Not being able to enjoy yourself: Why are we unhappy, even though we have the âidealâ life? Your life looks perfect in the eyes of your friends, family and colleagues. You have a nice, well-paid job, you have a busy and nice social life, live in a beautiful house and have a healthy relationship.
So you donât really have anything to complain about if you compare your life to the life of another. Yet, you canât manage to be happy and enjoy everything you have (or what your environment believes you have).
Does this sound familiar? Youâre not the only one. You definitely donât need to have an extremely difficult life to not feel well. Having a â seemingly â fantastic life definitely doesnât guarantee happiness. But why do you experience that nagging feeling, even though at first glance you have no problems in life whatsoever?
Are you even allowed to feel depressed without having a âvalidâ reason for it? In this article Iâll explain the underlying reasons behind that crappy feeling and why âhaving it all togetherâ doesnât necessarily mean youâre therefore satisfied with your life.
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Not being able to enjoy yourself
Not being able to enjoy yourself consists of different characteristics. Itâs possible you no longer can enjoy yourself, but you were able to in the past. Itâs also possible because you can no longer enjoy yourself because youâre extremely busy with external factors. These are common complaints we hear from people. The opposite side of the coin is that once youâre able to enjoy yourself, you experience less stress! Nobody knows a stressful situation in which he/she could also enjoy him/herself.
Does the following sound familiar?
- Not being able to enjoy yourself in general
- Lately not being able to enjoy yourself anymore
- Being unhappy often
- Often experiencing a feeling of unhappiness
- Not or no longer being able to enjoy the little things
- And so on
If it does, this article will be worth your while:
Financial success doesnât provide true happiness
Many people believe being financially well-off equals being happy. Money doesnât bring happiness; itâs the oldest tale in the book that you mustâve heard a thousand times, but that doesnât make it any less true. People still see a high income as the ultimate proof of a successful life.
This is of course nonsense, but we still all want that promotion, wait for the perfect job offer and weâre proud of the many years of work experience and all the diplomas on our resumes. Who are we actually fooling here? Of course we find money important. Itâs a source of livelihood everyone needs.
But we also buy a car because we want to show that weâre doing well, not just because itâs a good car. Many people think the chance of happiness significantly increases once you have a lot of money. However, the opposite is true.

Not being able to enjoy yourself because of financial worries
So itâs only logical to think this way, because money allows you to purchase the things you like. You ensure a stable environment to live in. having sufficient money also means you donât have to worry about being able to pay the bills, and so much more. But does it also mean all your worries are gone? Of course not. And deep down, we all know this all too well.
But we still see making lots of money and having an important diploma as important goals in life. It gives us a false sense of security, telling us itâll all be fine once we reach that goal. The reason is that we just like to have certainty in our lives.
Thatâs because it makes us feel safe. But once youâve finally reached such a milestone in life and you no longer have any, or relatively few, financial worries, this certainty suddenly disappears. So we now might have the money, but weâre still equally unhappy.
Unconsciously feeling insecure
Another reason for having a feeling of unhappiness is that youâre actually very insecure. You might not even notice it. Everyone around us seems so confident, donât they? It seems like nobody ever worries about who they are or what others think of them. This makes you even more insecure, because why is it that you actually do worry about these things? This thinking is wrong. Everyone is insecure to some extent; itâs just that nobody likes to admit it.
By the way, thereâs a big chance many people feel this exact same way about you: you probably seem just as confident as the insecure people around you, even though youâre not at all. Thatâs just how people are â we donât like to admit our weaknesses, so we overcompensate our insecurities. We donât even like to admit these to ourselves. Many people donât even realise how insecure they actually are.
Dismissing yourself
Thatâs a shame, because this insecurity can make you feel very unhappy without you even realising it. Many people dismiss themselves, because they want to be seen in a positive light by others so badly. Thereâs nothing wrong with wanting to be liked and therefore always being nice to everyone, right?
Thatâs not completely true. It can actually make you truly unhappy and damage your self-image instead of improve it. Obviously you shouldnât act like an unpleasant person either and never take your friends, family and colleagues into consideration. But going completely the other way and putting yourself in last place is just as bad. Your happiness shouldnât be at the expense of the desire to be liked be others.
Feeling bad
You think itâs not okay to feel bad every now and then. Happiness is quite ironic if you think about it, donât you think? The fact that everyone tries so hard to enjoy life as much as possible could make us feel worse and worse. Thatâs because desperately trying to supress your negative emotions can make you feel more depressed.
Thereâs nothing wrong with having a bad day every once in a while! By not bottling up bad feelings but expressing them you give them a chance to go away.
Not accepting reality
In our society we however often feel like thatâs not allowed and we have to pretend everythingâs always going great. Social media such as Instagram and Facebook are living proof of this. Because although you probably know deep down that your friends and followers are people with ups and downs, and their posts on social media donât really reflect their actual lives, these still have an effect on you.
Admit it: how many times have you checked out pictures of those spectacular holidays, romantic moments with their loved one, beautiful selfies in which they really shine and delicious dishes of your followers and thought: âwow, I want to live a life like thatâ? Thereâs however a decent chance they look at your profile and think the exact same about you. After all, the grass is always greener on the other side. The reality is of course different nine out of ten times, and we of course know this, but it often will continue to have an effect on us.

