Happiness appears to be the most uncontroversial human goal imaginable. Like breathing clean air or drinking fresh water, it appears to be a universal good, something every rational person would choose more of.

Yet this commonsense view crumbles under scrutiny. Happiness, far from being the straightforward blessing it appears, contains two intertwined paradoxes that have confounded thinkers from Aristotle (who called it “the whole aim and end of human existence”) to contemporary neuroscientists. These aren’t academic curiosities. They’re contradictions that plague anyone who has tried to become happier and found themselves more miserable for the effort.

The modern science of happiness has yielded unprecedented insight into human flourishing. Martin Seligman founded positive psychology in 1998, shifting psychology’s traditional focus from pathology to the systematic study of what makes life worth living.

The field has since generated thousands of studies and spawned a cottage industry of self-help books with titles like The Happiness Hypothesis and Stumbling on Happiness. Yale’s “Science of Well-Being” course became the most popular class in the university’s 300-year history, with millions more taking it online.

This research has yielded consistent findings about what promotes well-being. When asked on a podcast to distill the key findings of positive psychology, psychologist Laurie Santos offered a clear prescription: strengthen social connections, practice generosity, maintain healthy habits like regular sleep and exercise, cultivate mindfulness and gratitude, and engage in spiritual or religious practices. Examples abound: Lyubomirsky and colleagues found that intentional activities focused on social connection and gratitude meaningfully boost well-being, while other research has surprisingly revealed that strong relationships improve survival odds by 50 percent, an effect comparable to quitting smoking.

So why isn’t everyone blissfully happy? Because when people attempt to follow these scientifically validated prescriptions for well-being, something often goes awry. This is an unsettling truth you may have already noticed. These strategies don’t just fail. Not infrequently they actively backfire, creating the very misery they’re supposed to cure. This isn’t a minor glitch in the happiness manual. It points to fundamental contradictions.

Consider the advice to deepen social connections. Loneliness is a scourge. Research shows it’s as harmful to health as obesity or smoking. Yet for many people, the cure feels worse than the disease.

Example 1: Reaching out to others requires overcoming social anxiety, risking rejection, and navigating the complex choreography of human interaction. Trying to connect can amplify feelings of isolation, i.e., unhappiness.

Example 2: Take the recommendation to practice generosity. Studies show that giving activates reward circuits in the brain and enhances well-being. But generous acts can also trigger new anxieties: Will my donation be used effectively? Am I giving enough? Is my kindness being exploited? The well-documented “warm glow” effect of generosity can be overshadowed by the cold calculus of moral accounting.

Example 3: Even healthy habits—the most straightforward path to well-being—present their own contradictions. Exercise improves mood and cognitive function, yet the prospect of working out can fill people with dread. Proper sleep hygiene enhances emotional regulation, but lying in bed at the prescribed hour often means confronting the thoughts that make sleep elusive.

Most paradoxically, the pursuit of happiness can undermine itself. Multiple psychological studies have documented this “paradox of happiness seeking”: the more directly people chase positive emotions, the more elusive those emotions become. Meditation retreats can feel like emotional boot camps. Gratitude journals can become exercises in forced positivity. The harder we grasp for happiness, the more it slips through our fingers.

These contradictions point to two fundamental paradoxes that are inextricably intertwined: a double helix of confusion this book will explore and attempt to untangle:

The Happiness Paradox Many activities that bring us immediate happiness can lead to long-term suffering.

The Unhappiness Paradox Many life experiences that bring immediate discomfort or suffering can result in long-term growth, achievement, and happiness.

These paradoxes make no intuitive sense. It seems absurd that happiness could lead to unhappiness, or that unhappiness could be a pathway to joy. Our everyday experience tells us this is backwards: like claiming that eating…