Define happiness. I bet it’s a hard thing to do, it really means so many different things to people. Maybe that’s why we have such a hard time at being happy; like a donkey chasing a carrot I’ll bet we spend a lot of time running after happiness.
I have a feeling that all this running around is doing nothing but keeping us down. It’s about time we pay attention to where we’re looking for happiness; where can I find happiness? I mean, is it over here? or over there?.
It’s not a light matter in human terms; as I’ve found out, happiness is something that’s been pursued and talked about since the time of the…Ancient Greeks. It seems to me that this is something that been on our minds for quite some time. Of course, nowadays we’re very prone to looking for it in the aisle of our Supermarket…hopefully on discount or with a complimentary gift.
Are we selling ourselves short? Happiness is after all an emotional state of mind; and we’re humans, so unless I’m mistaken having emotions is something that I’m never going to run short of.
The idea that we can increase our happiness by developing an awareness of our emotions, is very plausible to me; I understand of course that this is sour to swallow for many people. It may all sound like feel good with a cherry on top blabber talk; scientists in the nature of human behavior however, have been recognizing the importance of happiness in everything we do (new research even suggests that happiness is a determinant factor of success, but we can talk about that later on) so it’s a good idea to pay attention.
Regardless of what your theories are I think there’s something that you will agree to, everyone wants to be happy. Now that we have something in common, let’s keep on talking; it gets interesting. Emotion is different in each and every one of us; sort of like a blueprint that we create for ourselves from our life experiences. Think of it as a movie, life provides the set and setting, we write ourselves the script as we go along, reflecting and associating feelings from our experiences into emotions that we then inadvertently turn into what we call our lives. Stimulus-Affect-Response.
A positive or negative emotion is determined by our conditioned response to external circumstances. Increasing one’s happiness seems likely if we learn to catch ourselves in the act of who we are. This takes a lot of awareness, it very hard after all to unravel all that we’ve perceived ourselves to be. Our reality after all is a mirror of what our minds have made it out to be.
It’s a good thing that we’re humans; let me explain, we’re in essence emotional creatures; there’s no denying it, we’re emotional factories. The other side of this is that we’re also very open to receive emotions which means that we can be infected by happiness as an emotion. Have you ever walked into a room full of your friends and felt good. How much of this feeling has to do with the sharing of our emotions?
Here’s a thought, let’s say we get the emotional ball rolling…by being happy. There’s a good chance that by infecting ourselves with happiness we can pass it on to other people. It’s worth a try.
What do you think?
Am I being pessimistic when I think happiness is over rated? I know that sounds bad, but I don’t mind feeling other emotions. They wake up my soul. Granted I don’t experience true happiness all the time(or ever), I must state that having the knowledge of emotions makes Life worth living. I know the capacity of love through pain.
Now your optimism is refreshing, moving away from my selfishness I must reflect on your ideas as being real. If we did share our happiness or focused our energies towards that, this world would be a better place.
Not at all! I agree with you. It’s the incessant chasing after happiness that seems senseless to me. Allowing ourselves the bliss of our entire range of emotions creates understanding. Let it flow…don’t grasp at happiness, be happiness itself.