I want that! and that! and that! (a thought on happiness)

I gave you a star for that very good post that reminded me of when I was young
we had TV about the same time as you we played for hours outside,My brothers and I played baseball the three of us
pitched cards against the wall,marbles, watch ed the stars and only watched TV at night.
the regular shows were
Disney on Sundays
Andy Griffith show
Bonanza
didn't have much my Dad Was a policeman 5 kids in the family
but we didn't want for anything
How did we go from this simple and wholesome life to today where
Ceos make 800 times the salaries of workers
how did the upper 10% of the wager earners steal so much from us
How is it that pitching ball isnt good enough now a days we need a baby sitter so we hire nintendo or playstation to watch the kids
and why do we now need 125$ sneakers when we use to do with 7$ sneakers
a used car isnt good enough we need a suv and a pick up and a sedan
why have we been lead into this trap

Meet Eddy Bernays
ca.youtube.com...

Originally posted by sc2099
So true, seagrass. I think assuming wealthy people are unhappy is a defense mechanism for those who are jealous.

Sorry no, i'm not jelous i swear, i just don't think money brings happiness, it depends on the person in the end. For example i know a millionaire, nice guy, very nice guy, seems very happy. He once told me the tw thigns that bought him the mst joy were his family and doing up old arcade machines. The money lets him do up the machines but it's not the big part of his life and that's why i think he's happy and has money.

Originally posted by sc2099
There are unhappy people in every economic stratum just as there are happy people. Though I will say I believe it's much easier to be happy with money than without it, in general people who are so inclined are happy and people who are so inclined are not.

I disagree it's easier to be happy with money, i think it's pretty much a 50/50 thing, although it seems people who have everything bought for themand are bought up with money seem to be quite depressed people. Whereas the ones bought up to respect the relationship between money and work seem happier.

Money is a subjective idea. It is what you use it for to create objective things in your life that matters. I prefer to call money "creative resources". If you have the resources to create something, that can make you happy. To be free to create a home that has all it's needs and supplies. What supplies you value and decide you need is subjective as well. Perhaps with plenty of resources you decide to buy a farm to raise your children in a "wholesome" environment. You don't buy playstations and whatever else you decide is not good for you. But yet you have a great savings and security and the ability to help your community and other family members. Go on vacations to places you choose are also "good". You have opportunities.
Or.. you can follow the masses and buy all the status symbols and live an unrewarding life.
You can still buy cheap tennis shoes at Walmart. They are still around. If you can't buy them because they are not accepted and you would feel bad wearing them, then you are part of the problem. If you feel you have to buy 125$ shoes because everyone you see values those only then you are buying into the ideas of a cult. If you don't agree with the way things are, you can always choose something different to do. Having money is opportunity. What you decide to spend it on is the deciding factor of whether or not it makes you happy.
We put the value on it. If I had 125$ to spend on shoes, I would rather have 20 different colors of flip-flops personally.

reply to post by seagrass
I think you miss my point. I'm not saying money is bad, or that things are bad. I'm saying the obsession with money and things are bad. In your case, I see an obsession with money as the means to get the things that make you happy. But I submit that the things might make you more content, but not happy. Happiness comes from within.

Success may make for happiness, but success is more than a good jhob and a lot of money. To quote the only seminar I ever attended, success is "the ongoing achievement of worthwhile, personal, self-determined goals". Notice that definition (which I find very apt) never mentions money.

TheRedneck

I'm sorry if I came across that you personally think this way, I didn't mean to imply that at all. (I use the word you too much maybe). It is just that I have had a lot of experiences with both having it and not having it. It seems to be a general theme in my life. I was like you, raised with "redneck" values, and I am proud to call myself a redneck to this day. I have also ran with the wealthy. I just feel I have experience to teach with. I see this as something I can share only. I see people with black and white attitudes toward poor and rich, and I find I see some gray areas. I have seen and spent money on the wrong things, and now that I have matured about money, I don't see having it as unhappiness making unless you choose to live an unnatural life for yourself. I think if I had enough money today, I would be able to handle it in a wise way. (for me)
I do feel the same as you I think, that having goals, and healthy values about work are important, but that having money can make it easier to achieve them. It gives you more time and resources to achieve them.

hi! Great thread!
I think people mix up the short-time-happy-feeling when buying something new with the long-lasting-inner-happyness. they think it is the same. and because everyone aspires happyness they need more and more material stuff to get it.
happyness is so much more than a pair of shoes. i truly think most of the people are not happy - without knowing it.

