Published April 12, 2026 | Version 1.0
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STOP TRYING TO BE HAPPY: Why the Pursuit of Happiness Misunderstands Human Functioning

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Happiness is widely treated as an achievable and maintainable state. This paper argues that this assumption is structurally incompatible with how human experience operates. Drawing on Adaptive Becoming Theory (ABT), happiness is reframed not as a destination but as a temporary signal within a continuous process of expectation, mismatch, response, and reorganization. The implication is direct: the pursuit of happiness as a stable state is not merely difficult. It is the wrong goal.

 

Keywords: Happiness; Well-being; Adaptive Becoming Theory; Human Functioning; Hedonic Adaptation; Continuous Reorganization; Mismatch-Driven Reorganization; Process Theory of Well-Being; State-Based Models; Personal Growth

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References

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