WHEN HAPPINESS BECAME A JOB REQUIREMENT, THE SOUL WAS FIRED

The impossible (and necessary) return to human essence inside organizations

WHAT DIED (AND NO ONE DARES NAME)
There is a void living inside organizations.
No one names it.
Everyone feels it.
See the signs:
Satisfaction scores: high
Well-being programs: implemented
Climate surveys: positive
Chief Happiness Officer: hired
And still:
Mental health: in collapse
Turnover: chronic
Cynicism: structural
Meaning: absent
How is this possible?
Simple:
People learned to perform happiness — without feeling it.
Smile in meetings.
Tick “satisfied” in surveys.
Post “gratitude” on corporate LinkedIn.
Meanwhile, underneath, nothing holds.
No authorized anger.
No legitimized sadness.
No named fear.
No possible love.
Only happiness as an unwritten clause in the contract.
Because something died.
Not recently.
It died the moment happiness became a metric.
The moment engagement became a KPI.
The moment purpose became a PowerPoint.
The moment soul became “organizational culture.”
And today?
Today we have organizations that are technically happy — and psychologically sick.
Corporate structures performing meaning.
But soulless.
And when there is no soul, mental health collapses.
Because mental health is not the absence of symptoms.
It is the presence of meaning.
And meaning cannot be implemented.
Meaning is inhabited — or it does not exist.

MOVEMENT 1 — THE FARCE OF MEASURED HAPPINESS
When happiness turned into a dashboard, something died.
Not happiness itself.
But the possibility of feeling it.
Because feeling requires presence.
And presence does not fit on a 1-to-5 scale.
What happened was surgical:
Organizations discovered they could quantify happiness.
When you quantify, you manage.
When you manage, you control.
When you control, you kill.
Today we have organizations with:
“Happiness indices” sky-high
And mental health in collapse
“Engagement” at the top
And generalized anxiety
“Strong culture”
And masked depression
How?
People learned to perform without inhabiting.
They perform engagement — while emotionally exhausted.
They perform purpose — while disconnected from what they feel.
They perform happiness — while their mental health crumbles.
What kills is not the performance itself.
It is that the performance has become THE ACCEPTED REALITY.
No one asks:
“How are you, really?”
Everyone asks:
“Is your satisfaction score above 4?”
And when metrics replace emotional truth, something brutal happens:
Mental health becomes an invisible variable.
You can be:
Anxious — but “engaged”
Depressed — but “satisfied” (on the survey)
Emotionally exhausted — but “performing well”
Organizations celebrate the numbers.
While people, silently, get sick.
Because mental health does not appear on a dashboard.
Mental health appears:
In the trembling hands before the meeting.
In the insomnia no one reports.
In the hidden cry in the restroom.
In the medication that has become routine.
None of that enters the happiness report.
Because organizational happiness measures appearance.
It does not measure soul.

MOVEMENT 2 — WHY GURUS SAVE NO ONE
The organizational-happiness industry has exploded.
New books.
New frameworks.
New “experts” selling the same promise in fresh wrapping.
Nothing changes.
Because gurus sell methodologies.
And methodologies assume the problem is technical.
But the problem is not technical.
It is ontological.
Organizations do NOT need:
❌ A new engagement framework
❌ A new leadership model
❌ Another Chief Happiness Officer certification
❌ More soft-skill training
Organizations need:
✅ The courage to name that they have lost their soul
✅ The honesty to admit they perform purpose
✅ The humility to recognize no consultancy can fix this
And no guru sells that.
Because it is not a six-month program.
It is symbolic death.
And symbolic death does not come in PowerPoint.
It has no ROI.
It has no deliverable.
It has no certificate.
It only has the crossing.
The one that demands:
To die as a corporate structure.
To be reborn as a living organism.
Few have the stomach for it.
So they hire another guru.
Implement another program.
Measure happiness one more time.
And the void remains.
Because existential emptiness is not solved by intervention.
It is solved by transformation.
And transformation cannot be bought.
It is lived — or it is not had.

