Today, we are going to learn about 7 signs someone is secretly unhappy. Now, let’s begin.
- Rejecting Adventure
Unhappiness can be self-destructive. Everyone knows that happiness is the best way to relieve unhappiness. But, when you’re unhappy with your life, happiness may be the farthest thing from your mind.
For example, many unhappy people live boring, dissatisfying lives. They rarely do things they enjoy. They’re ever passionate about their day-to-day life, and they rarely seek out any sense of adventure. If you know a person like this, you might say, “why don’t you do something fun!” But it’s never that simple. Because unhappiness sabotages your motivation. And amplifies all the fears that keep you inside your comfort zone.
You might encourage an unhappy person to socialize, travel, or pursue their lifelong passions. Yet it feels like this person is afraid to do the things they enjoy. Why? Because every adventure is a risk. Every new experience is a leap of faith that unhappy people aren’t willing to take.
Happy people crave excitement, inspiration, and other empowering feelings. But unhappy people are concentrated on comfort, safety, and stability. They may live boring, mundane lives. They might work every day at a job they don’t like and shy away from activities that might enliven their spirits. All because, deep down, they’re scared of what might happen.
If you know someone who refuses to take risks or infuse excitement into their lives, there’s a chance they’re secretly unhappy.
- Cloudy Concentration
Let’s talk about a secret sign of unhappiness that’s a little bit difficult to see. When someone is unhappy, they may have a hard time concentrating on the world around them. They can’t focus on their work. They’re procrastinating their hobbies. Even movies and TV shows feel like too much of a commitment. The problem is… unhappiness clouds your thoughts and muddles your mind with confusing, often pointless anxiety.
Your brain becomes stressed over the least stressful things, like watching a new TV show. And that stress interferes with your ability to concentrate on almost anything. If you think someone is secretly unhappy, pay attention to how they spend their time. Are they engaging with their hobbies? Are they ambitious in their work? Are they seeking out new music, new games, and other fun ways to spend their time? Or are they stuck in a rut? This can be one of the most challenging feelings to overcome.
When you’re stuck in a rut, nothing you do feels satisfying. It’s difficult to find a sense of fulfilment or passion in your life. And that strips your life of the activities that gave it meaning.
If you’re an artist, for example, disengaging from your hobbies may heavily impact your self-worth. You may not know how to express yourself or measure your personal success without the passions you used to love. When your self-worth declines, your happiness follows. When you feel unfulfilled, your dissatisfaction bleeds into every aspect of your life… and that makes your concentration even worse.
If someone in your life can no longer concentrate on the things they love, that’s a warning sign. They might be secretly unhappy, and their passions are paying the price.
- Fearful Indecision
Do you know who can’t make decisions? Every choice in their life seems to bog them down, from the biggest moves in their career to the smallest decisions you make on a daily basis. When your livelihood is on the line, it’s natural to be indecisive. If you’re moving to a new country or switching career paths, you’re going to weigh the options and struggle to make a firm decision.
Even the happiest people get indecisive when there’s a life-changing opportunity on the line. But unhappy people struggle with choices of all shapes and sizes.
Their indecision trickles down into the small decisions they make on a daily basis. They have a hard time choosing an outfit in the morning. They don’t know what to eat for breakfast or what route to drive to work. When you’re unhappy, every small decision weighs on you 100 times more than it should. Why?
Because you’re afraid of making the wrong move. You don’t want to wear the wrong clothes. You don’t want to hit traffic on your way to work. So you become paralyzed by your own indecision. But here’s a simple truth that every indecisive person needs to hear. There’s very little in this life that you can control. You can’t predict the future. You can’t change the past. You can’t prepare for every surprise that comes your way. But you can do your best. You can think to the best of your ability. You can make the choice you believe to be the right one, and you can stand by that choice. If it succeeds, great. If it blows up in your face, you’ll do better next time. Of course, that’s a pill many unhappy people struggle to swallow.
So, if there’s an indecisive person in your life, there may be something deeper going on below the surface.
