Health, money and love. Three constants that have historically shaped and conditioned happiness. However, there are psychological programs of study that dismantle the virtues of this alleged trinomial of plenitude in the face of a parameter that occurs in all cultures, societies and times: the positive attitude towards circumstances, whether of pain or happiness. Dr. Fernando Sarráis, graduate in Psychology and specialist in Psychiatry of the Clínica Universidad de Navarra and professor of Psychopathology of the Education and Social Psychology at the University of Navarra, dissects in his new book this parameter of happiness, whose secret, as simple as it is complex, lies within people, in psychological maturity. "You can be physically very adult but be like children inside, very immature," he assures. "Psychological Maturity and Happiness" (EUNSA) reminds us that the path to fulfillment also lies in knowing how to suffer.

Are psychological maturity and happiness synonymous?

The book gives clues as to what maturity is and what is the reason for immaturity, knowing that mature people are much more likely to be happy. The immature, which is a vulgar language word, have been technically called neurotic. In personality researchers there is an almost universal personality dimension that all people have, a bipolar dimension: it has a positive part, which is self-control, and a negative part, which is neuroticism. Neuroticism is characterized by having negative emotions, very constant and very intense. And negative emotions are those that dominate in neurotic people, that is to say, immature.

Education hypertrophied

And the underlying problem is that we live in an essentially immature and therefore neurotic society?

Yes, it is a society that gives priority to pleasure. And pleasure is to feel good in order not to feel bad, so that what is important is feeling, affectivity, not reason and will. When we hypertrophy our children so that they do not suffer, so that they do not feel bad, the most probable thing is that we generate in them the fear of suffering. And the only way to remove the fear of things that make us suffer is to suffer them. If a person gets used to avoid the negative emotions produced by the world since childhood, as an adult it is much more difficult to learn it. Right now in psychology there is a term imported from English that is very fashionable: "resilience" or "resilience", that is to say, to be resistant and strong, to endure the impact of the negative. In the search for happiness, in self-control, there is a positive psychology that was founded in 1999 by an American from Pennsylvania, Martin Seligman.

And what are the keys to this positive psychology?

Seligman tries to teach people to think, imagine, feel, perceive, remember and behave positively. If someone gets violent, they can vent their anger, but deep down they are going to feel bad. Because nobody feels good when they've behaved badly. So it's about doing positive things that make us feel good in the short and long term deadline. Thinking positive is always going to make me feel good. And knowing that the world, when it is negative, is going to bring up negative thoughts, we must make the effort to think positive. It is really what the saying goes: put a good face on bad weather.

Knowing how to suffer

So you have to learn to suffer

Yes, we must learn to suffer with good humor, with peace and joy. Babies, when they are hungry or dirty, cry. What you have to learn, when you are an adult, is to be happy when you are hungry and dirty. Admirable people suffer and will never tell you that they have borne that suffering well. It would be vain and proud. They will tell you, "I have done what I could".

So maturity is sample especially in adverse situations. Because you say in the book that seemingly mature people, they break down when something goes wrong.

Maturity and immaturity have Degrees. A person who is tremendously immature is always and everywhere immature. A person with a certain Degree of maturity, has it in positive situations. When is grade if the maturity is only superficial or deep? When the world is hard and difficult, when it causes suffering. True maturity emerges in difficulties. And deep down, maturity has to do with freedom. The mature being is freer internally. The immature one is only externally, superficially, epidermally. The inner freedom consists of dominating from the will the psychic functions: imagination, report, perception, thought and affectivity. True freedom is inner freedom.

Not what I want to be, but how I want to be

What is the place of Education in the training of a mature personality? You say in the book that children are asked what they want to be, but not how they want to be.

Of course. In the high school and in the university there are many hours dedicated to learn the different subjects of knowledge, but it is not taught since childhood to remove the fears, the embarrassments, to have security, confidence, self-esteem... It is not taught to control emotions. There are young people who smoke their first joint so as not to be labeled as cowards by the rest of their friends. They act out of fear. And you can't wait for something to happen and for the fear to pass. You have to work on it day by day because if you wait 10 years, that fear will be much more deeply rooted and will be more difficult to eliminate.