MOVEMENT 3 — JOY vs. HAPPINESS: THE FATAL DISTINCTION
There are two kinds of energy inside an organization:
Joy — expansion of potency
Sadness — contraction of potency
Organizations believe happiness = joy.
It does not.
Happiness is a fleeting emotional state.
Joy is an increase in the capacity to exist.
See the difference:
Corporate happiness:
Happy hour → you feel good for 2 hours
Bonus → you feel valued for 2 weeks
Promotion → you feel fulfilled for 2 months
Afterwards? Emptiness.
Organizational joy:
A project where you created something unprecedented → permanent expansion
A conflict you crossed and grew from → enlarged potency
A relationship where you were truly seen → enlarged being
That does not pass.
Because it is not a state — it is transformation.
Organizations that offer happiness:
→ People perform while benefits last
Organizations that release joy:
→ People create — because expansion is irreversible
Which one do you have?
If you have happiness programs, you have temporary pleasures.
If you have a structure that allows potency to expand, you have living joy.
Living joy does not need to be measured.
It pulses.
And what pulses does not die.
What is performed dies the instant the performance ends.
That is why organizations are full of “dead happiness.”
The kind that exists only while someone is watching.
The kind that vanishes when the camera turns off.
The kind that sustains nothing — because it is not real.

MOVEMENT 4 — THE RESTLESSNESS NO SALARY CAN SATISFY
There is a hunger no salary can kill.
A restlessness no title can calm.
A desire no benefit can satisfy.
It is the desire for meaning.
And meaning is not given.
Meaning is found.
But only found when there is space to search.
Organizations have eliminated that space.
They fill every minute with:
Meetings.
Targets.
Deliverables.
Performance.
No time left to ask:
“Why am I here?”
“What does this mean?”
“Who am I becoming?”
And when there is no space for the question, there is no answer.
Only restlessness disguised as productivity.
When there is no space to name it, it becomes:
Chronic anxiety.
Persistent insomnia.
Emotional disconnection.
Psychological illness.
Because unrest that is not inhabited corrodes mental health.
Not as “disease.”
As existential erosion.
The feeling that:
“I am here — but I don’t know why.”
“I do everything — but nothing makes sense.”
“I perform well — but I am empty.”
This is not burnout.
It is loss of self.
And loss of self is the root of every psychic sickness.
Organizations think they solve it with:
More benefits.
More recognition.
More well-being programs.
But restlessness is not calmed by things.
It is calmed when you find meaning.
And meaning is not found at happy hour.
Meaning is found when:
You create something that did not exist before.
You cross something that transforms you.
You belong to a narrative larger than yourself.
If your organization does not offer that?
You live in internal exile.
Present in body — absent in soul.
And internal exile, maintained for years, destroys.
Not all at once.
Silently.
Until one day you wake up and realize:
“I no longer know who I am.”

MOVEMENT 5 — CONTRADICTION AS LIFE
Organizations hate contradiction.
They want:
Clarity (no ambiguity)
Alignment (no tension)
Consensus (no conflict)
But life IS contradiction.
Autonomy that needs belonging.
Innovation that needs tradition.
Freedom that needs structure.
When you eliminate contradiction:
You do not “solve the problem.”
You kill the movement.
Because transformation happens through contradiction.
Not in spite of it.
Organizations become obsessed with “alignment”:
“How do we align remote teams?”
“How do we align purpose?”
“How do we align culture?”
Brutal answer: do not align.
Alignment is death by consensus.
Consensus eliminates creative tension.
Without tension there is no synthesis.
Only repetition.
See what happens:
Company identifies “tension between areas.”
Hires consultancy.
Implements “alignment.”
Declares “problem solved.”
Three months later: creative stagnation.
Why?
Because they eliminated productive tension.
Without tension, no movement.
Without movement, no transformation.
Only change disguised as evolution.
Living organizations sustain contradiction:
They allow conflict — without destroying relationship
They authorize divergence — without losing cohesion
They inhabit paradox — without seeking immediate resolution
It is difficult.
That is why it is rare.
That is why it works.
Because life is not either/or.
It is both/and.
Organizations that understand this stop trying to resolve contradiction.
They start to inhabit it.
And when you inhabit contradiction, something emerges:
Creative synthesis.
The kind no strategic plan foresaw.
The kind that only happens when you endure the discomfort of non-resolution.
How many organizations have the stomach for that?
Few.
Most prefer the illusion of clarity.
Even if clarity is death to the living.

