I read this article the other day:
Why It Pays To Be Grumpy And Bad Tempered
One of the quotes I found interesting was:
““Happiness functions like a shorthand signal that we’re safe and it’s not necessary to pay too much attention to the environment. Those in a continuous happy haze may miss important cues. Instead, they may be over-reliant on existing knowledge – leaving them prone to serious errors of judgement.”
In another post a while back (damn this crappy search!), an amazing comment came up about how the hardest thing we do in relationships is to continue SEEING each other for who we are, instead of collecting a mass of assumptions and treating our partners as avatars in our own minds.
And I agree with that.
And I’ve seen first-hand how happiness can blind a person.
And not in the ‘Imma-ignore-red-flags” way, but in the, “I’m happy, so everything must be fine” way, or the “I’m happy, so problems in the relationship are your problems” kind of way.
Happiness signals our brains that we’re safe. That everything is cool. That we’ve nothing to worry about.
And so, we don’t. And the details slip by.
- We don’t worry about the birthday we missed.
- We don’t worry about a regular date night.
- We don’t worry that we are not as loving and romantic as we used to be.
Because, well, we’re happy.
Until we’re not.
