Why do people feel that happiness is a luxury? or somehow they don't deserve it?

Question

I was out socializing and I actually hear a person say "some people think they deserve to be happy" and she said it with a really snippy tone. I was shocked at this. Seems to me one of the principles of the Declaration was the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Yet this person made it sound like somehow being happy was being self-indulgent. Why would someone take that attitude? Any ideas?

Answer 1

She's in a bitter place & venting her frustration.  Maybe she lost her job or ended a relationship or just got bad news about her health.  I wouldn't read too much into what a stranger says.  It's probably just a snap shot of their emotions.

Answer 2

I think that happiness is a choice, and I choose it everyday.

Answer 3

Maybe she had a bad childhood...that can s***w anyone up. After a while one might start breaking down and believe, for sake of loneliness, that everyone else has issues they don't want to uncover and that by her being out and about with her anger she's real, which is probably the biggest high she's gotten since before her sad realization that life is worse than death began...or maybe she was joking?

Answer 4

sounds like a very very sad lady with a maddness of being stuck on herself...

Answer 5

They have a condition called anhedonia.  One rejects pleasure and cannot engage in something for the fun of it.  

Answer 6

...her selfishness spoke for her...having a me, myself and i moment...

Answer 7

maybe the guilt of everything bad she's done has eaten at her, making her feel like she doesn't deserve to be.

and that, no one does because we all do bad things.

i'm not sure exactly...

thats how i feel sometimes...

...

but i would never not want anyone to be unhappy.