The Importance Of The Happiness Industry

In America’s fast­paced consumer society, most people who want to pursue happiness do not have the patience to wait to achieve it themselves; instead, they want the benefits of it immediately without putting in time and hard work. The “happiness industry” caters to these desires and involves itself with marketing certain products that it deems essential to happiness. To this industry, negative emotions are seen as ugly, unsightly, and something that no one should have to endure. To these corporations, the only emotion their clients deserve to feel is happiness. Contrary to what the happiness industry wants the public to believe, negative emotions such as fear, sadness, or anger have their place among positive emotions and benefit people mentally and emotionally. Although many believe that any and all negative emotions are bad or

If too happy for too long, a copious amount of happiness can cause people to disregard danger. In addition, expressing too much happiness and completely ignoring more serious emotions can be a sign of mania, a symptom of many psychological illnesses (David 124). When one is constantly happy, the evolutionary importance of negative emotions becomes lost. In serious cases such as life­threatening illnesses, suffering trauma, or facing imminent danger, people who are “‘up’ all the time...play down very real threats” (Begley 456). The act of pursuing happiness can, ironically, bring the exact opposite. The idea of never reaching a set goal is what brings this unhappiness to most people. Those who put happiness in high regard often report being lonelier than people who do not (David 126). In this case, pursuing happiness can be “just as self­defeating as brooding and bottling up your emotions” (David 126). Taking this into account, negative emotions are a normal part of life and should not be shunned or worried