Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
1. I am happy and thankful for certain things - though it may only be temporary. And it's all good.
2. And other things I am not happy with - but those are nothing huge. Hey don't involve terminal illness, death, or tragedy.
But even if I am content, rarely am I ever really "excited" about much. So, I rarely have the "I'm just so happy" feels. lol
How many people are running around saying, "If only I had ___, I'd finally be happy..."
They get the ___.
Then, "If only I had ___ number two, I'd finally be happy..."
They get the ___ number two.
And this cycle keeps going?
How many of you are instead like, "Hyuck, welp, I'm just happy. :-P"
?
Yeah - I think this is common - basing happiness contingent upon acquiring something, whether it be materialistic or a certain job, result, anything. But I think it’s the surest way of not being happy (but rather a feeling of being shortchanged)when something doesn’t pan out as you had hoped.
I think happiness comes from a place of gratitude.
I'm a firm believer in happiness as a process, rather than some goal you could achieve if only <insert as appropriate>.
Bettany Hughes did a documentary on Nietzsche, which I think can still be found on BBC website. There, Dr Manuel Dries talked about Nietzschean concept of Ãœbermensch and what it means to be happy as a consequence of that state.
Dr Dies said (though, I'm not quoting him literally) that we tend to view happiness "in opposition to pain, exertion, suffering." To Nietzsche, or more specifically to Ãœbermensch, "happiness is the striving toward something", overcoming obstacles that prevent you from achieving those goals - that is part of achieving happiness. And as the saying goes that there is 'no pleasure without pain' so does pain become almost "an enabling condition for achieving happiness." I very strongly identify with this position.
I believe people look for things and others to make them feel happy, but it will only be obtained from the inside when they are happy with themselves.
Times are getting worse due to social media. People are portraying the happy life for everyone to see, but they are silently suffering waiting on the next like or happy comment for temporary gratification.
I believe happiness is MOSTLY a choice, barring stuff like severe depression, terrible physical health problems and extreme poverty. Once you have the basics in terms of income, good physical and mental health, shelter and food, happiness is entirely the individual's responsibility. I have decent health, mental illness issues that are largely controlled, a work-in-progress house and a decent paycheck. But beyond that, I have a ton of close friendships that I am always adding to and working hard to maintain. I have hobbies that I participate in and groups that I have joined. It's been a lot of work to build a happy life, and honestly, sometimes it's exhausting. But OMG, I love it.
I moved away from my hometown and many beloved friends and relatives - I was happy, but I just felt there was something missing. So I started over. I left behind a lot of people I care about (and remain close to despite the distance), but I also left behind a lot of emotional baggage that had to do with my upbringing. I'm kind of at peak happiness these days.
I didn't have to acquire anything, but to make that final push towards true happiness, I had to separate myself from some of the more painful aspects of my history.
I believe happiness is MOSTLY a choice, barring stuff like severe depression, terrible physical health problems and extreme poverty. Once you have the basics in terms of income, good physical and mental health, shelter and food, happiness is entirely the individual's responsibility. I have decent health, mental illness issues that are largely controlled, a work-in-progress house and a decent paycheck. But beyond that, I have a ton of close friendships that I am always adding to and working hard to maintain. I have hobbies that I participate in and groups that I have joined. It's been a lot of work to build a happy life, and honestly, sometimes it's exhausting. But OMG, I love it.
I moved away from my hometown and many beloved friends and relatives - I was happy, but I just felt there was something missing. So I started over. I left behind a lot of people I care about (and remain close to despite the distance), but I also left behind a lot of emotional baggage that had to do with my upbringing. I'm kind of at peak happiness these days.
I didn't have to acquire anything, but to make that final push towards true happiness, I had to separate myself from some of the more painful aspects of my history.
A lot of this resonates for me.
I think that a lot of a person's core beliefs and overall mindset makes a tremendous difference between happiness and misery. To the OP, my ex was one of those "When I get X, then I'll be happy" but he was literally never happy. I'm more the "My happiness comes from inside of me and it is my responsibility" sort. But it's also a matter of core beliefs. I believe that striving for happiness and having experiences and all, is the point of life. That life itself is a gift, and being miserable is sorta wasting it. My ex believes that life is about suffering all of the hardships one inevitably gets hit with, that your happiness is not anything you have any control over, life will just hit you with bad after bad, everyone will betray you, nothing you can do about it but just survive. He works awful hard at dodging responsibility for outcomes in his own life. Yet he does not believe he does this, and he accuses others of it. I think that my happiness has always made him angry, on some level. I sometimes feel he had need to MAKE me suffer so I'd come to agree that his worldview was correct. I often felt that his determination to suffer, was a betrayal of me and more significantly our sons. How the hell can you want to have kids when you believe that life is so terrible? And this was profoundly confirmed for me when we had "made it"...we had a nice house, he didn't even have to work if he didn't want to, our debt was paid off...and he went completely off the rails and was more explosively miserable than ever.
That's the thing about being the first way, the whole "when I get X, I'll be happy." What do you do, when your external situation is actually really good, when you have no REASON to be miserable and yet you still are? In the absence of crisis, he became the crisis.
Now I do believe this is some kind of mental illness. But he was not willing to get help, and if a person is angrily insistent that there's nothing wrong with them, it's the rest of the world that is "effed up" and they refuse to try and fix a thing about their own mind, then there's just nothing anyone can do about that, other than escape. He took that first mentality described in the OP, to a very extreme place.
I much prefer to be the second mindset, though the OP tried to make it sound delusional and stupid, "Hyuck, whelp"...whatever that was about. MY world doesn't suck. Even when I've been in extreme poverty, which I have, I was still in the game, still breathing. And I figure if I die, I won't care. I'll be dead. So I may as well be grateful for whatever I've got, whether it is a little or a lot, and get on with things. I've got dreams, goals and ambitions, but I'm just fine no matter if I accomplish them or not. I figure part of this is that I was raised to understand gratitude.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
