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I've said, "money can't buy you happiness, but just try being happy if you don't have enough of it." The studies I've seen in popular articles in recent times say that money DOES buy happiness up to a certain point. That figure varies, but essentially when you have enough to feel secure and comfortable. It was a very "upper middle class" figure that at the national average sat in the low six figures in today's dollars. But of course, six figures annual is a different situation in cities on the West Coast, or in New York, compared to Kansas or Missouri.
Whatever it takes so that you don't have stress coming from your budget, is the threshold.
Past that, going up into the higher tiers of wealth, money can actually make you more stressed and less happy. Kinda suggests that maybe all of the "tax the rich" talk could be framed as let's liberate those billionaires from their problems, huh? lol
But lack of love is such a broad concept. I don't think that lack of a romantic or sexual relationship is the whole concept, if it were then we could dismiss it as being a problem for some but not most adults. But if you expand it to mean a lack of healthy love, especially rooted in how we grew up in our families and learned to see, receive, give love, the personal issues that cause us to lack love for ourselves, or that place barriers between us and having healthy love for others, whether that is our family members, friends, partners, even God (for some, as I can't deny the importance of faith for many people.)
THAT can be a whole lifelong mental health struggle right there.
Ultimately we are social animals, and we don't thrive in isolation. That, I think, is the bottom line.
But if you expand it to mean a lack of healthy love, especially rooted in how we grew up in our families and learned to see, receive, give love, the personal issues that cause us to lack love for ourselves, or that place barriers between us and having healthy love for others, whether that is our family members, friends, partners, even God (for some, as I can't deny the importance of faith for many people.)
It's interest that you mentioned this. Given how I saw my family, both immediate and extended, interact with each other, I viewed relationships (and my extension, marriages) strictly as something people do to comply with social norm of being paired up; no more, no less. "Attraction", "happiness", and what-have-you were barely blips on the radar, if not outright irrelevant.
So when I found my first girlfriend, and found myself highly dissatisfied with her since day one (due to my lack of attraction to her and our almost-total lack of shared interests), I viewed that as the norm. So I put up with all that and stayed with her, resigning myself to a joyless relationship, and hoping to make the relationship work. It kind of did: it lasted long enough for me to get my first kiss and get to come with a date to the fall dance my college hosted. But we fell apart shortly into the next semester.
Last edited by MillennialUrbanist; 11-03-2021 at 07:32 PM..
Short answer, it's not. People manage to have productive lives, hobbies, entertainment, and success in life despite am absence of love from family or friends or a lover. Love is an added bonus, but you have to give it to get it in most cases, with family, friends, a spouse. Also you have to recognize it and do what is necessary to keep it alive or it withers and dies.
It's interest that you mentioned this. Given how I saw my family, both immediate and extended, interact with each other, I viewed relationships (and my extension, marriages) strictly as something people do to comply with social norm of being paired up; no more, no less. "Attraction", "happiness", and what-have-you were barely blips on the radar, if not outright irrelevant.
So when I found my first girlfriend, and found myself highly dissatisfied with her since day one (due to my lack of attraction to her and our almost-total lack of shared interests), I viewed that as the norm. So I put up with all that and stayed with her, resigning myself to a joyless relationship, and hoping to make the relationship work. It kind of did: it lasted long enough for me to get my first kiss and get to come with a date to the fall dance my college hosted. But we fell apart shortly into the next semester.
I cannot emphasize enough, that what we believe in, what we look for, is what we tend to find. Underneath it all, we want the reality we learned as kids, to be confirmed as correct, to be highlighted and underscored and checked and affirmed over and over. To a point where we can reject anything that does not conform to it, without knowing why, and twist things until they fit.
I STILL, even after freaking years of trying to work on becoming more enlightened about my own programming and trying to understand the ways I get in my own way, I still will have to catch and correct myself in this.
Which is...frustrating, at times.