Not allowing happiness
Ask yourself critically: do you allow yourself to enjoy something? This might seem contradictory to the previous point, but although we always tell ourselves to be cheerful and to not admit to the outside world we also experience lesser moment, you also donât seem to allow yourself to enjoy yourself too much. We might allow ourselves to go on holiday, but not to go all the way during that holiday and truly relax.
Instead, we often worry during these moments and think about work. Or you already worry about being back from holiday already. We seem to set a limit regarding how often weâre allowed to feel bad, how often weâre allowed to feel good, how intensely we can enjoy ourselves and how enthusiastic we can be.
The result thereof is always being stuck in the annoying centre, in which we donât have it too bad (âeh, I canât complain, I thinkâ is a commonly uttered sentence), but we not at all feel good in our skin.
The small things in life
These limits you impose on yourself regarding how happy and how unhappy youâre allowed to feel also affect the threshold of when you consider something to be positive and feel happy about it. Enjoying the little things in life is no longer possible; everything has to be bigger, better, more fun, more spectacular. But itâs the little things that make life worth living. Think for instance about the amazing smell of fresh coffee in the morning while you put an extra thick layer of chocolate spread on your bread.
That super lame joke your colleague made and you secretly find hilarious. The sun shining on your face and the lovely breeze that follows. Your children who ask you to help them with their homework and are extremely grateful when they finally understand it after many attempts of explaining it to them. The piping hot bath water you enter after a long day at work. Itâs these everyday things we often donât even pay attention to that can actually put a smile on our face.
Having a love-hate relationship with work
Many people see working as a necessary evil. You canât live without it, because work provides structure to your life. Work provides purpose, money to provide for yourself and your family and itâs mandatory. Your work however shouldnât dominate your life and get in the way of your private life. Many people also just donât like their job (deep inside).
The atmosphere on the work floor might not be great, maybe you have annoying colleagues or you believe your boss decides too much for you and you donât have any freedom. Maybe you make too little money or you simply work too much. At the same time, work can also be a lot of fun and many people wouldnât know what to do if they no longer had a job. Your work seems to both be your friend and your enemy!
The opposite can however also be true: maybe you feel very unhappy because you donât have much going on in life and youâre bored. A job brings you into contact with others and keeps you busy. Itâs about much more than simply carrying out your work; itâs also about how you plan your day based on your working hours and how your job gives you certain insights and experiences.
Working makes you feel useful, it gives your life that little bit of extra meaning. Not just working too little or too much can make you feel unhappy, itâs also important that you enjoy your work and it continues to challenge you. If you feel your job is starting to bore you, you might consider searching for a new challenge.

Suffering from energy guzzlers
Do you know the feeling that someone in your environment seems to just drain all the energy you have? That someone constantly affects you with his or her negativity, to the point that you become negative and unhappy yourself? You might enjoy seeing this person, itâs just that he or she puts you in a worse mood. Someone like that does more harm than good. Make sure you surround yourself with people that do give you energy and inspiration.
Not being able to enjoy yourself because of an unsafe domestic situation
This is of course easier said than done if you live together with the people that make you unhappy. Thatâs for instance the case when you have difficult roommates, your relationship isnât going too well or if youâre in a bad domestic situation in which you never feel perfectly safe. Sometimes youâll have known the people you live with arenât right for you, but you donât dare to make changes to the situation out of a fear for the effects a decision like moving out or ending a relationship could have on your life. The unknown is something we are all very afraid of, deep down.
Still, do you prefer to remain in your current situation and be unhappy or do you want to take that risk and possibly have a much happier and more positive outlook on life because you pulled the plug from the energy guzzlers that made your life so much more difficult?
Being busy all the time
Another problem that stands in the way of your happiness and everyone seems to be bothered by nowadays is feeling thereâs never enough time. I explicitly say âfeelingâ, because in many cases not having enough time is not even true! The problem often is that we fill all the free time we have with energy guzzling activities, because we feel âthatâs how it should beâ. Maybe you donât even feel like going out with your friends and you actually want to take some time to rest.
We greatly underestimate the importance of rest. Thereâs nothing boring or weird about consciously making time for this! Sleeping in, taking a nice, long bath, meditating, taking a nap, enjoying a massage, listening to music or just doing nothing at all. We definitely donât do it often enough. So donât be afraid to tell people ânoâ more often and have some real me-time, because thereâs a big chance youâre taking on too much.
Not being able to enjoy by living in the past too much
In addition you might live way too much in the past and the future, like a lot of people. Bad idea. People who live in the past constantly experience the regret about choices that were made a long time ago. You canât turn back time. Constantly worrying about the future is also bad. After all, you donât know whatâs going to happen. Itâs good to be prepared, but itâs many times more important to start enjoying the here and now.
As you can see, the answer to the question of why youâre happy often concerns a lack of balance. It always has to be the one extreme or the other. The ultimate key to happiness is actually finding and maintaining the golden mean. Thatâs unfortunately easier said than done.
Drinking more than is good for you and emotional eating
You drink more than is good for you, or youâre an emotional eater. Emotional eating or drinking alcohol can both be a cause or a consequence of feeling unhappy. Of course, everyone enjoys a drink to relax or eats too much once in a while. But thereâs clearly more going on if you feel like you need that glass of wine or that cupcake in order to escape the negative feelings.
At a certain point you could get the feeling that drinking or eating is the only way you can feel happy in your own skin. The funny thing is that the opposite is true; if you get rid of an addiction, youâll notice you will feel much better than without that substance.
Not being able to enjoy yourself because of an addiction
The word âaddictionâ might sound heavy, but it absolutely isnât. The fact that alcohol and food are symbols of cosiness and pleasure in our society makes us unaware of how quickly âa littleâ turns into âtoo muchâ or to âaddictedâ. As you can see, health and happiness clearly go hand in hand.
Itâs not just drinking too much alcohol or eating your stress away that can make you unhappy (and is in turn a result of not being satisfied with your life), your sleep also greatly impacts the way you feel and think. Conversely, being depressed could also significantly alter the quality of your sleep. Staying awake a lot of nights or sleeping poorly can have a direct effect on your mood.

