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Is anyone Happy All the Time?
In the course of researching the question of happiness, through countless discussions over the past twenty years, I’ve been asked one question over and over: "Are you happy all the time?" The answer is a resounding no.
In many ways, it’s counterproductive to make constant happiness your goal. For one thing, it’s dishonest, because you’ll find yourself having to lie to both yourself and others to maintain that standard. For another thing, it places much too high an expectation on you right from the start. It’s like the person who starts diet after diet and then gives them up just as frequently because he or she has ‘cheated’
It is not necessary, or even desirable, to be happy all the time to be an essentially happy person. I experience my share of pique, frustration, disappointment, discomfort, displeasure, fitfulness, miscommunication, and impatience. But what I have also developed is the ability to be aware of my condition, to know its origins, and to take measures, when appropriate, to change my reality. I am not a victim of circumstances. I do not choose to abdicate my responsibility for my own pleasure. It is my responsibility, and my happiness resides in that awareness and in the actions that result from that awareness.
A happy person is not someone to whom ‘bad’ things do not happen, or who ignores the negative in some kind of forced reverie that more resembles pollyanna than anything real or human. Rather, it is someone who understand that his or her reactions to events – not the external conditions that are subject to the vagaries of many conflicting forces, most of which are out of our control – are the stuff of happiness.
Source: How to be happier day by day – Alan Epstein (book)