Enrique Rojas, psychiatrist: “Happiness consists of having good health and a bad memory”

Since the dawn of time, certain ideas have occupied the human mind and fueled endless reflection. Politics, metaphysics, the concept of God, and happiness are among the most recurring.

The search for their essence still shapes the thinking of many philosophers today. Of all these topics, happiness may be the one that most often occupies the mind of the average person.

For Aristotle, happiness was rooted in virtue and reason. For Epicurus, it was found in calm pleasure and the absence of pain. The Stoics argued that it lay in freedom from passion, while Nietzsche believed it was achieved through overcoming resistance and increasing one’s power.

According to Enrique Rojas, psychiatrist, emeritus professor at the University of Extremadura, and one of Spain’s leading figures in the field, happiness is simply “having good health and a very bad memory.”

In search of the concept

Several months ago, the expert gave an interview on La Fórmula Podcast, hosted by Mili Hadad, where he emphasized the idea that happiness is another way of interpreting the world and one’s personal experiences. In other words, he rejects the notion that happiness comes from the accumulation of pleasures, as many people might believe. Instead, he argues that in this process, the ability to forget plays a crucial role.

According to Rojas, happiness requires two basic pillars to remain stable: a balanced personality, which he describes as “the gateway to the castle of happiness,” and a life project. This life project, he says, should be built on love, friendship, work, and culture. In this sense, happiness is not a final destination but a dynamic and imperfect balance.

To avoid confusion, he distinguishes between momentary happiness and structural happiness. Momentary happiness consists of specific moments of pleasure, the true “pleasures of life.” Structural happiness, which he considers the most important, is a life balance. It is the personal evaluation each individual makes of the four elements that shape their life project.

The importance of forgetting

Regarding memory, Rojas explains that the mind itself tends to forget negative experiences as a protective mechanism. As a result, memory, if poorly managed, can become a source of suffering.

In this sense, he stresses that remembering requires an active effort that can even become pathological if it focuses excessively on negative experiences. Memory stores not only events but also sensations. When these sensations are stored in a chaotic way in the brain, they can ultimately affect mental well-being.

For this reason, he insists that forgetting is not a bad thing. In fact, it can be beneficial. The goal is not to deny reality, but to ensure that negative experiences do not occupy too much space in the mind and become toxic and harmful.