Psychologist and writer Gabriel Rolón has once again put his finger on the sore spot. In an interview that is already generating controversy, the author of Happiness in the Age of Likes fired against the idea that happiness is achieved through magic formulas or by waiting for the perfect moment. According to Rolón, the problem is that many people place their well-being in an idealized past or an uncertain future, forgetting the present.
«Sometimes one wishes more to have been happy than to be happy. One wishes more to be happy later, to achieve happiness, than to be happy right now where they are,» stated the specialist, known for his best-selling books and media appearances.
During the conversation, Rolón explained that memories are not photocopies of reality but go through an emotional «editing» process. «Memory is a very particular and enigmatic place, because it is where we keep the things we have lost so that death does not take them away forever,» he reflected.
In that sense, he compared memory to an emotional «photoshop»: «We end up transforming our parents who are no longer here into people perhaps nobler than they were, more generous, stronger, more sensitive.» He also argued that childhood often becomes, over time, a territory embellished by nostalgia.
But the psychologist was blunt in warning about the danger of getting trapped in that idealization. «Perhaps many past moments were happy. But they were precisely that. And what was is already lost,» he stated. However, he clarified that this does not mean denying the value of memories: «Of course it matters, because ultimately it is what I am.»
In one part of the interview, Rolón revisited a phrase linked to Jean-Paul Sartre’s thought: «We are what we do with what they made of us.» And he emphasized that, although the past shapes identity, the possibility of being happy is played out in the present.
«The one who can be happy today is the one who got excited at five with his first guitar, at 12 when he went to live with his dad in the countryside for two years, at 18 when he started his first university degree. All of that matters, because it built who you are. But how much of that would I trade today for a present happiness? And I think almost everything,» he concluded.
Rolón’s statements come at a time when the self-help industry and happiness gurus are booming. The psychologist, true to his style, held nothing back and once again put an uncomfortable discussion on the table: Are we more concerned with appearing happy than with actually being happy?
para mi este rolon es un vendido de mierda habla de felicidad mientras los laburantes nos rompemos el lomo y no llegamos a fin de mes todo bien para los chetos que viven de hacerse los filosofos un asco loco abrazo de piedra a los que la bancan
Para mí este Rolón es un zurdo de mierda que romantiza la infelicidad. La felicidad no es nostalgia, es dejar de llorar por el pasado y poner huevos. Argentina necesita orden, no psicólogos chantas. ¡Viva la libertad, carajo!