"Don't have a reason for being happy, because that reason can be taken away"

I heard that quote on facebook a while ago in a nice little picture with some kind of dramatic background, and it's been on my mind for some reason. I think there's something wrong with the logic behind it, but I'm not sure specifically what. It's just a feeling.

Is it hypocritical to have a reason for not having a reason for being "happy"? It may seem silly, but this is the sort of thing my days are spent thinking about, rather than petty day-to-day issues that will most likely not have any sort of meaning in the grand scheme of things.

Unless I miss your point.....

I should go through life being unhappy?

Don't have anything that makes you happy because it can be taken away, so never be happy?

What's the point of living?

a reply to: zackli

It is dysfunctional thinking. A 'what if' scenario where fear, fear of loss rules, thus preventing that person from enjoying the moment. We should always plan in order to counter a offsetting event, but to fail to return to the present situation and live it, is not ok. A person who lives like that should get professional help.

The saying sounds like they are sad, lost something that made them happy. Everything happens for a reason, a lot we do not notice or understand but if you look hard enough you will find something. This is one thing that makes me happy.

I think a far better way of phrasing the dilemma is this: Does my ability to reason make me happy, or any happier than say, an animal?

I think that the birth of Reason (age of/use of/ability to) actually contributes substantially to the gross total weight of mankind's unhappiness. Of course there are benefits to reasoning, the faculty of it et cetera. But, much like the awareness of time, reason dooms mankind to a great deal more unhappiness than you might find in your average cetacean. Unfortunately, once you know something, you cannot UN-know it. Reason only gathers itself to more reason, and well, unhappiness balloons as a result.

Why do you think the idiom "the truth hurts" has such a profound ring to it?

Just my two cents

a reply to: zackli seems like a dark downward glass half empty kind of thinking goin on here. Nothing good comes from self sabotaging your happiness by saying you can't be happy because of a reason.

"I don't embrace excuses only solutions"john taffer bar rescue.

Remember the glass is not half empty or half full but it's always full half air half beer

a reply to: mwood

You did miss my point, or mis-interpreted it.

Suggesting that it is hypocritical to be happy for no reason whatsoever for a specific reason doesn't imply in any way that you should not be happy for no reason whatsoever for a specific reason. It simply labels it hypocritical.

I don't make judgments on how other people go about their lives, particularly when it is clear that that person will respond in an accusatory tone such as yourself.

Don't have anything that makes you happy because it can be taken away, so never be happy.

It is clear you are confused about my point. I make no claims one way or the other, insofar as what an individual should or should not feel in any particular situation. It bears no impact on my life whatsoever if you choose to be miserable or happy or boring or deluded or impossible to get along with.

What's the point of living?

An oft-cited answer I've been given when asking questions like this is that if you have to ask, you will never receive an adequate response.

It isn't a valid question. Living is a process that happens regardless of whether or not it has a point. If you choose to make a point important to your life, so be it. Millions of other life forms are content to live without awareness to the fact that there is no point to life. The fact that people place such importance on reasons for doing things is of little ultimate consequence.

It also has nothing whatsoever to do with this post.

a reply to: kwakakev

I lost you at "everything happens for a reason". On what do you base this claim? I will grant the possibility that everything has a cause, the importance of which can not or will not ever be fully appreciated, but suggesting everything has a reason reaks of superstitious nonsense almost as bad as the saying in the title of the post.

"Life is a comedy for those who laugh, and a tragedy for those who think."

Happiness is not a substance that your brain exudes under the right conditions. The happiness that can be taken away was not true happiness; it was only external validation of your ego.

If you are 'waiting' for ___________" before you can be happy, then you are pretty much doomed. Because happiness is not a response to perfection, or to finally getting your way. It is a recognition of internal harmony. While happiness may be experienced momentarily because of a fortuitous turn of events, abiding happiness comes from within. A saint can be happy living in a prison, or a desert, or on a park bench. Remember the sign from above:

"Help Wanted --- Inquire Within"

a reply to: Milleresque

I think a far better way of phrasing the dilemma is this: Does my ability to reason make me happy, or any happier than say, an animal?

I don't see at all how that is a better phrasing of the dilemma. Accepting the phrase in my title encourages blind optimism in the face of an overwhelmingly neutral universe and rejecting the phrase doesn't encourage anything either way in the face of an overwhelmingly neutral universe. It says nothing about how happy you are at any specific time or place and animals don't even come into the picture. Lower animals, so far as I'm aware, don't have any sort of idea in their heads about happiness. They don't see the "pursuit of happiness" as any sort of ideal worth... pursuing.

Unfortunately, once you know something, you cannot UN-know it.

Why would you want to un-know something? Facing the facts about a situation rarely hurts you in any objective sense and empowers you above all of the others in a world that embraces intentional delusion of the sort to which you are referring. It may make you temporarily feel bad to know that things aren't as awesome as you thought they were, but if you know that those feelings will eventually fade away, and they will, it ultimately helps you.

"Don't have a reason for being happy, because that reason can be taken away"

I was looking a this...then it all of a sudden made sense! Let me explain.

I first wanted to reply that the quote is silly because it seemed that the guy wanted to "reason away" happiness..so I would have replied that happiness doesn't have anything to do with reason (maybe "fake" happiness)...because TRUE happiness doesn't need to be linked to (or is not linked to)...."logical reasoning why someone is happy".

So the guy says "Don't have a (logical) reason"....means...be HAPPY but you don't need a reason to do so!
Be happy waking up in the morning, be happy when the sun shines, be happy when it's raining.

