Welcome to the happiness podcast. I'm Dr Robert Puff.

Unhappiness. Why do we get so unhappy sometimes?

Our alarm may go off in the morning and we may think, I don't want to get up. I don't want to go through this day.

Or we can be driving to work and think, why do I keep doing this?

It can seem so pointless. Or we can be in an argument with

our loved one. It can really feel like the world is coming to an end, at least our world is.

Yet at the same time, when we talk with a friend or a colleague

and we hear about some tragedy that they're going through,

we may be sympathetic, but it probably won't ruin

our day. We probably will still be as happy as we were prior to hearing about their story.

Or let's say we look into the news and we discover there's some natural

disaster happening in a far distant part of the world. We may be sympathetic, we may even

say a prayer, but again it probably won't ruin our day.

Or I don't know if you remember being a teenager.

Maybe you are right now, or maybe you have a teenager.

I myself have two of them.

And sometimes they can come home with some pretty intense stories

about ways that they're upset and when we look at it from our perspective it doesn't't seem that bad, though they can be quite

distraught about it.

And with these friends and families, we can sometimes give some really cogent, meaningful

advice for them, so they can be calm and not be so upset about what's going on in their life.

Because we have a different perspective than they do.

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