I am not a great believer in long term happiness. I studied under a wise Zen master for two years that said the following:
Happiness and sadness are fleeting emotions. We are only expected to experience them for snapshots in time. A sense of peace and acceptance can, however, be achievable.
INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER
I might be a man of simple pleasures but I have been in this state for a couple years now. I don’t think you should see it as your highest happiness point ever, but rather everything in a life viewed together. There are days that my happiness dips or peaks, but all in all life is just so good. I earn a low yearly wage and work my dream job part time (social worker), I live in a modest appartment with running hot and cold water, a fridge and a washing machine, so the basics are covered. I lost close relatives 2 years in a row, but life was terrifying and unfair before and it still is, so other then missing them these losses don’t really affect me. We can all die right now in an instant, no fair trial just poof and you’re gone. Realizing and accepting this has taken away almost all of the fears you can associate with that. My pursuit is now maintaining true happiness, so in that way it is ongoing for me.
Reminds me of one of my favorite HONY posts. I try to absorb this kind of energy and remember it when I’m feeling down.
This post made me remember things I had forgotten.
It’s called lifestyle creep. It’s never that you’re in a better place today than you were yesterday, it’s always that you could be in a better place tomorrow.
And it’s both right and wrong. We make ourselves miserable by always wanting more, but also a lot of us have less than we deserve.
We don’t make ourselves miserable by always wanting more. We make ourselves miserable by telling ourselves we’ll be miserable without more.
I’m always building more and more in my life, and since I started doing that I’ve been happier than ever before.
True happiness happens when you’re not looking for it. It comes in all shapes and sizes. The other day I went for a walk and it was a Vanilla Sky, Monet reference from the movie. My heart swelled, I felt pure joy/happiness. Out of nowhere, it was so intense. I hope it will happen again but I do know (in my life) its not achievable if you seek it out.
The pursuit is the happiness. To be happy you need a goal that you can get closer to. Once you reach the goal, the happiness ends and you need a new goal.
This is why you should have big goals. Goals that are attainable, but take a long time to reach.
I think true happiness is, almost contradictorily, found in the process of achieving it. Humans always strive for more by their nature. Once you achieve your goal, you’ll eventually feel stagnant and set something higher. Perhaps the task itself is what we truly enjoy. Whether you think that’s bad or not is up to you. On the extremes, some are driven to be more and more charitable, while others strive to be richer. Most people will set smaller goals and just want to get a more comfortable job or have better relationships with the people in their lives.
Happiness is not a fish that you can catch.
I think happiness can only exist in conjunction with unhappiness as a comparative value: If you don’t know sadness, you probably won’t even recognize if and when you are happy. So I think absolute happiness is not desirable.
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I just think that some setbacks and obstacles in achieving one’s dreams, which make one unhappy from time to time, are necessary in order to properly appreciate what one has achieved, which in turn gives rise to a feeling of happiness. I’m not so much concerned with a gauge of happiness that could measure how happy someone is in relation to someone else, but just that you also need to know what the opposite of happiness feels like in order to realize that you are happy. If one were only happy all the time, it would probably be a boring normal state of mind.
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Happiness is an emotion not a state. You fee it when you are doing something that makes you feel that way.
My work is challenging and can be stressful. I wouldn’t say I was happy while trying to solve a tricky problem but I enjoy that aspect regardless.
Do things that make you happy. But you can’t expect to be happy all the time.
I think true happiness is just a momentary lapse of reason.
Is reason a path to unhappiness?
No idea, I just wanted to quote that Pink Floyd album.
Absolutely. You could have it right now if your expectations were in line with your status quo.
I’m convinced happiness is genetic.
Some people are some people aren’t.
I’ve lived my life in pretty much the exact way I have wanted and done more than most. If I could erase myself from existence I would instantly.
I think the people that are most ambitious and adventurous are the least happy. If you are happy then you are content and don’t go searching for stuff. So the most successful people tend to be the most unhappy. Thought some people do love the competition they can be happy.
We aren’t built to be satisfied. Our survival in a prehistorical context depended on our constant vigilance in the face of the ever-present risk of death from myriad dangers. That has required of us to evolve into fearful, violent creatures. Nothing forces us to act that way in a safer, less existentially precarious context, but there’s a lot of hard-wiring for us to fight against. I think so long as you’re willing to face that skittish, aggressive, hoarding nature and try to calm it down and perpetually remind it that it’s going to be ok, you’re on your way to some pretty solid contentment.
Of course that first requires that you’ve somehow magicked your way to a reliably full belly and roof over your head, which… well good luck
It’s possible depending on the person. I probably won’t get there, but I know what it’s like because I was there before.