MOVEMENT 6 — THE POWER (AND DEATH) OF ORGANIZATIONAL MYTH
Every organization has a founding myth.
Not the mission on the wall.
But the narrative that answers: “Why do we exist?”
That myth can be:
Heroic — “We transform the world”
Mercenary — “We maximize profit”
Survivor — “We haven’t died yet”
And there is a brutal problem:
Most organizations have lost touch with their myth.
Worse: they live a false myth.
See the pattern:
Startup born with heroic myth: “We will democratize X.”
It grows.
Receives investment.
IPO.
Ten years later: mercenary myth disguised as heroic.
“We are transforming the world” (in PowerPoint)
“Maximize shareholder value” (in practice)
Result?
People feel the mythic dissonance.
And mythic dissonance breeds structural cynicism.
Because you cannot inhabit a myth that does not hold.
Myth is not a lie — it is deep truth in narrative form.
But when the narrative is false?
When you say one thing and live another?
You do not have a myth — you have marketing.
Marketing does not sustain meaning.
Marketing sustains illusion.
Until the illusion breaks.
When it breaks, three things happen:
1. Cynicism — “I will never believe again”
2. Internal exile — “I am here, but I do not belong”
3. Search for true myth — “I need a narrative that holds”
When the organizational myth is false, mental health collapses.
Not because people are “weak.”
But because humans cannot live without true narrative.
Living in mythic dissonance — saying one thing, living another — generates:
Anxiety (the body knows something does not add up)
Depression (when hope of meaning dies)
Dissociation (when you disconnect to survive)
Organizations think this is an “individual problem”:
“John is stressed.”
“Mary needs therapy.”
“Paul can’t handle pressure.”
It is not individual.
It is systemic.
When an entire organization lives an existential lie, collective mental health cannot bear it.
The human psyche was not made to fake meaning.
It was made to inhabit meaning.
And when there is no meaning to inhabit?
The mind gets sick.
Not as failure.
As a healthy response to a toxic environment.
So the devastating question:
“What is the living myth of your organization?”
Not what is on the website.
Not what the CEO says.
But what people feel when they wake up for work.
That answer — brutal, honest, naked — reveals whether your organization has a soul.
Or is only a corporate structure performing meaning.

MOVEMENT 7 — BEING-IN-THE-WORLD, CORPORATE VERSION
Organizations do not have people.
Organizations are people.
But this obvious truth has been forgotten.
See what happened:
People became human resources.
Then became talent.
Then became human capital.
Each renaming a more sophisticated objectification.
When you objectify, you dehumanize.
When you dehumanize, being disappears.
But what is “being” inside an organization?
It is not “being employed.”
It is not “having a role.”
It is not “performing well.”
Being is TO INHABIT.
To inhabit means:
To be present — not merely occupying space, but existentially involved
To belong — not by contract, but by affective bond
To co-create — not merely executing, but meaning the work
But look what organizations do:
They eliminate time to inhabit.
Meeting after meeting.
Target after target.
Delivery after delivery.
No non-productive time left.
Without non-productive time, no presence.
Only occupation.
They eliminate space to belong.
Teams reorganized every quarter.
People transferred like pieces.
Bonds cut by “optimization.”
No relational stability left.
Without stability, no roots.
Only passage.
They eliminate the possibility to co-create.
Processes petrified.
Innovation controlled.
“Creativity” inside frameworks.
No ontological freedom left.
Without freedom, no authorship.
Only execution.
Result?
People who are in the company — but do not BE in the company.
And when you do not BE, you survive.
But survival does not generate meaning.
It generates emptiness.
The same emptiness no happiness program can fill.
Because that emptiness is ontological.
And the ontological is only cured by a return to being.
MOVEMENT 8 — ANCIENT WISDOM, URGENT NOW
Before “productivity,” there was rhythm.
Before “targets,” there were cycles.
Before “performance,” there was presence.
The ancients knew:
Humans are not machines.
They need:
Alternation (work / rest)
Not “work-life balance” (a shallow corporate concept).
But respect for natural rhythms:
Expansion and retraction
Doing and non-doing
Producing and contemplating
Modern organizations abolished alternation.
They demand constant speed.
Result?
Psychic illness is not an “individual problem.”
It is a systemic symptom of violated rhythm.
Cycles (growth / consolidation)
Nature grows in cycles.
Spring/summer (expansion)
Autumn/winter (consolidation)
But organizations demand infinite growth.
Quarter after quarter.
Year after year.
No time to consolidate.
Result?
Structural exhaustion.
Innovation without integration.
Change without assimilation.
Sacred pauses (time without function)
The ancients knew:
There is time to do.
And there is time to BE.
And the time to BE does not produce — it regenerates.
Modern organizations criminalized pauses.
“Idle time is waste.”
“Silence is unproductive.”
“Non-doing is laziness.”
Result?
People disconnected from themselves.
Because connection requires silence.
And silence requires non-doing.
And non-doing has become corporate heresy.
What happened?
Organizations desacralized time.
Turned life into productivity.
And productivity without sacrality generates:
Empty efficiency.
Hollow success.
Performed happiness.
But it does not generate meaning.
Because meaning does not come from doing more.
Meaning comes from being present.
And presence cannot be optimized.
Presence is inhabited.