I wholeheartedly agree that happiness comes from within. I am happiest when I am at our swimming hole. There is nothing there, but water and land. And when I see how happy my children are.

reply to post by TheRedneck


Star & Flag TheRedneck. I see the same thing happening. I grew up poor and never once thought I was thanks to my parents who gave me what I needed, not what I wanted. People have to look good and to look good now days you have to drive that nice car or truck. You have to have that 50" flat LCD TV so when you invite your friends over you can impress them. Want, want, want is indeed the motto these days.

I look back at old pictures of me as a kid and my family and see our old Buick with wings, man that was an ugly car. I see the small house I grew up in and the clothes we wore. And when I look at those pictures of us without much I smile because those were the happiest days of my life. I remember watching TV in black and white while others had color. We finally got a color TV but I didn't mind the black and white one at the time.

Thanks for the thread TheRedneck. I really do feel that if we all lived with what we needed and not wanted then this country would be in better shape. To many live beyond their means and will buy that special high priced gadget just to have it.

that is so nice. great that you know what makes you happy.
a lot of people think that material stuff makes them happy, because the society says so. not only material stuff also emotional stuff. like: "you are just happy when you have a career", or "you are only happy when you have the right partner" etc. but that is not necessarily true for everyone. it is sooo important to find out what makes you in person happy and to live it.

reply to post by seagrass
Money is a tool for accomplishment; that is pretty much self-evident. But too many people see the money and things as the accomplishment and not a tool.

Nice to meet another redneck on this board. Especially another one that wears the label with pride.

TheRedneck

See, while I partially agree, I think that it's a stubborn mentality to think that everyone should think waste-not-want not, and if they don't there is a problem WITH THEM. Maybe you worded it wrong, but it seems like you are squarely blaming the individual.

Obviously there's a problem, but you're blaming the people for falling into a comfort zone of victim mentality or powerlessness over their emotions. These are all learned behaviors, and especially in this day and age, children are learning less and less from their parents, and more and more from their state run educational systems, their corporate run TV programs, and their brainwashed need machine peers. It's been like that for almost 3 decades now, since the early 80s. Now, instead of figuring things out on their own because father was stubborn or the parents weren't there, a teen decides "Oh screw them! They didn't get me what I need. I'm not happy, so I'm going to make them suffer for it." and they go out and have indescriminate sex and become drug addicts, all because of stupid little simple things, which they've been TAUGHT by SOCIETY to overblow and play the huge victim to. Is that their fault? Maybe partially, but after years and years of conditioning, a person forgets that they have a choice on how to respond. They can just fall back on suppressing confusion with alcohol, drugs, sex, over-working, television, shopping, being obssessive about their image and claim that "I am just being who I am, okay?"

People are born into various environments, and they learn how to be from their environments. Not everyone grew up poor or having encouragement to learn how to make or fix their own things. Not everyone grew up humble. Not everyone was able to figure things out from the same point of view. Most people are not their true selves. If they were, they'd know better and do better.

I agree that real happiness comes from the inside, and this being said... I don't think you can really do anything other than continue improving yourself, and let the rest of the world catch up when they are ready... unless of course you're gunna be the revolutionary who climbs the ladder of this corporate-run mind controlled world in order to bring the whole system down in a grand sabotage scheme. I wouldn't think if you were that person or personages, that you'd wanna spill the beans here aloud on this highly traceable medium, though.

