What is Happiness?

I’ve realised that majority of people in this forum (including myself) are ambitious, and are all trying to get out of some sort of undesirable situation, or want to be rich, powerful or good with women.

I’ve searched the words “happy” and “happiness” in the custom search engine of this forum, and the word “happy” doesn’t seem to appear much actually, apart from some short-term “happiness” and the use of the word “happy” when congratulating somebody else.

Do most people here not believe in “just being happy and contented”? Or does happiness come after we get rich, powerful and have lots of sex?

Or perhaps people who are already happy won’t be running subliminals.

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“Happiness” is a illusion people cope that they can achieve, we humans were never contented for what we have, because if we does we still be living in caves by now and celebrate if we sucessfully ignite a fire.

I personally feel that happiness comes from challenging one self by setting a specific goal. Once the goal has been achieved this brings happiness. It could be passing an exam, it could be learning to drive a car, painting your house, tidying your room. The most important thing is achieving the goal.

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Happiness is something we constantly seek after. I have. I’m just beginning to see that my cultural understandings have continually had me believing that something outside of me brought me happiness.

I’m working to release a major amount of bitcoin I’ve been mining this last year. Money makes us happy, right? I’ve stewed on that for months, literally. What I’ve realized is that happiness, joy, or contentment are found within, not outside ourselves. Money is another responsibility, and insisting it make me “happy” is a lie to myself, for money doesn’t have that power.

Only I do. And that gives me hope. Happiness is a daily choice, unhinged to success or failure. What do I put my hope in? That is the key question. It links to my happiness, and finding the answer gives me something much more valuable and consistent in day to day life.

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I don’t know what happiness is. Never seen happiness before. I don’t think such an object exists in the real world.
It’s more like people feeling happy. Take away their toys and they might cry. And probably should.

Behind all the mental chatter and perceptions there might be something better than happiness. I can’t show it to anybody. It is what is.

If one is resisting / judging something in the present moment, one is unhappy.

If one is loving / enjoying something in the present moment, one is happy.

Having financial & sexual abundance makes one more able to spend most of their time with things, people, and tasks that one loves/enjoys.

That’s the basic idea. :innocent:


Having said that:

  1. The choice to switch from resisting to loving is always available, and does not require anything external. This is where meditation, gratitude, reframing (synthetic happiness / zen happiness), etc. come in. :+1:t2:

  2. There is also the neurochemical issue of getting addicted to one’s default states.
    So, the more time a person has spent in a particular emotion, the more likely they are to go back to it, because it is familiar - even if it is NOT a happy one. :scream:

  3. The only scientifically proven source of long-term happiness is close relationships.
    And that is why we all enjoy being on this forum. :wink:

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To ma happiness is who you are and who you want to become. The closer your current “I” is to your “ideal I” the happier you are. Therefore, ultimately, the only place you can find happiness is… you. When I was a kid I wanted to be a soldier so when I was playing a soldier I was really happy, it’s all in our mind even though it sounds so trivial.

I think happiness is very different depending on the person. But for me happiness would be no longer being limited by fear and being able to live a life where it feels more like I’m the one calling the shots vs getting led around by subconscious knee jerk reactions that fuck things up for me. I don’t need lots of money, fame, banging hot women. Just want inner strength and confidence to deal with the bullshit in this world

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I’ve found that happiness seems to be associated with getting the right balance of suffering and comfort in one’s life.

We adapt and habituate to anything that remains constant. So, ‘good conditions’ that stay around for a while tend to start getting ignored.

When are you most grateful to be alive? Usually, it’s after you’ve had a ‘near-miss’. Something that came close enough to you to remind you that you don’t have to be alive; but still allowed you to get away and survive. You had a difficulty that almost beat you, but then you overcame. The triumph is sweeter because contrast allows us to perceive with greater clarity.

The fool waits for life to orchestrate his near-misses, challenges, and difficulties. The wise curate their own. (and in doing so, they learn to appreciate both discomfort and comfort, while worshipping neither).

I forget who said it but something like happiness is the pursuit of a worthy cause or goal.

Personally I think happiness is great but it’s not enough to whether the storm of life, unless one is highly blessed, privileged, or ignorant :yum:

Sometimes I’m in states where everything occurs as pure happiness bliss-at risk of sounding cliche-incense smoke in beam of sunlight, moving at the perfect pace, chilling in my own existence

Alas I have discovered that ‘Alpha’ is not the path of least resistance, my set point for baseline happiness has been raised, I can be at peace, in flow, abiding in masculine nothingness lol but to feel happy in the conventional sense,I have to be pursuing and effectively achieving worthy goals. Otherwise something feels off. Breaking into new levels of freedom could be a good way of putting it.

Maybe happiness is just the absence of trauma, suffering, and pain-something we are all working towards in some way.
The key is to have results be their own game, and feeling good, enough, worthy, and an absence of pain it’s own game. When the two collapse- which they inextricably do to 99.9 % of people- downward spirals ensue :slight_smile:

If you need to get the girl to be happy-you will fail
outside of a desperate, impoverished, or survival context, if you need money to be happy-you will fail

If you love or enjoy the process of moving towards better results with those things-you will succeed.

So True :slight_smile: lmao

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That quote was about Success

And then there is Life, Liberty, and The Pursuit of Happyness. :slight_smile:

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Thanks for the clarification and source knowledge.

Does Earl draw a distinction between happiness and success?

Perhaps if happiness is included as a by product of success the quote still applies to happiness lol

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I guess not. Earl draws from Mill …


PS: I think this aligns with & adds to what @Malkuth posted above.

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some things only matter when they don’t matter at all

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This man has spent his adult working life thinking about happiness. His work drove and birthed the development of an entirely new direction in his field. Continues to unfold today.

https://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/history-of-happiness/martin-seligman-psychology/

He defines three distinct types of happiness:

Pleasure, Passion, and Purpose.
Hedonia,???, and Eudaimonia (anyone know the Greek/Latin lingo for passion?)

Each functions uniquely and makes its own contributions to wellbeing.

Meh.

Understand it or don’t understand it. Still got to do it.

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Ok, more points to HOM.

The irony.

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lol thanks-what’s the connection?

Transcendental relationships?

I know I struggle with this at times. Wanting things to be as they should be instead of as they are.
mastering reality first, as it is, lays the groundwork for real idealism.

Ah yes, excellent point