In the western civilized countries, people’s living environment is more luxurious in many ways compared to their cave-dwelling predecessors. We have managed infant mortality, many deadly infectious diseases, shortages of food, energy, housing, transportation systems, and the devastating effects of extreme weather conditions, etc., and we have built machines that do many of our jobs. .

We designed a lifestyle that includes education, sports, art and recreational activities and increased the average life. However, we are still not happy sometimes and some people are unhappy most of the time.

There are many obstacles to our happiness, and evolutionary psychology offers insights into some of the obstacles.

Among the obstacles to happiness is the tendency to compare oneself with others, something that was compatible in the ancient times, but in today’s society, where very prominent and unrealistically positive images of others are presented in the media, it is incompatible.

Another obstacle to happiness is the fact that we were naturally selected in the process of evolution to experience some disturbing emotions such as anxiety, depression and anger because before the development of modern societies, these emotions were considered adaptive for the survival of our species.

Taken from the book Positive Psychology, The Science of Happiness and Human Strengths, written by Alan Carr