There’s a phrase that people hate even more than ‘live, laugh, love’

Imagine you’re having a atrocious day. You stock your woes with a loved one, and to marque you consciousness better, they utter the words: ‘happiness is a choice’.

Your feelings person been instantly minimised with an ‘uplifting quote’ taken from immoderate 2015 Tumblr blog, and you ended up feeling worse than erstwhile you started.

A caller survey has recovered that this peculiar operation is really the astir hated successful Britain, with 16% of UK adults despising it much than immoderate different allegedly motivational saying.

In fact, much than fractional of Brits (65%) actively debar utilizing cliché affirmative phrases successful each time conversations.

But ‘happiness is simply a choice’ isn’t conscionable annoying. To slap it connected arsenic a proverbial plaster implicit someone’s affectional turmoil is beauteous reductive, according to Dr Marianne Trent, objective scientist and writer of Talking Heads.

Marianne tells Metro: ‘For me, the “happiness is simply a choice” communicative tin consciousness ablest. It tin besides beryllium rather minimising and dismissive.

‘If you’re not happy, the accusation is that idiosyncratic is saying you’re choosing to beryllium unhappy but, of course, determination are galore factors that impact our happiness levels.’

It besides implies we person the powerfulness to power the concern causing our unhappiness, which isn’t ever the case.

Marianne explains that factors similar the different radical involved, if you person children, if you oregon a babelike has wellness complications and if you person constricted resources due to the fact that of the cost-of-living crisis, tin each trim your quality to power a concern that is making you unhappy.

Essentially ‘happiness is simply a choice’ is not a compassion-focused response.

‘People that mightiness person had a bully capable puerility and upbringing, escaped of trauma, grief and adversity mightiness good judge happiness is simply a choice,’ Marianne says.

‘Or, possibly their experiences person meant that mindset has been close for them.’

A akin crook of operation which is arsenic unhelpful, according to Marianne, is ‘we each person the aforesaid 24 hours successful a day’.

Molly-Mae Hague famously took the vigor for that 1 backmost successful aboriginal 2022, portion appearing connected Stephen Bartlett’s The Diary of a CEO podcast.

She said: ‘Beyonce has the same 24 hours successful a day arsenic we do. I conscionable deliberation you’re fixed 1 beingness and it’s down to you what you bash with it. You tin virtually spell successful immoderate 1 direction.’

Marianne doesn’t rather spot it that way. She notes: ‘It implies we’re each successful the aforesaid boat, but erstwhile you look astatine it, immoderate radical person velocity boats and immoderate radical person leaky boats.

‘There are differences betwixt individuals and to presume and connote idiosyncratic tin take to marque themselves happier, that’s not afloat encompassing the level of trouble and the level of “stuckness” that tin instrumentality distant our thrust and choices.’

The survey by Preply recovered that conscionable 22% of Brits bask utilizing ‘positive’ expressions similar these, and successful conscionable a twelvemonth monthly searches for ‘positive quotes’ person dropped implicit 100% from 110,000 to 49,500.

Other reductive phrases similar ‘good vibes only’, ‘look connected the agleam side’ and the dreaded ‘live, laugh, love’ were besides among the astir hated successful Britain.

This communicative was primitively published connected 19 February 2024.

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