It’s So Easy To Be Happy And So Hard To Be Simple

Sometimes we are content with things that do not make us unhappy, whether it is due to habit, indecision or fear. Our hearts are equipped and our senses are surrounded by the barbed wire that is our comfort zone because it sometimes feels so difficult to be simple.

Maybe we forget that it can be very easy to be happy; the difficult thing is to discern what is really important, what makes us perfect and gives magic to our days, and then fight for it. It is said that “it is so easy to be happy but so hard to be simple…” A short phrase but a great truth. To understand this, we need to think about something for a while.

Most of us have been taught that we need to achieve certain things in order to have an identity, gain a status and be in a certain way in order to achieve a certain goal.

We study to acquire skills to get a job. We have a job to try to achieve a state of happiness. Then we acquire possessions and relationships that are meant to fill us with happiness, but this formula is not always right. It does not always work.

Is happiness a fraud? Absolutely. The lie of truth is that we believe we can “achieve” it, because those who try to find it will only fail again and again. The search for happiness never ends well, and for one simple reason: it is a state of being. It is not something that is sought, it is something that is created. It is not something that is found, it is something you work with.

And we must not forget: the same strategies do not work for everyone. Each of us must work on it in our own way.

Since 2015, one word has begun to circulate in the world: felling . The Danish secret to happiness has had an overwhelming success, at least in the editorial world. It invites us to this full, authentic well-being through the purest and most basic simplicity, which frees us from conflicts in life.

Hygge has now taken a passive role in paving the way for new trends, other complementary approaches that can be summarized in a word that may be familiar to us Swedes, but which is a new concept in other countries: just right .

The Scandinavians are giving the world a new trend that comes with nice photos on Instagram. “Lagom” has been “retweeted” thousands of times over the past month, and Vogue, Elle and even Ikea have jumped on the bandwagon.

Just right can be translated as “just the right amount”. It urges us to surround ourselves with the basics. To buy only what we need, take care of the environment, to decorate the house with simple things. To only eat as much as we need.

It also reminds us of the importance of never letting work take over our lives. The idea is that “less is more” and that happiness is found in simplicity.

But even if these messages are both positive and comforting , we can not ignore all the marketing behind these trends. Nordic fever, with its criminal drama, lifestyles and prominent healthcare system, is undoubtedly attractive.

But it can be a somewhat bitter utopia. That’s what an award-winning essay by British author Michael Booth entitled “The Almost Nearly Perfect People” explains. He tries to give a realistic vision of the so-called Nordic happiness, something that has already been mentioned somewhere in Henning Mankell’s books.

An interesting fact is that the Nordic countries, which are said to be the happiest in the world, have the highest suicide rates. It seems that something is missing…

Books on how to be happy are always interesting and very helpful. They offer a new perspective, and make us see things we have not seen before. They invite us to reflect and make changes here and there.

But we must make it clear that they are not instruction manuals or Bibles. They do not work for everyone, because sometimes we live in very different worlds where it is difficult to be simple.

For example, it is not logical to be told not to let the job take over your life if you do not have a job. Nor can we “live at a minimum” when we are already living with only the basics. With all this, we want to make one thing clear: happiness is something tailored. It must fit our size and match our lives.

It takes effort, willpower and understanding that it can be very easy to be happy. But it is difficult to get our priorities in order, which can be completely different if you compare with those that everyone else has.

And it takes courage, not an Instagram photo of a woman reading a buck with cozy cotton socks and thick glasses with coffee on the side.

To be happy, we sometimes have to leave everything behind and start over from scratch. But other times it may mean that you have to do a lot of inner work to heal the wounds, fix frustrations and find new motivation.

Even when it is difficult to be simple, you should try to make difficult things simple, but also come up with your own recipe for happiness.