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I don't know if this should be in the Psych forum but I would like to post this here because I think age gives us a certain perspective that is more interesting to me. We have more to look back on as well as years yet to live which is informed by our experience in the past.
I think we can all agree happiness is fleeting. We may be elated about an upcoming vacation, have a great time, return and our happiness index falls back in place in time until the next something happens. Maybe we all live on a small bubble of happiness every day which takes us through our daily like.
But do we make a conscious choice to be happy, think happy thoughts?
What about when there is strife? Your daughter blames you for a bad childhood, your parenting skills when you did the best you knew how?
What about when a friend suddenly stops being a friend and simple leaves your life?
And what about, and this is really the worst of all, when you are haunted by doubt and guilt that maybe you did do some bad parenting back then, maybe you offended your friend, or maybe you think of your Mom and how you failed her for some reason?
Guilt and regret, the worst feelings that can deflate that bubble of happiness leaving you wide awake at night. How do you choose happiness then?
What do you think?
Absolutely we do! We choose whether to see the glass half-full / half-empty, whether to take risks even though we're scared, how we interpret our day to day life experiences, and whether we look forward rather than backward.
Maybe if you can stop pretending you are seeking contentment then you will have nirvana. Your post reeks non-contentment to me. Taking stab at other people who disagree with you is not contentment.
That falls into the category of choosing how to interpret day to day events. Some people find humour in everything, others seek an egocentric meaning - usually negative.
You can choose to be happy or be a mean old cranky pants magoo. Life is all about choices. They're yours to take or not take.
Last year, I decided that I wanted to be happy. I was miserable doing things because people demanded them of me. I said no more! I really put my foot down....took a lot of crap from people. I did some other things that I had been wanting to do. I am now in control of my life and my own happiness. If cutting off my foot makes me miserable, I don't do it. If it makes me happy, then I do it.
Life is far too short to be miserable or a mean old cranky pants magoo!
I suffer from feelings of inadequacy, boredom and frustration.
Admitting that I am indeed inadequate at somethings, while improving on what i can helps
Detaching my self from my ambitions and desires helps a lot
Deciding to not care about things i have no power over helped a lot
But none of these are "fo sho" cures. The feelings/desires still exist, and probably always will.
There seems to be no cure to my boredom, i feel like i have no meaningful purpose, or none at all
Status:
"81 Years, NOT 91 Felonies"
(set 26 days ago)
Location: Dallas, TX
5,790 posts, read 3,597,197 times
Reputation: 5696
Happiness is a choice" comes from people who assume people can switch their emotions of and on like a switch. Same assumption about intrusive memories. Frankly, I find this a case of people in more fortunate positions talking down to someone in a less fortunate position, which is unintentionally condescending at best or callously inconsiderate at worst.
If happiness were a choice, then we all should be content even when living in the most extreme poverty. People wouldn't be emotionally dissatisfied at all were they to live in dangerously substandard housing (if not homeless), poor quality nutrition, severely limited mobility or cognitive functions, and so forth. Thus, anybody in this situation should be happy and content if they are in it. No motivation to even seek out help to escape these conditions, let alone exert yourself to climb up from such circumstances, or even exert yourself to avoid such circumstances.
We also should say "don't worry, be happy" is appropriate advice for victims of domestic violence and other violent crimes. Same for non-violent "white collar crimes" of all other sorts. This even goes for acts that are not illegal but certainly immoral - like someone berating, yelling at, or insulting you; or some neighbor playing loud annoying music at 2am Wednesday. How anyone can say "Happiness is a choice" yet insist people subjected to all this is blameworthy obviously has no clue as to what this is like.
We also should be happy even were our government overthrown and replaced with a dictatorship, one that completely abolished every civil liberty and every amendment in the Bill of Rights. Successfully nullifying and voiding the First, Second, and all other amendments should be irrelevant to our happiness. I can't imagine anyone on this thread willing to tolerate these kinds of acts, let alone blame people who love freedom for being unhappy in such circumstances. Yet, blaming the people of North Korea, China, Cuba, Russia, etc for their own unhappiness about living under such governments is precisely what we must concede is the correct stance IF we are to say happiness is a choice.
As such, I find the "happiness is a choice" meme not only hypocritical, but very harmful (even dangerous) to people who are not happy or content for one reason or another. As said at the start, it's basically people at the top (emotionally speaking) assuming that "If I'm like that, then they should be too" - fully forgetting that maybe they got lucky. This is especially true of people who are like the old saying "born on third and think they hit a triple". And that is why I do not take seriously the idea "happiness is a choice".
From what I have read about the subject, happiness (the general positive or negative feelings a person experiences) is largely genetic. Extroverted people tend to experience more positive feelings than others and neurotic people tend to experience more negative feelings.
That said, we do have some control over how neurotic we are. I found that 'positive thinking' helped me to become more neutral/content in my thoughts and feelings.
I suffer from feelings of inadequacy, boredom and frustration.
Admitting that I am indeed inadequate at somethings, while improving on what i can helps
Detaching my self from my ambitions and desires helps a lot
Deciding to not care about things i have no power over helped a lot
But none of these are "fo sho" cures. The feelings/desires still exist, and probably always will.
There seems to be no cure to my boredom, i feel like i have no meaningful purpose, or none at all
How did you choose your User Name - just curious?
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