DO YOU KNOW THE ORIGIN OF UNHAPPINESS?

“It’s never too late to be what you might have been.”

~ Unknown

The term happiness comes from the Old Norse term happ meaning “luck” or “chance.” It’s also related to the Old English word hæpic meaning “equal.” Early senses of happiness dating from the 1500s are still very much in use today, such as “good luck,” “success,” and “contentment.

 Have you ever wondered about the origin of unhappiness? I know, that I have wondered about it, so, I asked both Siri and Alexa,(Alexa and Siri, Amazon and Apple’s digital voice assistants, are much more than a convenient tool—they are very real applications of artificial intelligence that is increasingly integral to, at least my daily life.) Where did happiness come from? 

This was pretty much what I got back from them. Apparently, throughout time, experts have written 1000’s of books about what happiness is and whether or not it’s possible to attain a state of utter happiness or perpetual bliss. The feedback I got, gave me an idea of the validity or importance on a worldwide scale, (487,000,000 of us really would like to know). Admittedly, as a percentage of 7,8 billion people in the world, it’s not that significant, but it is to me. 

However, to date, no consensus has been reached. In fact, it’s directly because of this conundrum, that people don’t know what to do to stay happy. How, about its alter-ego, unhappiness? almost all people tend to experience the constant perception that something’s missing from their life. What about trying to patch up, or revamp unhappiness as a means to an end? Here also, are many theories about suffering. They describe techniques to overcome fears, like, “live in the here and now, and ignore your negative thoughts.” But why does our human nature tend to do precisely the opposite?