Questioning People's Happiness

Lets be real honest please.

How many of you are happy people? Why are you happy?

How many of you pretend to be happy people? Why do you pretend to be happy?

How many of you are not happy people? Why are you not happy?

at least your asking for honesty.

there will be a broad range of responses.
im happy when jolly ranchers taste good. im unhappy when they dont.

Overall i'm not happy, but I'm capable of being in good moods from time to time.

reply to post by WarJohn


Happy is such a generic, ambiguous adjective.

Do I struggle? Yeah. Do I work three jobs with little to no time to myself EVER? Yeah. Am I constantly sleep deprived and exhausted, feeling like I'm never getting ahead when all I do is devote myself to moving forward? Yup. Do I feel like I was born in a system that was designed to fail for the little guys? Hell yeah.

Am I inspired to keep going? Yeah. Do I think it's worth it? You bet.

As a Christian, I believe the purpose in life is holiness, not happiness.

Scripture itself tells us that the mythical state of being known as "happiness" is not achievable in this world. We are missing something and we all know it. Until we are reconciled to that something - we will never be "happy".

Well happiness is such a subjective thing, even for the individual.

I would have said I wasn't particulary happy up until last wednesday, when from out of nowhere the back of my hand became partially numb, and has remained so ever since. A trip to the docs two day's later, and apparently I have RSI.

I sit here now less than a week since this all began, and feel as though actually, I was a damn sight happier a person prior to buttering that wretched piece of toast last Wednesday,than I am today !

So yeah, sometimes I guess happiness can be quite elusive, even to oneself.

reply to post by WarJohn


You could have worded that better. The questions would be much easier to answer, if they were direct.

Originally posted by WarJohn

How many of you Are [color=FFC880]you happy people? Why are you happy?

How many of [color=FFC880]Do you pretend to be happy people? Why do you pretend to be happy?

1a. No

1b. n/a

2a. No

2b. n/a


3. meh.

I'm happy for the most part. As long as we have money to pay the bills, even if there is nothing left over, and that stress is not there I am a happy person. I love my job, my kids, my many friends. It is the stress of bills and trying to catch up that brings me down from time to time.

reply to post by WarJohn


Well, I'm broke, I'm young, I don't have much, I don't eat too much, I don't have television, but I'm with a gal that is as wonderful as the Moon itself, and I'm blessed to be intellectually illuminated to a degree (something available to everyone).

What is happiness? Is it the dopamine, is it the seratonin? Maybe it's the melatonin (some individuals love naps). Is it Love? What are the constituents of love if so?

A quick google search yields somewhat of a current collective consciousness:

Happiness = a smile.
Perfection = today's western concept of a beautiful woman.

The subjective nature of happiness is just that, subjective. Now, what causes this attraction to certain conditions or motivations in the mind ... We can explain it on a chemical level, somewhat on a genetic level, on a theological level for some, but the question remains as to what other factors of reality can be recognizably related with our perceived 'happiness', and to what degree? What if it turned out that some entirely bizarre source of influence affected our perceptions to a significant degree (brain wave function, heart rate, endocrine function, nervous response, perceived creativity, sexuality, analytical ability, comprehension, short-term memory, persuasion)? What if that thing is gravity?

Think about all of the legitimate categorizations of what makes you, you, as well as what affects your potential behaviors and perceptive abilities. Then ask yourself all of the statistically significant variables that push those levers up and down on their relative spectrum's. Goes deep, I'm sure.

Maybe existence is happiness. Maybe it was their all along, and we have just trifled with and stifled it by our unwieldy beliefs, our analytical mishaps and truth forgeries, along with a lack of spirit to truly feel union with the whole that is nature.

So, maybe it's really quite simple -

Happiness: existence. The purpose of existence is to cause effects/create things. The goal is to create a highly differentiated and stable set of effects/things.

We should know that true equilibrium, true perfection, is entirely subjective, just like happiness. Even visual perfection (symmetry to some), is unattainable (as far as we know). Only representations of these things that sit within the desired thresholds of the observer, and only to the extent of the observer's ability to perceive. Therefore, coming from the unique perspective of any human being, the path to finding a close semblance to this subjective 'perfection' really is, well, very complicated, yet utterly simple.

Endless pursuit becomes pursued endlessness becomes, becomes...

I'm content.

I'm happy in some aspects of my life but in others I'm unhappy and disappointed. I am not where I want to be career wise and it bothers me very much. I do enjoy my current job but it's not where I thought I would be. It's weird how the universe takes you in many different directions. It's like the people in my life are there for a reason, they belong but what I do is the only thing that is off. I feel that if I was doing what I wanted to be doing I wouldn't know these people. It's hard to explain but one day I will be 100% happy. I don't feel that being content is a bad thing. I'm learning to deal with the way things are and that they are now on the right track...it may have taken longer than I wanted but things are going well.



Hope this is what you were looking for. I have nothing to hide and I don't mind being honest about it. I will say I did hide how i felt for a while but once I shared and admitted it I felt better. I know I'm not a bad person for the choices I've made just someone who has had a few detours in life. I think they are lessons learned and have made me who I am so I can't really complain. I like who I am