Counseling 101: Reasons Why You Are Unhappy


Have you asked yourself about what makes you happy? Do you find certain interesting things that can make you feel emotionally and mentally good? Because if you can’t, or you don’t clearly know what it is that gives you joy, that is okay. You are not alone in that situation because all individuals feel the same.


The pursuit of happiness is a life-long struggle. Everyone finds it hard to identify that one thing that makes their lives complete specifically. Yes, you may yearn for wealth, a successful career, a stable relationship, strong friendship, etc. That is because your happiness represents your overall emotional fulfillment. However, the journey towards that is quite exhausting, and often you need to overcome negative feelings such as insecurity, regret, and loneliness. But how can you know if you are unhappy? Here are some of the reasons you might find.

You Tightly Hold Grudges

Happiness is a choice, and one thing that can stop you from getting it is by holding a grudge against some people. When you struggle to forgive and forget a mistake that even the ones you love committed, you will get stuck in a loop of emotional instability. You will end up upset and frustrated with many things, even complain about the small ones that are entirely not that big of a deal. The inability to forgive can bring you so much anger that will linger in your heart. It will make you more vindictive towards other people, bitter about the achievements of others, and unhappy with the world. That emotional stuck will fixate you to a negative experience. It will hinder you from letting go, moving on, and heal from it.

You Become Ungrateful

You can ask yourself now. When was the last moment you felt thankful for the things that you have? Ungratefulness can be bad for your overall well-being as it builds up a negative approach to things. It makes you unappreciative about simple pleasures in life such as getting a good night’s sleep, visiting a beautiful place, eating a delicious meal, and spending time with your loved ones. When you are ungrateful, you opt to take things for granted and will never feel guilty about it. You will not see how good life is, and you will never feel lucky that you get to have things that others can’t obtain until they die at some point in your life.


You Compare Yourself To Others

At some point, it is genuinely okay to compare yourself to others, especially if you are looking through the difference in a positive way. If the other person turns out to be admirable, that is okay. You can always look up to that and use the positive qualities of that individual as your set goal. However, if those positive attributes by someone else make you feel bad about yourself, that means you are unhappy with whom you are. This type of feeling can bring so many insecurities, self-doubt, and inferiority. And when there are constant social comparisons, it makes you dwell on mental health problems such as anxiety, depression, and chronic loneliness.

You Worry About Everything 

One cause of unhappiness is worry. It makes you think of the unthinkable. For example, you worry too much about what other people think about you, leading to self-doubt and insecurities. Same as you worry about what might go wrong in your day, which causes you a great deal of emotional distress. Worrying can make you feel unreliable, incapable, and unworthy. And sometimes, when those negative feelings become a little out of control, it breeds feelings of tension, dread, anxiety, panic, and depression. Thus, you are only draining your mental and emotional energy by constantly overthinking about being stuck in an imaginary negative situation and causing yourself so much unhappiness.

You’re Surrounded With Toxic People

Negativity is always contagious. That explains why when you spend time with toxic people, you become unhappy almost instantly. With this particular situation, you become powerless in overcoming your self-defeating behavior. These people that are weighing you down should stay out of your life because there’s a tendency that you may fall into the same psychological and problematic behaviors your circle has. Toxic people can influence you to become one of them, and unfortunately, at some point, you can’t notice it from happening. With this, toxic people take charge of everything about you until you give up your control over your life.



If you have that habit of constantly searching for mistakes and looking at the downside of everything, you are only creating your own unhappiness. You will only focus more on criticizing and downplay even your best life achievements. You will hate people and will become more drawn to isolation. Therefore, it would help if you use these things on the list as your “not to do” goal to fulfill your genuine happiness.