) and means the fear of happiness with the rejection of any moments of joy.
Here is how Alexa Clark, a psychologist and specialist in cognitive behavioral therapy, explains this phenomenon:
“Very often, this phobia is based on a traumatic event that is associated with shame or humiliation associated with the moment, when joy has been hindered or ridiculed enough to cause a person to deny any access to joy in their life.
Such people develop a fatalistic character with a firm idea that happiness is not for them. This general tendency can lead to a certain misanthropy with a retreat to melancholic ideas and an attraction to so-called cynical philosophers.
Speaking of philosophers. The great German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer was known for his misanthropy, cynicism, harshness and critical views, in which there was no place for simple human joys. His quotes about happiness accurately convey the attitudes of people whom psychologists call "xephobes."
7 quotes by Arthur Schopenhauer about happiness:
- "There is only one inborn error - this is the belief that we are born to be happy."
- “All property and all happiness are given by chance for an indefinite time, therefore, at a certain hour, they can be demanded back.”
- “Every restriction is happy. The narrower our outlook, sphere of action and contact, the happier we are; the wider, the more often we feel torment and anxiety. For with their expansion, our desires, cares and fears are multiplied and increased.
- “The happiness of any life should be measured not by its joys and pleasures, but by how free it is from suffering.”
- "Nine-tenths of our happiness depends on health".
- "The happiness we get from ourselves is greater than the happiness we get from our environment."
- "The safest way to not be very unhappy is not to expect to be very happy."
