ALGORITHM FOR HAPPINESS IN LIFE 😲😳🤨

sillysassy

I just watched this 2 minute video sent over from a dear friend of mine.

He is claiming all sorts of things about our ability to find "Happiness" in this life of ours. Peace. Contentment.
He mentions...

Happiness is in looking at the glass and seeing the TRUTH of the glass..."

I'm so curious about everyone's perspective of this idea. 🌈🦋🌼🌺😊🔆🌞
He says...

Happiness is NOT about what the world gives you....
Happiness is about what you THINK about what the world gives you.

Thoughts? Ponderings??? Life experiences?

natickben

This to me feels like the guy is gaslighting. My daughter spent years hospitalized. She was constantly near death. I was repeatedly jobless and even homeless because of it.

"Shift your perspective" would have been toxic gaslighting. Like, life can be hard, and we are allowed to feel bad when life is hard. This kind of stuff is what I think of when I hear "toxic positivity."

(NONE of that criticism is aimed at you, just at the ideas in the video!)

Minestrone101

I think it's a little of everything. There's also the happiness index that polls countries (based on benefits , healthcare , opportunity, economics), def perspective , health and self care, and some kind of balance in our lives (rest, work, leisure), etc. I do think most people fall to a baseline of happiness no matter what goes on in their lives, I think it's something that can change and improve and worsen, and I know some people are hell bent in saying their happiness or lack of happiness is fixed - so it's a moving target.

Some people find happiness in purpose and working towards something and others find it in a mate or partner or a geographical location or a lifestyle.

JasonCuddles

I didn't watch the video but personally I think finding things that make you happy makes you happy.....the trick is figuring out what makes you happy.

There are of course things that are very much required and things that heavily impact how happy people are. If someone is always cold and hungry it's going to be difficult for them to be happy. However once basic needs and comfort is met things get more difficult.

It's not uncommon for people to think "if I can just get X I will be happy" but if they do get it it does not actually work and they're on to the next thing that they think will make them happy. They end up repeating this in a predictable pattern. This is super common in the "I need more stuff, more luxury items" crowd. Addictions and self inflicted pain are also things that are common patterns from what I've seen.

Anyways a few things off the top of my head that make me actually happy:

Hanging out with the people I enjoy the company of
Being in nature
Getting some exercise in nature(or while doing an enjoyable activity)
Taking a moment to just enjoy the beauty of the world
Learning new things
Having free time
Enjoying the happiness of others(humans or animals)
Eating healthy food(eating junk rarely gives me joy)
Getting a good nights sleep

I have set things up so that my life includes more of the things that really make me happy while also taking care of the basic needs like being warm, comfortable, and fed. I can still do more to optimise my life of course, but real life and how the world around me operates pushes me away from what I consider to be most valuable.

CuddleHugs01234

I’m overall a happy person, but I’ve been in situations that made me unhappy, and once I changed what I could change, happy again!!! Perspective does have to do with it, I believe.

Cessna_guy

Happiness is based on happenstance, those events surrounding one's life. The better word to describe the speaker's point is joy, the inward attitude toward life.

SeriousSnuggler

What he is talking about are two well studied dimensions in happiness. Researchers refer to this as eudaimonia and hedonia. Hedonia is the pursuit of pleasure and eudaimonia is the pursuit of meaning and growth.

Toxic positivity says that if you aren't happy it is your fault because you should be able to find happiness no matter what is happening.

Eudaimonia is different in that it doesn't apply any value statements to emotions. Instead it says that even in the worst circumstances you can find meaning and purpose. Think of Viktor Frankel's 'Man's Search For Meaning' no one would ever think to say that one should be happy as a prisoner in a concentration camp. However, many still found meaning and purpose to their lives. This is the basis of growth mindset.

TxTom

Interesting video clip, @sillysassy . Thanks.

I agree mostly with what he said, but I take issue with the perspective of "what the world gives you."

This is an entitlement mindset that will, ultimately, only lead to unhappiness.

The world doesn't owe anything to anyone. Our existence here on this Earth is a gift, and a remarkable, extremely unlikely product of chance.

Our fulfillment, our happiness---and I'm happy that he made the distinction between happiness and fun---is going to be based on what we make of our own lives. And this means effort (or, sweat equity).

That is why this pervasive mindset of victim/oppressor is so harmful to our self-worth and motivation. Seeing ourselves as perpetual victims means we're expecting some sort of restitution. And there will never be any meaningful, satisfactory restitution because...