Yeah society is completely mind controlled by temporary happiness. I completely disagree that money is an appropriate "creative" medium of achieving happiness. What's creative about it? You slave away for practically your entire waking life in order to buy fleeting moments of comfort or bliss? Isn't that being controlled by temporary/fake happiness?
What about real satisfaction with life? Is that something you are willing to wait years for while you "earn" it by selling your soul away to people who make a million dollars while while taking a dump?

The only way things are going to change is if we as individuals realize ourselves what is and what isn't happiness. We can't blame those who are still learning... and really, we can't even fully blame the "elites". Some schmuck with low self esteem let their ancestors trample on him/her to get what they wanted back in the day, and now the descendants of the fat cats are sitting pretty and are just as much controlled by fear of loss as we all are, although their inflated egos may screen that thought from their conscious mind most of the time.

So... I'm realizing more and more that things will just continue to be the way they are until things change (quite simply), and I think we're on a patially set path. I think that the Universe will figure out a way for us as a whole species, whole planet, to learn from and overcome "the bad" in order to get to "the good" long before we do, and make the necessary changes in order to facilitate our realization of whatever thing we need to realize in order to overcome the latest "obstacle". In this case, corporatism and materialism.

More and more people are waking up to the hollowness of corporate-driven mind controlled materialism. Mind control can only control one mind at a time, you see. It can't control the whole collective mind, or the universal mind, or the multiversal mind, or the All. There will be people like US on this site, who are looking around at our "for certain" reality and who aren't so certain about it, that will start to speak out and question... and the very act of speaking about these things, no matter what level you are at in your awareness, as long as you see that something is wrong... there you go. That's the answer. Just continue doing that, and people will naturally either take what you say into consideration, completely disregard it because they aren't ready to hear it, or they'll take a mental note of what you said and possibly a later event will trigger them to reflect upon it... causing them to possibly change.

Evolution. It's up to the universe, really. We don't have to SAY or DO anything. We just have to BE whoever we are, and eventually we'll learn.

[edit on 28-7-2008 by dunwichwitch]

Yeah society is completely mind controlled by temporary happiness. I completely disagree that money is an appropriate "creative" medium of achieving happiness. What's creative about it? You slave away for practically your entire waking life in order to buy fleeting moments of comfort or bliss? Isn't that being controlled by temporary/fake happiness? What about real satisfaction with life? Is that something you are willing to wait years for while you "earn" it by selling your soul away to people who make a million dollars while while taking a dump?

Wow, it sounds like you are saying money never created anything good. I say people who put thought behind their money do. Example. Someone I know quite well, has plenty of financial resources. You would never know it by looking at her. She owns a farm, and quite a bit of acreage. She loves her cows like babies and even scrapbooks their baby pictures. She spends most of her time pulling tansy, and hawthorne bushes. She cleans the land up and burns the piles. When she has free time in the house she works on her geneology research. She is happy. Happy in her daily life. Was she always this way? No. She used to drive a corvette, vacation all over, run a business, was an alcoholic, owns several houses etc. She changed her life back to her roots of living on a farm and working the land. It took her some 40 years to figure out that all she needed to do was come full circle, back to when she was happy as a child. She had to go out in the world and try something different to discover that for herself. She has taught me a lot.
She can spend time doing all that because she has enough money in the bank to not have to work in her old age, or struggle with her bills.

Originally posted by TheRedneck
reply to post by seagrass
Money is a tool for accomplishment; that is pretty much self-evident. But too many people see the money and things as the accomplishment and not a tool.

Nice to meet another redneck on this board.

Especially another one that wears the label with pride.

TheRedneck

you said it simpler than I ever could. Thanks. Nice to meet you too.

What a great thread!

I'm gettin' misty-eyed over here, reading posts from others who were raised in the country...I'm a country girl myself.

My papa grew up penniless in Cajun country during the Great Depression; he went on to become a sugarcane farmer and made a great living at it, but never forgot what it was like to "go without", so my siblings & I (all 10 of us!) were brought up to appreciate nature, to "make do" with what we had, & to not be afraid of hard work and getting dirty. He also taught us, thru his actions, that the love of family is what we should most value.

