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I think that you Thom are one of the most impressive Christians I know and Woodrow is one of the most impressive Muslims. You are a refreshing change from trying to talk to people apparently with two brain cells rotating in an infinite space.
Thom is quite right. Happiness is a blunderbuss term. Rather like 'Love' really. Babies can chuckle when you lift them up. Simple sort of life really. Happiness is a solving of a knotty problem, getting a CD of a long - lost Schubert symphony, getting the bread to turn out just right.
It is also a more long - term thing like making the most of what you have and trying to get what you haven't and accepting it cheerfully if you can't.
I have to say, Woodrow, that while it is a relief, not to say happiness, to get away from demands (like doing my tax form - it's like an emotional warm bath when I finally get the damn' thing done) and not have to bother about anything (you'd have made a great monk), I have experienced times or affluence and times of poverty (thanks to the banks and the blasted politicians, I am going through one right now) and I can tell you which I prefer. It would be very nice to get on a plane and go to look around the Mayan temples, but I can't afford it right now. Fact is that, if I could I would actually be a bit happier. Not being able to do things I want to is an annoyance.
I believe happiness is avoiding that which causes us to be unhappy. I believe all creatures are born happy and start life happy, but through experience we tend to learn unhappiness. Often it is the very things we think bring happiness.
Happiness can be relative.
Even though the cellar is being pumped out, happiness yesterday and today is not having had the power go out and only having water in the cellar.
Happiness can be relative.
Even though the cellar is being pumped out, happiness yesterday and today is not having had the power go out and only having water in the cellar.
Micawber is known for asserting his faith that "something will turn up". His name has become synonymous with someone who lives in hopeful expectation. This has formed the basis for the Micawber Principle, based upon his observation:
"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery."
This is one of those Zen koans often misinterpreted as an intellectual question. I know what makes me happy, but what makes me happy doesn't make everyone happy. Words like happy, ugly, scary, and beautiful all have generic definitions but of course the real definition of happiness can't be objectively defined for personal use.
In general, happiness is a product of your being able to appreciate your situation.
It's not the situation itself, only your ability to appreciate it that matters.
I've personally known people who had been the victims of serious life long abuse in thirdworld countries. They had everything taken from them - their possession, their loved ones, their health and youth.
But they were happy. They were happy just washing other peoples clothes for a few dollars a day. These ladies would sit around and sing and laugh, happy as a lark.
On the other hand, I've known people who been given everything a person could want their entire life, and are miserable because they don't appreciate it.
We don't really appreciate our sight because we've never been blind. But if they discovered a cure for blindness, think how happy people would be, just to get to do what take for granted everyday?
So I try to remind myself to appreciate things more, and that will make me happy.
I'm glad this thread was started. I'll remember to appreicate my life more now.
Happiness is the mental ability to turn a bad experience in ones life into a lesson learned..and that brings peace.
Actually the best happiness is holding your newborn child, grandchild, great grandchild in your arms for the first time..That happiness cannot be described sufficiently with words...I think that is why so many of us shed tears of happiness at that moment
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