Fake happy

Here is what I believe, you know how people say how are you doing and you say fine and you ? I feel it is similar with what you mentioned people can and do come off at times as being happy , but it can be a bit of a front , in a way if you keep up thinking happy long enough it eventually becomes happy , it is more so an ideal than a concrete thing I feel .

Happiness, anger, and depression are actually all very extreme emotions, but they're opposites of each other. Depression and anger can go hand in hand, however, they're still a little different. I can tell when I'm depressed or going through an episode because I'll get really irritable and touchy over little things, but when you think of "depressed" you don't always think of anger. I look at total happiness as being on one end of the spectrum of emotions constantly. Which isn't always true for any of us. "Neutral" is the state I'd describe most of humanity having. We're neutral most of the time because you take into account WHY you have those emotions like happiness or intense sadness in the first place. It's usually because something did happen, or it didn't. Not to say our happiness should always be based on external things bc we should absolutely cultivate happiness within ourselves. But for the most part...it kind of IS external. I try to remember that in my day to day. When someone told me that, it completely changed my life. Don't beat yourself up because you're not "totally" happy yet. You will get there but it just takes time. It was two years ago that I heard it explained that way & I still have OCD/doubt moments & depression & general anxiety. But looking at my emotions as a spectrum instead of an innate way to be truly helped me process stuff. (Excuse me for writing a whole book in your comments btw!! I didn't mean for this to be this long lol)

Most days