Why We Fear Happiness

Happiness should be the easiest thing in the world to embrace. It’s the prize at the end of all our striving: the job, the relationship, the new sofa that doesn’t sag in the middle. And yet, when happiness finally shows up, we treat it like a suspicious package left unattended on the subway. We circle it, poke it with a stick, and mutter, “This has to be a trap.”

Humans are so bad at joy that psychologists have coined an actual term for this: cherophobia. Fear of happiness. Imagine explaining that to aliens. “We finally got what we wanted, and now we’re panicking.” It’s like training for a marathon, crossing the finish line, and then immediately worrying you’ll trip on the medal ribbon.

Part of the problem is that happiness feels unstable. We’ve all learned, usually the hard way, that good things can be yanked out from under us. So instead of enjoying happiness, we pre-grieve its loss. We sit at the dinner table with someone we love and instead of savoring it, our brain whispers: This won’t last. Any second now, the universe will set this on fire. Happiness, for many of us, is just anxiety in a sparkly disguise.

The other part? We don’t trust ourselves not to screw it up. Happiness makes us vulnerable. It asks us to stay present. But we’ve all got that little gremlin brain that goes, What if I say something dumb? What if I ruin it? What if I knock over the wine glass and suddenly this perfect evening turns into a crime scene? Instead of basking, we brace.

And then there’s the sneaky cultural voice whispering that too much happiness is indulgent, unserious, or—worst of all—boring. Misery, after all, has always had more street cred. A tortured soul gets respect; a joyful one just gets eye rolls. (Nobody ever said, “She was too happy, and that’s what made her an artistic genius.”)

But here’s the real punchline: fearing happiness doesn’t protect us. Life will deliver its fair share of heartbreak whether we relax into joy or not. So why spend half our lives flinching at the good parts, waiting for the bad ones? Happiness, fragile as it is, deserves to be gobbled up in the moment.

So maybe the real courage isn’t in enduring pain—it’s in letting happiness in without suspicion, without bargaining, without waiting for the other shoe to drop. Sometimes joy doesn’t come with fine print. Sometimes the shoe never drops.