If you're needing to "construct" an intellectual reason WHY you're "supposed to be happy", then yes, this can be taken away.
If you're happy "without a reason"...there is no reason which can be taken away...so you can be happy without worrying that the base for your happiness could be taken away : )

That's how I see it.

originally posted by: zackli
a reply to: kwakakev

I lost you at "everything happens for a reason". On what do you base this claim? I will grant the possibility that everything has a cause, the importance of which can not or will not ever be fully appreciated, but suggesting everything has a reason reaks of superstitious nonsense almost as bad as the saying in the title of the post.

To suggest that things happen without a reason reaks of superstitious nonsense to me. We have a connection with the physical cause. In some situations there are many minor causes all contributing in different ways. Crash investigation is one area that works towards resolving the problems by find the reasons.

Maybe the problem is with how we define reason. Can you provide an example of something without reason?

It get it all too well. I have a reason for not having a reason to be happy. When you have lost so much, you become to afraid of the pain of loss. Every time I have every truly wanted something that would make me happy, it has always caused more pain. Everything i have had that did make me happy has been lost. I am too afraid to find a reason to be happy anymore. I have tried to brainstorm ideas to come up with a reason to be happy, and I am just empty. The worst part is I want to want a reason to be happy.

Why would you want to un-know something?

Because things are damaging and to not help. How does a parent telling their child that they were unwanted and not loved help a child? How does knowing the person that means the most to you thinks horrible thoughts about you and really can't stand you help someone? How does the knowledge of knowing how horribly a loved one suffered before they died help anyone?

a reply to: zackli

If we look for happiness in the world, it will not last. If our happiness comes from the Lord, it can not be taken away.

I think I get the premise, which is that, if your happiness is dependant upon exterior things or people, then it cannot be constant- things and people come and go.... you'll end up with moods that change.

This is a pretty common concern for many people who are seeking spiritual enlightenment and "inner peace".
The "goal" being to have a solid core of happiness that is unchanging, no matter what the circumstance life brings you.

On one hand, I experience that this is a possible state to get to or have...

On another, I have found it to be one of those weird ironies of life- it happens when you STOP looking for it!

When you stop focusing on "positive feelings" as being superior to "negative feelings", you end up with this inner core of stability, but with an exterior part which goes through ups and downs, is active and responds to the environment and others in a myriad of ways.

The irony is, in embracing all the experiences, be they painful, displeasing, pleasurable or comforting, infuriating or ecstatic, you end up with- happiness. Not necessarily evident for everyone else to see and be aware of, but enough for YOU to be aware of, inside, all the time. (only of interest if you are capable of recognizing your states of being without the feedback and confirmation of others).

This is where I think some people are going about things the wrong way in doing the passionate battle of positive light versus negative darkness- they just get deeper and deeper in the identification with that polarity experience.

Sometimes the direct route actually leads you away from your goal.

Titties and beer. Who can take that away?

a reply to: zackli

I think you correct in finding a flaw in that logic. Being "happy" or the reverse, not happy, can be traced back to the basic concept of most philosophies, the differences between "positive and negative," "good and bad," "right and wrong" and "dark and light" of any situation. You can't have the one without the other. Being "happy" is tied to the survival instinct. It promotes optimism and a host of other positive attributes that humans generate to further their cause in every instance. Lesser animals may survive on instinct alone, but humans, dogs and many other animals know quite well what "happy" is and they strive for it in their own ways.

a reply to: zackli

I think the problem with the logic is found in thinking about it logically in the first place. Heck, even Spock came to realize that there is more to a total being than just logic.

"And yet, for thousands of years, contemplatives have claimed to find extraordinary depths of psychological well-being while spending vast stretches of time in total isolation. It seems to me that, as rational people, whether we call ourselves “atheists” or not, we have a choice to make in how we view this whole enterprise. Either the contemplative literature is a mere catalogue of religious delusion, deliberate fraud, and psychopathology, or people have been having interesting and even normative experiences under the name of “spirituality” and “mysticism” for millennia.

Now let me just assert, on the basis of my own study and experience, that there is no question in my mind that people have improved their emotional lives, and their self-understanding, and their ethical intuitions, and have even had important insights about the nature of subjectivity itself through a variety of traditional practices like meditation.

[...]

From the point of view of our contemplative traditions, however—to boil them all down to a cartoon version, that ignores the rather esoteric disputes among them—our habitual identification with discursive thought, our failure moment to moment to recognize thoughts as thoughts, is a primary source of human suffering. And when a person breaks this spell, an extraordinary kind of relief is available.

But the problem with a contemplative claim of this sort is that you can’t borrow someone else’s contemplative tools to test it. The problem is that to test such a claim—indeed, to even appreciate how distracted we tend to be in the first place, we have to build our own contemplative tools. Imagine where astronomy would be if everyone had to build his own telescope before he could even begin to see if astronomy was a legitimate enterprise. It wouldn’t make the sky any less worthy of investigation, but it would make it immensely more difficult for us to establish astronomy as a science.

To judge the empirical claims of contemplatives, you have to build your own telescope."

-Sam Harris

I'm glad a lot of people are sad....

More happiness for me!!! I grab all I can and save it in a box that my laptop came in.

a reply to: kwakakev

Maybe the problem is with how we define reason. Can you provide an example of something without reason?

I looked up the differences, and we're using the same term basically. The only distinction between cause and reason is that reason includes human-made rationalizations that could go so far as to include the motivations of things that haven't been shown to exist. It is for that reason that I prefer the term cause, because there is no such implication.

In the sense that there is a "reason" implying intelligence on the part of that which has made it happen, nothing has any reason. Just causes causing other causes. Humans may think that specific things happened for a "reason" in this intelligent sense, but that doesn't mean it was ultimately any sort of objective reason short of a physical phenomena causing it. As far as a first cause, there is no reason to speculate on it because it will never be known so far as we know right now.