unhappiness normal?

LegacyUser

is it normal to feel unhappy?

i'm in my mid to late 20s, and just don't see the point in things.

to some people i might seem somewhat successful. i have always done very well academically, but now i am completely lost and unhappy in my current work.

i have never had any trouble finding relationships with good -- great -- men but they all end in disaster and heart break in the end. i've had a number of "serious relationships" and still love each of them very much.

i feel like a failure. i woke up today and wanted to cry. even though people who don't know me that well think i'm nice and lighthearted, i can be very irritable and there's a lot of people i just don't like.

while i always try to put a friendly face on things -- i hate the idea of upsetting someone -- in my head i'm hugely critical of a high enough proportion of people and think they are annoying/inane/selfish etc. some times i walk down the street and hear a relatively harmless comment that in the moment i find noxious and honestly it can put me in a bad mood. not that anyone but those closest to me would notice this.

i just want to know if theres anyway to improve. is this normal? is this a phase? in a lot of ways i hate the decisions i've made in my life, but i've accepted them and i'm doing my best to work through them but i have just lost hope and feel i (and maybe everybody) will never really be happy.

p.s. i'm posting this here because i feel a lot of my unhappiness is my relationships with other people (combined with my relationship with my work). there are a number of posters on this forum who's advice i often feel is right on the money. fingers crossed one of them might be tempted to reply here

LegacyUser

Hi Op,

I have received some really good advice on here and feel it is only right that I give back a little. I am not qualified in anyway but they say there's no substitute for experience.

First of all, seems like there's a lot going on below. On the subject of happiness and whether we can find happiness. The answer is YES, everyone can find happiness but from my experience it can be quite up and down i.e. happy for a bit then unhappy then happy again and so on......the trick is to be able to deal with the lows which are inevitable and you seem to be experiencing this right now. As sure as night follows day, it will get easier.

On the subject of being critical etc, I can relate to that. I can be quite critical of people but I think you've got to realise that the only person who is suffering is you - even if you acted out with these strangers in the street and told them what you think, they're probably not going to care. This is something you need to solve, not for them, but for you.

I think a lot of this stems from a problem that many of us suffer from including myself - low self esteem/ insecurity. I don't know if this is going to help but in short, fix your own self esteem and I can guarantee that the world will become a brighter place. I'm working on this same issue myself right now, I got home from work, made a to do list (how I'm going to start fixing my issues) and I'm working my way through it. The first thing I did was to write down all the positive things about myself - immediately after writing this down I felt better.

Hope this helps a little bit, best of luck.

Creep (I'm going to have to change my name, keeping it cause I posted under it on a separate thread earlier today)

Piliger

Hi OP.

You might think this is a flippant reply. But I hope not. It's not meant to be

Happiness is way over rated. (Incoming!)

And what is happiness anyway ? Life is a constant struggle, with new challenges every day. It never ends I am 50+ and things are quite sh1t right now to be honest. But that won't last I hope.

What it comes down to it really, it's how we see life, and how we see things in general. Are we really meant to be 'happy' ? How much of the time ? All of the time ? What would it mean to be happy all of the time ? It might sound great right now, but believe me it would be deeply deeply boring.

You see, if we take the attitude that life ought to be easy and we ought to be smiling all the time and people really ought to be nice to us and men should really find us wonderful and treat us right all the time ........ then there is no doubt that life sucks, because this just doesn't happen

But if we start from the point of realising that yes, life is tough ... and it throws all of these challenges at us ... but the greatest glory and sense of achievement comes from getting past them and coming out the better for it !

Of course when we are in the middle of it ... it doesn't always seem like there is much achievement to be got. But there is.

You are going through a really tough phase I believe. I sympathise I really do. And you are right, there's a lot of really dumb people out there and not only that but most people around you are suffering real frustration with challenges in their own life too, it's just they don't tell you about it.

So you're 27 or so .. and I am 50+. I can say to you that it's early yet. You're learning. Learning what it is that actually makes you happy and unhappy. Learning what kind of men to avoid. (btw way read the thread "When will it ever change?" currently on this forum). Sometimes we look around at other people close to us and we wonder "why do they find it all so easy" ... but the truth is they don't either. Most of them are struggling with work mates or boy friends or parents or other sh1t too.

So to finish up ... our daily life is a kind of kaleidoscope. We achieve little victories here and there, and a few losses, and we struggle against bloody annoying people. We try to take the victories and CELEBRATE them, while we blow off the losses and forget them (:D). We struggle with the bloody annoying people and try to learn how best to adjust and find ways of handling them better - how to navigate around them - how to avoid them maybe. And along the way we learn more and more about ourselves so that when we are faced with choices in our future, we will make better ones.

Sorry about the philosophical ramble. If it's BS I'm sorry .. it's the best BS I can offer

December2012

There is a theory that we can never, or rarely be happy.

In reality, when we achieve something that we think will make us happy, our wants change and something else is now required to make us happy.

Really what we are entitled to is the pursuit of happiness. The pursuit of happiness is what gives us that happy feeling.

A bit of an aside, but I thought it might be interesting.

OP I don't believe it's possible to love multiple people like you claim to. Have you ever spoken to a therapist?

Cork24

I have studied yoga, riki, Hindu, Buddhism for the last 6 years and can tell u with tools like them you still can get abit down but

With tools like them you can break it down to figure out what is making u sad and overcome it

The last post happiness it overrated don't take there word for it. Only u can see what it means, For your self