I have found that happiness seems to be inversely proportional to how much time I spend worrying that I'm acceptable or likeable to others. Got a notion early in life that being liked would involve being the way other people are and trying not to be the way I am and that messed everything up for fifteen years or so. It was the realization that 'as myself I will still be appealing to others' that finally dispelled a ton of anxiety, or at least, seems to be dispelling it.

Sounds trite but there you go.

Anyway, the whole time it felt like being driven to optimize.. the wrong stuff. I now believe that the healthiest way to be always seems easy and happens for free, without willpower. But it requires being able to hear your own intuitive preferences, instead of rationally computing what you think they are from from what others seem to think you should be.