What is the origin of unhappiness?

Have you ever wondered what the origin of unhappiness is? Where does it come from? Over time, countless books have been written that talk about what happiness is and whether or not it is possible to achieve it. This gives us an idea of ​​the importance we give it.

However, to date, no consensus has been reached. We also don’t know what to do to maintain it. Is this possible? What does seem true is the almost constant perception that something is missing or how worried we are about a multitude of problems. And discomfort occupies too much space in our daily lives.

Putting patches on unhappiness

There are many theories that revolve around suffering. Techniques are described to overcome fears, to live in the present, to ignore our thoughts, etc. However, in many cases an important question remains to be answered: why our human nature tends to do precisely the opposite. What is the origin of unhappiness?

Human beings are satisfied with putting patches on our unhappiness, but we do not delve into the functioning of our emotions, thoughts or behaviors. We do not dive to the root of the matter.

First of all, we must accept one thing: nature is not interested in us being happy. It doesn’t matter that we are fully aware at every moment, or that we invent fears, or that we become attached to our desires.

Therefore, Nature is not interested in us being happy, but in surviving. And this, sometimes, is a contradiction. These two objectives sometimes collide resoundingly. We are like a child with a hammer in his hand. Instead of building, that child dedicates himself to hammering everything around him, including himself. He doesn’t know how the tool works or what it is for.

The origin of unhappiness

According to the researchers, The origin of unhappiness lies in four basic causes. What are these four basic causes? Let’s see them. We are born with useful ancestral tendencies. These tendencies (mental structures, emotional systems and behaviors) we develop as we grow. They were developed both to survive and to simplify, organize and give coherence to the outside world.

These tendencies take root in all of us, even more so when we observe or suffer from them during our life experiences. For the most part they are unconscious and automatic. If we do not make good use of them, they can make us interpret the world away from reality. or taking us adrift on an emotional sea.

In second place, These innate tendencies no longer serve the current world we live in.. They served before, in a past time completely different from the current one. However, we continue to think and feel the same way as the individuals of those times. This leads us to confuse our true needs.

Thirdly, throughout evolution, innovations do not start from scratch. They overlay existing features. Therefore, our brain consists of the most primitive brain to the most recent. They are all useful, but They can fight to take control and lead the person to become confused in their contradictions.

Lastly, the lack of self-knowledge and the difficulties we have in overcoming it cause us to disconnect from what we happens inside us. We are pushed by tides that hit us from all sides and we do not know how to take control.

Our innate tendencies useless

According to Eduard Punset, The patterns of conduct that were excellent thousands of years ago are no longer useful, and yet they are still valid.. On a physical level there are many examples of this: the wisdom tooth, the need to create a fat store in our body…

We remain attentive, as we did thousands of years ago, to what we lack, to the mistakes we make, to the prejudices with those who are different from us even if we know they are not dangerous. We also continue to desire what the other has, even if it does not help us survive. We have the same tendencies as our ancestors, but our societies have changed.

99% of our genes are similar to those of our ancestors. However, the evolution of our DNA and its manifestation is unfortunately slower than our technical advancessocial, cultural, economic or scientific.

As we see, The origin of unhappiness seems to lie in our useless ancestral tendencies. Before they had a clear purpose. At the current evolutionary moment they have stopped being so useful, sometimes leading us to important imbalances.

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