Thank you for a really nice post, Redneck...starred & flagged!

reply to post by dunwichwitch
I am not attempting to blame anyone. In the long run, we are all free (supposedly, that's what the government tells us ) to live as we see fit. To blame someone for their actions because they do not suit you is, well, silly IMHO. So if I came across as throwing blame, please forgive my grammatical clumsiness.

I posted this thread to enlighten, not to blame. If Joe Doe reads it and chooses to ignore it, hey, that's fine with me. I don't think I have done old Joe any wrong by that. If Joe reads it and it changes his life in some small way, perhaps makes him happier with what he has, then I have done good for someone. I'll take those odds.

If there is any blame to go around, it is not even the individual that it belongs to; it is society as a whole. Let's face it; we are competitive beings. That is a good thing usually, but perhaps, as this thread shows, sometimes it is undesirable to compete at everything. Sometimes it is perhaps better to enjoy.

Evolution. It's up to the universe, really. We don't have to SAY or DO anything. We just have to BE whoever we are, and eventually we'll learn.

Ate who?

TheRedneck

Ate what?

I dunno... but a good thread anyway.

I wasn't 100 percent sure you were placing blame on anyone. I just had to ask, though.

I think some people get aggrivated at people who haven't worked for everything they've had.

That's not the only type of struggle that exists. Some other struggles are equally as challenging, I would guess. I find that a lot of people who struggle in different ways often come to the same conclusions, though.

I haven't so much struggled for earning the things I have as much as I've struggled with prejudice and hate and self esteem. You can have a trillion dollars and all the luxuries a man could ask for, but you could still be unhappy with who you are and how people treat you. I have everything I have wanted materially in the past, but I would trade it all for just a loin cloth and the jungle if I didn't have to struggle with certain other things.

There are a thousand paths up the mountain.

reply to post by dunwichwitch
I'm truly sorry to hear about your struggles; rest assured that you are not alone in the fight to end hate and bigotry. I belong to perhaps the most hated of all groups today: the average joe, aka redneck. I have worked my whole life to use that name I was given (by bigots, incidentally) to stop the stereotypes by disproving them (well, most of them, I did mow my yard once and found two cars and a tractor. My brother-in-law mowed his and found my truck ).

That is happiness in itself for me, every time I see the change in someone after they have spent a few moments talking with me. Agreement or disagreement is irrelevant, as long as they realize that I am just like them in so many more ways than I am different. I find great joy in seeing their enlightenment.

Many paths up the mountain, indeed. May yours be pleasant, and most of all, happy.

TheRedneck


[edit on 28-7-2008 by TheRedneck]

I just want me and my family to be healthy and able to take care of ourselves comfortably (not excessively, but comfortably). Most of the rest is fluff. Sometimes fluff is nice. But a constant diet of fluff can make a person spiritually ill.

It is worth noting that this is a cultural phenomenon. It is specific to the USA.

I just got back from a trip back home to the US, and it was a contrast that caused me to reflect a lot.

The culture nurtures dissatisfaction and stimulates the appetite to consume in such an overbearing way.... I think many americans are so used to it that they don't even realize when they are feeding into it themselves.

For example, if an american would ask what it is you do for a living, they then would suggest higher or further goals you could search to attain after that. Where are you going after this?
We value ambition- it is almost a sin to be happy with where you are, who you are, what you have.

When I go back to the US, it takes about three days before I start to feel the pressure mounting, and in a week I have a constant background type of anxiety... gotta get (be) more, better, stronger, bigger......

I just back to France, and felt that drain away, leaving me to smell the flowers, feel the breeze, contemplate the faces and movements of those I love, listen to the music of the elements around me.. and feel fulfilled.

Contrary to the ideas I grew up with, that doesn't make me stop working, or being an active contributor to my community and the economy. I do not become lazy. I just became happier, healthier... less prone to some vices like alcohol, smoking, eating sugars and fats, drugs - I am not so much in need of self medicating that way to take the edge off that ambition and anxiety.