For a long time, I thought happiness was something I’d eventually arrive at.
The right job. The right routine. The right version of me.
Then I learned something oddly comforting: we’re not built to be happy all the time.
Research on identical twins—like the Minnesota Twin Study—suggests that about half of our happiness is genetic. Each of us has a natural baseline we tend to return to, no matter what happens.
I’m thinking - where we really get stuck isn’t in being unhappy—it’s in being unhappy about being unhappy.
We tell ourselves we should be more grateful, more positive, more content. That inner pressure quietly drains whatever peace we do have. Instead of feeling our emotions, we fight them.
Surprisingly, books by a Buddhist monk named Ajahn Brahm helped me see this differently. His message is simple and gentle: the problem isn’t negative emotions—it’s resisting them. In books like Don’t Worry, Be Grumpy, he reminds us that it’s okay to have bad days. Nothing has gone wrong just because you’re not feeling great.
Here’s the irony: when you stop demanding 100% happiness, life often feels lighter. You make peace with the ups and downs instead of trying to eliminate them.
As Ajahn Brahm says, “The perfect moment is this one—not because it’s perfect, but because it’s the only one there is.”
You’re not broken for feeling this way. You’re human—and that’s enough.