- Relationship Turmoil
Do you know someone who’s unhappy in their relationship? Relationships are one of the most common causes of unhappiness. There is a limitless list of reasons why friendships, professional partners, and romantic bonds can destroy your happiness. From toxic manipulators to missed connections, if someone is unhappy, there’s a good chance their relationships are involved.
The problem is… many people wrap their entire lives around their relationships, especially romances and close friendships. When one of these relationships falls apart, it feels like every other aspect of your life is crumbling too. You lose motivation at work. Your healthy habits fall by the wayside. You don’t know how to spend your time or who to spend it with. In other words, a tumultuous relationship creates a gaping black hole in your life, slowly consuming your happiness.
So, keep an eye out for problematic relationships. Are they fighting a lot with their significant other? Did they suddenly cut ties with a best friend? Or maybe someone at work betrayed their trust? All of these can be signs of relationship conflict. And relationship conflict… can make anyone unhappy.
- Stolen Energy
Unhappiness steals your energy. You don’t want to go out into the world. You don’t want to engage with other people. You can’t find the energy or the enthusiasm to do much of anything. And that lack of energy quickly takes over your life.
Unhappiness is often correlated with poor eating and sleeping habits, social disconnect, physical exhaustion, and a lack of motivation. Altogether, this is called general fatigue, and it’s a common symptom of the unhappiest people. From the outside, you can easily spot the signs of general fatigue.
Maybe they don’t act like their usual spunky selves. They never have the energy to spend time together. They’re always making excuses like, “I didn’t get enough sleep last night” or “I’m just not in the mood today.” They’re not lying to you.
Many people experiencing fatigue think their sleep cycles or mood swings are responsible, but it’s often a deeper dissatisfaction with the state of their being. In other words, they’re unhappy, and it’s dragging their energy levels to an all-time low.
- Active Unhappiness
Are unhappy people always lethargic and unmotivated? Not at all. Some secretly unhappy people are accomplished, adventurous, and decisive. In fact, they may be the most active people you know. They’re always buying something new, traveling somewhere exciting, or taking on new challenges. When they tell you about their lives, you might find yourself wondering, “why are you doing so much?” Overdoing it is common among unhappy people.
They take big risks and chase ambitious goals because they want to fill a larger, emotional void in their lives. They’re searching everywhere they can for an object or opportunity to fill that space… but nothing ever does.
When they slow down enough to reflect on their lives, they might realize they’re just as unhappy as they were before. Unfortunately, you can’t make yourself happy overnight. There’s no single object or opportunity that is going to light up your life. That’s why the happiest people aren’t chasing thing after thing, buying commodity after commodity. Instead, they’re satisfied with who they are and what they have.
If you know someone who’s not satisfied and always asking for more, they may be a lot unhappier than they seem.
- Emotional Numbness
Unhappiness is frequently misunderstood. Many people think unhappiness is synonymous with powerful, negative emotions like anger or devastation. But unhappiness isn’t always positive or negative.
Most of the time, it’s somewhere in the middle. Instead of bringing you emotional extremes like joy and anger, it dulls the emotions in your life. Some unhappy people describe this feeling as emptiness or numbness. You might hear someone say, “I feel like a shell of my former self.” They feel that way because their unhappiness has shrouded their emotions under a cloud of stress and discomfort.
They’re not interested in the things they used to love. They can’t get excited about new and fun opportunities. And that feeling of inspiration, which pushes each of us to do amazing things, always eludes them. Over time, these feelings of emptiness can evolve into pervading dissatisfaction. And the worst part is… it’s almost impossible to express these feelings to the people in your life.
No one can really make sense of what you’re feeling, because you might not understand it yourself. In your mind, it’s impossible to figure out what you’re doing wrong. You want an easy, specific solution, but that solution doesn’t exist. And that amplifies your unhappiness even further. If you know someone who’s feeling empty, don’t try to solve their problems. Don’t project your emotions on theirs and assume you know how to fix their life.
Unhappiness is a difficult emotion to escape, but those feelings of emptiness are temporary. Many unhappy people climb out of this rut and discover a new sense of direction, purpose, and fulfilment. But there’s no quick and easy recipe for instant happiness.
If someone in your life is secretly unhappy, the best thing you can do… is stand by their side.
credit: TopThink