MOVEMENT 9 — THE IMPOSSIBLE (AND NECESSARY) RETURN
So how does an organization return to human essence?
Not with a program.
Not with consultancy.
Not with KPIs.
With ONTOLOGICAL COURAGE.
The courage to:
1. Recognize that something has died
And to name the grief.
No theater.
No makeup.
Just truth:
“We have lost our soul.”
2. Allow non-productive time
Meetings that breathe.
Projects that consolidate.
People who can pause without guilt.
Because presence requires time without function.
3. Authorize feelings (not only happiness)
Anger as information.
Sadness as depth.
Fear as lucidity.
Because humanity is to oscillate — not to stabilize.
4. Build relationships (not only roles)
To see the other in their incompleteness.
To hold uncomfortable silences.
To allow vulnerability without punishment.
Because bonding requires seeing — not merely using.
5. Respect cycles (not demand infinite growth)
Expansion and consolidation.
Innovation and integration.
Doing and being.
Because life is rhythm — not speed.
6. Re-sacralize time
To recognize that:
Not everything is measurable.
Not everything is optimizable.
Not everything has immediate function.
And that what has no function may have the greatest meaning.
Is this possible?

Yes — but rarely.
Because it demands the symbolic death of the organization as it is.
And few have the courage to die.
They prefer to survive empty than to be reborn human.
But those that make this journey discover:
People do not leave — because they are rooted.
Innovation is not forced — because there is creative space.
Crises do not destroy — because there is structural meaning.
And happiness?
Happiness stops being a goal.
It becomes a consequence.
Of being human — in plenitude.

THE FINAL CALL
The question is no longer: “How do we create a happy organization?”
The question is:
“Do you have the courage to die in order to be reborn?”
Because happiness is a symptom — not a solution.
When an organization recovers its soul, happiness emerges.
Not as a program.
As presence.
And presence is not sold.
Presence is inhabited.
So the invitation:
If your organization is still selling happiness, you are late.
The world has already discovered that corporate happiness is theater.
The next territory is:
Return to human essence.
Which means:
Authorize feelings (all of them, not only the positive)
Respect rhythms (not only speed)
Build relationships (not only roles)
Allow being (not only being-there)
Re-sacralize time (not only optimize it)
This does not come in a consultancy package.
It is not implemented in six months.
It is lived — or it is not had.
And when you do not have it, what remains?
Happiness dashboard.
Chief Happiness Officer.
Well-being programs.
While the soul of the organization dies.
The choice is yours:
Keep performing happiness.
Or begin the journey back to humanity.
One of those options has a future.
The other is already over — it just hasn’t noticed yet.

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This text is the fruit of 27 years investigating not only human behavior — but mental health inside and outside organizations.
If you want to go beyond the measurable, the optimizable, the sellable, explore hundreds of articles on my blog about living philosophy, deep cognitive-behavioral development, and conscious human relations:
www.marcellodesouza.com.br
There you will not find happiness à la carte.
You will find questions no one is asking — questions that can return your organization to humanity.