Psychological problems in the family
Depressive feelings can also run in the family. If your parents, brothers, sisters or other close family members have psychological problems, you run a greater risk of developing these in the future as well. This is a solace to some people, but makes it all the more difficult for others. But itâs not always on you if youâre feeling poorly. Even if you have the perfect life and no underlying problems youâre unaware of, you could still be affected by depression, a burnout, an addiction or another psychological problem.
Itâs often hereditary. In case of depression itâs possible your brain simply doesnât produce enough neurotransmitters that create feelings of happiness. The most familiar ones are serotonin, dopamine and noradrenalin. These substances provide feelings of happiness, of warmth and love, and stimulate the pleasure centre in your brain.
Not being able to enjoy yourself because of a depression
People who suffer from a severe depression that canât be sufficiently treated by therapy alone, often also take antidepressants. These are drugs that ensure these neurotransmitters remain available in the brain for longer in order to better experience your positive feelings. These antidepressants unfortunately donât work for everyone and they can have numerous side-effects.
These drugs could for instance cause weight gain because they increase your appetite, they lower the sex drive and make it more difficult to reach an orgasm. They can flatten your feelings and make you tired more quickly. This is why doctors are often reserved in prescribing these drugs.
Besides, physical exercise and playing sports turn out to have a greater impact on your happiness. Moreover, a simple pill doesnât mean all your problems are gone. In order to really be able to enjoy life, you need to find the underlying causes that keep you from being happy.
Being unhappy and not telling others
The people around you probably donât realise right away that you havenât been feeling well for a while and/or going through a more difficult period in your life. Especially if your life seems âidealâ and âperfectâ at first sight, and you try to keep up appearances that everythingâs going well, even though this is not the case. Pretending you have no problems however doesnât get you anywhere. It often will lead to you isolating yourself from people, which will make you feel even worse.
In addition, people around you might not be able to understand it when your behaviour suddenly completely changes because of your mood, and they donât know your unhappiness is the underlying reason for this. People might even start treating you worse if you feel bad, because they think youâre acting unpleasantly towards them or that youâre simply not a nice person.
Maybe they think itâs actually going very well with you, because you always try to act like things are going better than they actually are. In reality, your friends and family can help you enormously when youâre feeling down.
Not being able to enjoy yourself because of loneliness
You should also not forget that isolating yourself from everyone else can be extremely lonely. And loneliness will make everything worse if youâre already depressed.
Many of your underlying problems might even be fixed with the help of your loved ones. After all, they can provide you with a new perspective and offer solutions you might not have even thought of. Or maybe you can tell them to do things to make it a bit easier for you.
Surround yourself with the people who want the best for you and you know will support you even if things arenât going well. However, donât forget that even with all the knowledge youâve gained from reading this article about the reasons you donât feel happy, all your problems wonât just disappear. This article simply lists the possible reasons behind these feelings and doesnât offer any direct solutions.
Not being able to enjoy yourself: the solution
If youâre unable to enjoy yourself, you regularly feel very unhappy, itâs best to find practical help. The proven recipe is the BERG-method. Tackle your unhappiness and start doing things that are meaningful to you. Do you feel like you canât do it on your own?

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