Sometimes I go back and read my own posts here with an attempt at a critical eye and I catch myself in this business of affirming these deep family-programmed beliefs. "No one will ever take care of me, I have to do all the work, wahh, wah, wah." Uh huh. Yeah, so hello there girlie, (talking to my inner idiot) the times you rejected someone because they did things for you and you didn't feel secure that you were doing enough to earn it, and you were keeping score and feeling scared by the care that they offered? Yeah, what about that, huh? You just weren't "attracted" in the right way to that person? Really, is that it? Or is it that he bucked the narrative you've been living your entire life and that was super uncomfortable? Hmmm? It's like, you can dream of what a relationship might be and talk about what you wish so badly to experience, but the minute it shows up and it contradicts that narrative you learned in your youth, will you run the other direction? I have. And then conveniently, like, forget it happened, when I talk about "always" this and "never" that in my head, and also here. Sheesh...silly, isn't it?
I mean, I've got enough of a sense of humor about this, I'm not beating myself up. But a salty old man from New Jersey who was school psychologist to me and all the other degenerates in my northern Virginia 1990s high school, once said, "You are lying. Lie to me all you want. But do NOT lie to yourself."
And those words have stuck with me. So I've tried to learn how to be more honest with myself. Which...*sigh*...is a process.
Or you can recognize the disfunction you grew up with and choose to do the opposite, not repeat the same mistakes others made. On the other hand you may repeat those things you tended to see as not mistakes, but as things to emulate.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sonic_Spork
I cannot emphasize enough, that what we believe in, what we look for, is what we tend to find. Underneath it all, we want the reality we learned as kids, to be confirmed as correct, to be highlighted and underscored and checked and affirmed over and over. To a point where we can reject anything that does not conform to it, without knowing why, and twist things until they fit.
I STILL, even after freaking years of trying to work on becoming more enlightened about my own programming and trying to understand the ways I get in my own way, I still will have to catch and correct myself in this.
Which is...frustrating, at times.
Sometimes I go back and read my own posts here with an attempt at a critical eye and I catch myself in this business of affirming these deep family-programmed beliefs. "No one will ever take care of me, I have to do all the work, wahh, wah, wah." Uh huh. Yeah, so hello there girlie, (talking to my inner idiot) the times you rejected someone because they did things for you and you didn't feel secure that you were doing enough to earn it, and you were keeping score and feeling scared by the care that they offered? Yeah, what about that, huh? You just weren't "attracted" in the right way to that person? Really, is that it? Or is it that he bucked the narrative you've been living your entire life and that was super uncomfortable? Hmmm? It's like, you can dream of what a relationship might be and talk about what you wish so badly to experience, but the minute it shows up and it contradicts that narrative you learned in your youth, will you run the other direction? I have. And then conveniently, like, forget it happened, when I talk about "always" this and "never" that in my head, and also here. Sheesh...silly, isn't it?
I mean, I've got enough of a sense of humor about this, I'm not beating myself up. But a salty old man from New Jersey who was school psychologist to me and all the other degenerates in my northern Virginia 1990s high school, once said, "You are lying. Lie to me all you want. But do NOT lie to yourself."
And those words have stuck with me. So I've tried to learn how to be more honest with myself. Which...*sigh*...is a process.
Or you can recognize the disfunction you grew up with and choose to do the opposite, not repeat the same mistakes others made. On the other hand you may repeat those things you tended to see as not mistakes, but as things to emulate.
It is not a matter of repeating the mistakes others made, or emulating anything.
It's a matter of the role I got cast in as a child (taking care of other people and not receiving the care a child SHOULD receive from adults) and letting myself become a martyr in adulthood because receiving care feels awkward and scary. It's not the way my child brain learned that the WORLD works.
My husband, who loves these philosophical bumper sticker sayings, says that I must work on being "willing to receive." Say it out loud to the universe even, "I am willing to receive."
But the flip side of this, is if I fight through my discomfort to ask for something that I want from someone close to me, if they don't give it, then I feel deeply betrayed in having hope, and like it is just another "always this, never that" of someone letting me down again. And I shoulda never expected anything from anyone, should just do it all myself, then I wouldn't feel this way... Etc.
Frankly though, given the ways I've watched this manifest in other people around me, just the fact that I can RECOGNIZE the thought patterns for what they are, and stop, and point to them, be clear with myself that I am setting up the same old dominos to fall yet again, well, I think that's some kind of progress. And especially being able to recognize, remember, and appreciate it when people actually did show up for me, rather than conveniently sweeping those instances under the mental rug because they disprove my inner narrative.
I would say it's more the feeling of humiliation that comes with rejection and not attaining a relationship, marriage, etc that is the cause of people's problems.
