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Happiness and the Primitive Brain

By cartwheel

Posted on February 1, 2025

How to find happiness when our brains naturally want to think negatively. It’s a question i asked a counsellor once.

Our tendency to think negatively is deeply rooted in evolution, psychology, and brain chemistry. This phenomenon, known as negativity bias, evolved as a survival mechanism. Early humans who were more alert to dangers—such as predators, food shortages, or conflicts—were more likely to survive and pass down their genes. As a result, our brains became wired to prioritize negative information over positive experiences. The amygdala, the brain’s fear center, processes negative emotions more intensely and stores them in long-term memory. This is why one criticism sticks with us longer than ten compliments. Additionally, modern society reinforces negativity. The media capitalizes on bad news because our brains react more strongly to potential threats. Social conditioning also plays a role, as many people grow up receiving more criticism than praise, shaping how they perceive the world. Moreover, our minds are problem-solving machines, constantly scanning for issues to fix, making negativity feel more urgent and real than happiness. Negative emotions, such as fear and anxiety, trigger the fight-or-flight response, making them feel more immediate than joy. While negativity is natural, we can counteract it by practicing gratitude, reframing thoughts, and consciously seeking positivity in daily life.

Write an introduction here with no H2 heading is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.

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Contrary to popular belief, Lorem Ipsum is not simply random text. It has roots in a piece of classical Latin literature from 45 BC, making it over 2000 years old. Richard McClintock, a Latin professor at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, looked up one of the more obscure Latin words, consectetur, from a Lorem Ipsum passage, and going through the cites of the word in classical literature, discovered the undoubtable source. Lorem Ipsum comes from sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 of “de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum” (The Extremes of Good and Evil) by Cicero, written in 45 BC. This book is a treatise on the theory of ethics, very popular during the Renaissance. The first line of Lorem Ipsum, “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet..”, comes from a line in section 1.10.32.

The standard chunk of Lorem Ipsum used since the 1500s is reproduced below for those interested. Sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 from “de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum” by Cicero are also reproduced in their exact original form, accompanied by English versions from the 1914 translation by H. Rackham.

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On the Other Hand

Lorem Ipsum is not simply random text. It has roots in a piece of classical Latin literature from 45 BC, making it over 2000 years old. Richard McClintock, a Latin professor at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, looked up one of the more obscure Latin words, consectetur, from a Lorem Ipsum passage, and going through the cites of the word in classical literature, discovered the undoubtable source. Lorem Ipsum comes from sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 of “de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum” (The Extremes of Good and Evil) by Cicero, written in 45 BC. This book is a treatise on the theory of ethics, very popular during the Renaissance. The first line of Lorem Ipsum, “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet..”, comes from a line in section 1.10.32.