The Pressure to Be Happy: It Wasn’t Meant to Be a Job

Why the pressure to be happy can actually make us feel worse — and how therapy offers something more human

We don't have to fix ourselves to be ok.

We’re constantly told to “choose happiness.” To fix ourselves. To glow. To optimize our routines until joy arrives like a reward.

But what if that pressure to be happy is making us feel worse?

In her 2018 New Yorker article, Improving Ourselves to Death, Alexandra Schwartz explores how our obsession with self-improvement becomes its own form of anxiety. When happiness is treated as a personal achievement — something we earn through constant work — it stops being real. It becomes a product. A performance. A pressure.

Therapy Is Not Pressure to Be Happy

Therapy isn’t about becoming a better version of yourself. It’s about becoming more yourself. It’s not about fixing every flaw. It’s about feeling well in your own skin, even when things are messy.

You’re allowed to feel sad, nostalgic, or overwhelmed. You don’t need a mindset reset. You need room to feel like a human.

That’s what therapy is for.