A person would be considered a failure, weird, gay, incel, etc if he/she can't procure an adult relationship. It is more intense on a male than a female (imo).
For some people this is true, for other people it's not. I guess a person's self image may be the over riding factor.
My parents split up when I was 5. My mother married and divorced twice more before I left home to be on my own. I didn't want to repeat that so I've been married for 48 years. I married for love and we both worked hard to keep it alive all this time. Lots of arguments and good times and bad, but like the song said "Love will keep us together".
My mother was the type of person that you were either with her or against her. She couldn't take any criticism, saw it as a betrayal. When things blew up as they inevitably did she packed her bags and took me with her.
I learned to stick it out to get what I wanted. Not to hold onto resentments but to clear the air. Learned to fight and resolve issues rather than run away. On the other hand my mother was pretty fearless. She didn't hesitate to pick up stakes and start over somewhere else with nothing. So I learned courage and fearlessness from her as well.
A book that really changed the way I dealt with people was "When I Say No I Feel Guilty" by Manuel J Smith. It taught me to be assertive rather than emotional in dealing with people. To stand up for myself and allow others to do the same, without playing games with them or allowing them to play games with me. It worked for me with relatives, co-workers, bosses and neighbors. I was able to turn those relationships around from people trying to get over on me to respecting me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sonic_Spork
It is not a matter of repeating the mistakes others made, or emulating anything.
It's a matter of the role I got cast in as a child (taking care of other people and not receiving the care a child SHOULD receive from adults) and letting myself become a martyr in adulthood because receiving care feels awkward and scary. It's not the way my child brain learned that the WORLD works.
My husband, who loves these philosophical bumper sticker sayings, says that I must work on being "willing to receive." Say it out loud to the universe even, "I am willing to receive."
But the flip side of this, is if I fight through my discomfort to ask for something that I want from someone close to me, if they don't give it, then I feel deeply betrayed in having hope, and like it is just another "always this, never that" of someone letting me down again. And I shoulda never expected anything from anyone, should just do it all myself, then I wouldn't feel this way... Etc.
Frankly though, given the ways I've watched this manifest in other people around me, just the fact that I can RECOGNIZE the thought patterns for what they are, and stop, and point to them, be clear with myself that I am setting up the same old dominos to fall yet again, well, I think that's some kind of progress. And especially being able to recognize, remember, and appreciate it when people actually did show up for me, rather than conveniently sweeping those instances under the mental rug because they disprove my inner narrative.
I would say it's more the feeling of humiliation that comes with rejection and not attaining a relationship, marriage, etc that is the cause of people's problems.
A person would be considered a failure, weird, gay, incel, etc if he/she can't procure an adult relationship. It is more intense on a male than a female (imo).
It's called the mating game for a reason. Rejection is normal but so is success. Creating relationships is a matter of salesmanship. A salesman knows he has to sell himself before he can sell a product. Like any other skill it takes practice.
For some people this is true, for other people it's not. I guess a person's self image may be the over riding factor.
My parents split up when I was 5. My mother married and divorced twice more before I left home to be on my own. I didn't want to repeat that so I've been married for 48 years. I married for love and we both worked hard to keep it alive all this time. Lots of arguments and good times and bad, but like the song said "Love will keep us together".
My mother was the type of person that you were either with her or against her. She couldn't take any criticism, saw it as a betrayal. When things blew up as they inevitably did she packed her bags and took me with her.
I learned to stick it out to get what I wanted. Not to hold onto resentments but to clear the air. Learned to fight and resolve issues rather than run away. On the other hand my mother was pretty fearless. She didn't hesitate to pick up stakes and start over somewhere else with nothing. So I learned courage and fearlessness from her as well.
A book that really changed the way I dealt with people was "When I Say No I Feel Guilty" by Manuel J Smith. It taught me to be assertive rather than emotional in dealing with people. To stand up for myself and allow others to do the same, without playing games with them or allowing them to play games with me. It worked for me with relatives, co-workers, bosses and neighbors. I was able to turn those relationships around from people trying to get over on me to respecting me.
You have a great philosophy and life skills, good for you. But what do you do while you are assertive the other person gets all emotional - angry, aggressive, mean and resistant - all bad stuff?
To respond to the OP, love is not enough and is not and not even the most important in having a good life.
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