Paradise Syndrome: Why Should We Cry for the Happiness of the Rich?

You'd say they were born to be winners. Luck is on their side. Fate smiles on them. Life has always been generous with them. They have beauty. Potential. They have enough money not to get a bad heart because of them. And the money goes to those who have it and know how to make it. They have love. Famous partners, in turn, are privileged of fate.

Beautiful housewives. Luxury and houses. A life that many of us do not reach even in the most beautiful dreams. They have everything they need, even more, to be happy. They have fulfilled all their ambitions. He possessed all the things he dreamed of. And what do they do? They are unhappy. They have time and they can afford not to be happy.

Why would I sympathize with them and not envy those who seem to have everything? Why should we complain to those who have what we do not have? Why would I pity Amy Winehouse for wasting her talent in the rudest way of those who appreciated her?

Why would we care that Britney Spears, who seemed to have it all, is complaining about her unhappiness in alcohol and drugs? Because even the rich and fulfilled are unhappy. Because we who do not have them and long for them do not understand that money does not bring happiness.

Because even they, those who have them in excess, do not understand. Because even those who have everything suffer after a lost paradise. He suffers from Paradise Syndrome, a syndrome first described by Rachel Norman in 1966, although not officially recognized by all psychologists.

"Paradise Syndrome" is a term used by some psychologists culturally and refers to the condition of those people who are dissatisfied with themselves, their marriage, their lives even if they seem to have fulfilled all their dreams, all their desires, although they seem to have gotten everything they wanted, even though they seem to have all the things they aspired to.

However, this syndrome reflects a very real and painful experience, says Professor Yong Wah Goh, a lecturer in psychology at the University of Queensland.

"We are trapped in a narcissistic era that causes us to always correct and regulate our benchmarks so that too much is never enough. People who have high, unrealistic expectations will never be satisfied, the gate in which they must mark their success will always change their location. The world today is in such a way that it seems to support the development of a narcissistic attitude ", adds the professor.

Goh gives the example of two other celebrities who seem to suffer from this paradise syndrome: Madonna and Victoria Beckham and believes that these people put themselves and their desires before everyone else.

At the same time, I perceive those around me as people who can be supported and who can make them feel better. "Paradise Syndrome is a consequence of having too many expectations of yourself … and of being unable to let your mind relax."

Kim Serafini, the author of "I Am Gr8ful for Life," believes that this state of dissatisfaction, sadness, and frustration of those who should not have this condition is also because many of us are attached to a certain role that is attributed to us and we define ourselves through it.

Some perceive themselves through the role of mother, others through the role of star, etc. Many perceive themselves through what they do, not what they are. When they fulfill this role, they are happy, radiant, and feel great in their skin, in the role they play, in what they think they are, in the manifestation of what they think represents them best.

When they are forced to play another role, they feel physically and mentally ill, unwell, useless, torn from their role and their true identity. They look at their own lives with dissatisfaction and dissatisfaction, they become apathetic, sad, and disinterested, shy spectators who do not dare to take an attitude towards their own lives and seek refuge in various things, vices, or habits, sometimes self-destructive.

Serafini compares this syndrome with leisure syndrome, a controversial syndrome among medical experts and attributed to anxiety, cessation of caffeine consumption, etc.

The moment you stop doing something that you thought you were doing well and that you identify with, you lose your self-confidence, you stop feeling good mentally, you start to feel depressed and unhappy mentally and you can even feel bad and at the physical level. At that moment the rich man becomes poor.