The common way to talk about happiness is as a single scale: unhappy at one end, neutral in the middle, happy at the other end. I think that model is wrong.
If someone (including yourself) is struggling with low well-being, it’s important to ascertain which of two problems are happening:
- not enough happiness
- too much unhappiness
This is interesting and resonates with where I am now:
Removing unhappiness doesn’t actually increase happiness, it just…. removes unhappiness, which is good but unrelated.
Now that I am free of a stressful situation, I have space to add more happiness, but filling that opening with positive feelings isn’t a given.
