[Originally published on Yahoo!]
There’s a plethora of research studies to show that people today are generally more miserable than they were even one or two decades ago. The latest data from the General Social Survey, for example, reveals a “significant decline from the nation’s peak happiness” as compared with measurements in the early 1990s. Also, as documented in the 2019 World Happiness Report, data showed that happiness and life satisfaction levels suddenly dropped after 2012, and that by 2016-2017, both adults and adolescents reported a significant decrease in their happiness. The question: Why are so many of us unhappy and unfulfilled?
According to Blake Mallen, a billion-dollar brand builder and lifestyle entrepreneur in the nutrition sector, the key reason why thousands of people are discontented with life is because they’re not pursuing what they’re really ‘meant to’ do. Instead, they’re stuck on a path of what they think they’re ‘supposed to’ do in order to meet the never-ending expectations of family, friends and society. The consequence: No matter how much they try, they don’t feel fully alive.