Christian Waugh, professor of psychology at Wake Forest University, said on May 6 that focusing on building resilience is more effective for long-term well-being than pursuing happiness. Waugh studies emotions, stress, and coping and has published research on how people regulate their emotions and recover from stress or trauma.
Waugh said society often encourages the pursuit of happiness through self-help books and advice from social media influencers. However, he believes this focus can be misleading. “One of the things that we’re told in our society is to be happy. It’s become an industry now that people want to make themselves happy but there’s sometimes a danger to that. When we pursue happiness, we think to ourselves, ‘Am I doing this well?’ The problem is that when we’re stressed or we’re feeling negative emotions we think that maybe we’re not happy, maybe we’re not doing something right. When negative emotions happen and bad things happen, these aren’t indicators that you’re not doing well. They’re indicators that you’re just living a normal life,” Waugh said.
He compared resilience to the flexibility of metal under pressure: “The resilience of a metal is marked by its ability to bend under pressure, but not break… This is how we should think about resilience with humans as well.” He emphasized the importance of adapting emotionally to both positive and negative events.
Waugh referenced research showing frequent small positive experiences contribute more to overall happiness than rare intense moments of joy. He recommended practices such as appreciating daily experiences, spending time in nature, expressing gratitude toward others, celebrating achievements with others, and being mindful in the present moment.
“The main takeaway of my research is that to have good stress, we don’t always have to focus on how to get rid of the bad feelings,” Waugh said. Instead he suggests increasing positive feelings during stressful times can foster emotional strength.
Waugh concluded by saying shifting from seeking constant happiness toward accepting all emotions helps individuals feel relieved: “When I talk about this idea of resilience as being a better target, people feel kind of relieved because it gives them permission to feel bad sometimes.”
