Happycracy: The obligation to be happy
Distilling Books - Number 5
Welcome to Mental Garden. The following letter is part of our “Distilling Books” collection, in which we extract the most revealing ideas from literature. For the complete library, click here.
🏷️ Categories: Literature, Happiness, Social relationships.
“Happiness has become a commodity and a form of social control.”
“We’re not only obligated to be happy, but also made to feel guilty for not being able to overcome suffering and rise above difficulties.”
“The happiness industry claims it can mold individuals into beings capable of resisting negative feelings, making the most of themselves by fully controlling unproductive desires and defeatist thoughts. But aren't we perhaps facing a new trick, meant to convince us once again that wealth and poverty, success and failure, health and illness are solely our responsibility?”
— Edgar Cabanas and Eva Illouz, Happycracia.
You come home drained. It’s been a tough day.
You open Instagram and see an influencer with a perfect smile, holding a coffee cup at a picturesque sunset, captioned with an inspiring quote about happiness. You scroll to the next post: someone sharing their daily routine for living a full and successful life. Then another: an expert telling you, “Your happiness depends only on you—so get moving.”
And suddenly, you ask yourself: “What am I doing wrong that my life isn’t this amazing…?”
Welcome to Happycracia, the dictatorship that governs our emotions and sells happiness as just another product we must consume and achieve.
Edgar Cabanas and Eva Illouz analyze in their book Happycracia (2019) how happiness has become a multi-billion-dollar industry that’s convinced us happiness is a personal duty, not a natural consequence of life. That happiness is universal, that there's one formula for all—and you should buy it.
You’ll see that the obsessive pursuit of happiness makes us, paradoxically, unhappy.
Smile, let’s begin…
Happiness: A Product That Moves Millions
Self-help books, courses, happiness apps, gurus promising the good life…
Yes, happiness is now just another product, bought and sold like merchandise.
Looking back through history, the concept of “happiness” remained relatively stable for centuries. From the Greeks to Kant and beyond, there wasn’t much interest in viewing happiness as something universal or consumable. But everything changed in the 21st century.
What has changed today?
Now happiness is a commercial product, and the recipe is universal.
The happiness industry generates billions annually with seductive promises. In Spain alone, the sale of practical books on happiness brings in over 120 million euros a year (Cabanas, 2019). The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin was on the New York Times bestseller list for 99 weeks.
By now, shouldn’t we all be living in paradise?
The problem is they’re selling us a superficial and empty idea.
It’s not about finding a life purpose that suits your specific case. Nor is it about strengthening your social connections, valuing them more so you feel supported and truly happy. Not at all.
It’s about consuming products and following trends that will supposedly make us “happy.”
This commodification turns us into eternal consumers of happiness: experiences, must-do trips, and events you can’t miss every year. That’s how neophilia begins—the love of novelty. To be happy, we must escape routine and constantly seek new experiences to maintain happiness.
But new things stop being new after we try them—then we need something else to feel good.
—"Where should we go for dinner?"
—"Same place as last time—the food was amazing."
—"Nah, let’s try somewhere new—we’ve already been there."
I’ve had this conversation with friends.
The desire for something new outweighs the happiness found in the familiar.
Happycracia: The Obligation to Be Happy
Happycracia sells the idea that happiness is an individual responsibility.
No external factors—just control your emotions and follow the pre-designed recipe.
We hear things like: “You’re not happy because you’re not optimistic—change your mindset” or “You’re just not trying hard enough.” This message is cruel and simplistic, ignoring people’s reality and external circumstances—like their financial situation, country of birth, opportunities, and countless other factors.
As a result, many people feel like failures—as if it’s all their fault.
Philosopher Gilles Lipovetsky points out that in our society, admitting you're going through a tough time is almost shameful or a sign of weakness. We’ve been taught to project optimism and confidence, which leads many to hide their real emotions and suppress their pain.
This social pressure increases isolation, frustration, and makes us even more unhappy.
The Damned 40%
Happycracia claims to have found the formula for happiness.
In the bestseller The How of Happiness, Lyubomirsky stated that the key lies in focusing on ourselves: “When we accept that our personal circumstances are not the keys to happiness, we’ll be in a much better position to achieve it.”
As if happiness were just another personal job.
After outlining the virtues of her discovery, Lyubomirsky explains how to take advantage of the 40% of the happiness formula that depends on us. She offers exercises and tips like: expressing gratitude, cultivating optimism, not overthinking, managing stress, practicing mindfulness, living in the moment, and avoiding negative emotions.
The problem?
It doesn’t work.
As Cabanas and Illouz explain, the impact of these practices is minimal or even counterproductive when compared to the enormous influence of factors like having a life purpose suited to your specific case, enjoying meaningful collective experiences, being part of a community where you feel a sense of belonging, and living in a favorable context (economy, society, politics, safety...).
Happiness is a feeling that fluctuates and mixes with others—not a fixed state.
It’s not a goal—it’s a consequence.
It’s not something to seek—it just happens.
“The narrative that promises the best version of ourselves is the same one that assumes that this best version will never be reached. Thus, what on one hand offers completeness and personal satisfaction, on the other hand produces a recurring sense of emptiness and a constant, obsessive need to fill it.”
— Edgar Cabanas and Eva Illouz, Happycracia
Still curious? Here are some related posts:
✍️ Your turn: Have you ever felt guilt or failure for not being as “happy” as you think you should be? If happiness isn’t objective or a product, how would you define it?
💭 Quote of the day: “It is not happiness that adapts to us, but we who must adapt to its tyrannical demands, its consumerist logic, and its narrow, reductionist assumptions about what we are and should be.”
— Edgar Cabanas and Eva Illouz, Happycracia
See you next time! 👋
References 📚
Cabanas, E., & Illouz, E. (2019). HappyCracia: Cómo la ciencia y la industria de la felicidad controlan nuestras vidas. Ediciones Paidós.
Cabanas, E. (2019, 21 noviembre). Las claves para vender la felicidad | Edgar Cabanas | TEDxMadrid [Vídeo]. URL
While this industrialize happiness may have emerged with the Boomers, our children have made the pursuit of happiness an art form. HA! That phrase is writ large in the American Declaration of Independence. So, what did happiness mean for Tom Jefferson and the boys in comparison to what we seem to need so badly. Probably just being able to making a living by our own efforts without being manipulated to death by a government (of any kind). Meanwhile, I see even on Substack, countless posts about searching for happiness, how hard life is, how depressed, angry, offended, etc. To which is old Boomer wants to scream, "Oh get over yourselves, you narcissistic twits. Life has always been hard. In fact, it's been a helluva lot harder in the past than it is right now. Instead of dwelling on yourselves all the time, look around to see what other people may need and if you can fulfill or at least help them with it. There's lots to be done for others. Get on it and you'll soon realize you weren't that miserable after all."
Did I just fit into that mindfulness crowd you were writing about? Sorry, Alvaro. You know how testy I can get. Good article. It got me riled!