...the world doesn't owe anything to anyone.

sin67

Money is a route of all happiness…
If you take care of money by focusing on the right stuff n people that will get you there, you are half the way there to attain it.
Money in bank makes you independent
Money gives you freedom to walk away from bad abusive relationship, because you can sustain yourself it’s easy to walk away n be free in your own.
Money gives you the independence of just packing your bags anytime n go on a vacation anywhere your little heart desires…
Money gives you the opportunity help out n reach out to the unfortunate.
Money gives you the immense power of being FREE.
So my advise. Focus on making money quick. Payoff all debts mortgage n you will find
Much peace n happiness.
To achieve the money goals. Believe in yourself, your capacity, build your network that has a positive outlook to life, stay away from negative energy, stay around people who are business minded n are successful, shadow a successful person, and most of all focus n go after it.
And things will fall in place within a short time.

Erin_Elle_

@sillysassy Thanks for sharing! I enjoy pondering that. 💖

To me it feels true that the amount we suffer in life is the product of the pain itself, multiplied by the amount we resist it. 🌟

Suffering = Pain * Resistance.

Vocalist100

Unhappiness (and by extension happiness) is the result of a person trying to control those things in life they can't control. One can feel sad about the death of a loved one, one's personal health, etc. But that's not the same as unhappiness (nor is it happiness). It's what one does with that sadness that determines happiness, unhappiness, or contentment. Once you realize the only thing under your control is your own actions and reactions, the easier it is to find contentment, which as a Buddhist (albeit a bad one in my case), is better than happiness. Because happiness is fleeting. But contentment lasts.

TheFunCartel

@Vocalist100 I agree. I think “what the world gives you” is a situational context in this instance and it is different for everyone. You may feel unhappy because you feel trapped in your current situation or you could be thrilled because life comes up cherries for you at the moment. But learning to accept circumstances and moderating the highs and the lows is the key to contentment, and as you pointed out, happiness only lasts as long as the situation producing the happiness lasts. Likewise I think you moderate the happiness times by sharing your blessings with others who may not be so fortunate.

And I agree with @natickben. You have the right to be sad and angry because of something but still be content overall in your life.

As far as the video goes, I have a problem with anything couched in terms of dichotomies or either-or thinking. For example, you can be unhappy because your friend passed away last week, happy because you received a promotion, and angry because a tree branch fell on your car and scratched it and you are feeling all those feelings all at once. Yet you are content because you have people that love you, a home, and you haven’t been banned by CC yet.

sillysassy

Wow. There are so many thought provoking ideas here. Thank you for sharing. I appreciate those willing to speak about some of the deeper painful things. My heart sends your heart a hug.

I do sometimes wonder how differently we FEEL things based on how much (or how little) pain we have had in our lives up to that point.

I.e. a friend of mine who had a debilitating headache for over 15 years and is now experiencing less pain seems to have a different threshold to "pain/unhappiness" than others who maybe haven't experienced that kind of thing. They measure contentment differently.

When people experience great loss (like the man in the video who's child died).... its like a new barometer or index about WHAT is painful in the sense of what they can endure.... I read a study about it awhile ago. The question becomes murky about how things are defined/measured.

My mind is whirling a bit with all of the input. I just wanted to jump in and say thank you for sharing your experience...

Happy Friday all 😊🌼🔆

MrPaul

I’m in agreement that happiness is a state of mind that can be independent of your life situation. It has been said that pain is mandatory but suffering is optional. This is not often easy, but neither is it impossible.

sillysassy

@natickben I am sending you big hugs. I am 100% with you that toxic positivity can be terribly harmful. Its so challenging when a loved one is in pain and I agree that it is unreasonable to pretend that you are happy when this happens.

Like, life can be hard, and we are allowed to feel bad when life is hard. This kind of stuff is what I think of when I hear "toxic positivity."

I don't know a lot about gaslighting but I do know that its never a good thing to deny emotion. ANY emotion.

I like what @BoomerSpooner said about having all of the emotions all at once.

I'm also thinking that sometimes you can have ALL of those emotions about the same topic.

For example, a recent experience of loss made me more aware of my BIG EMOTIONS. As incredibly sad as I was about the loss, I was also experience gratitude for the friend because they would no longer be in pain. I was MAD because it doesn't seem fair that a world where relationships can bring so much joy can also create so much extreme heartache.

ALL OF THE EMOTIONS ALL AT ONCE

SO MANY THOUGHTS THIS MORNING!!

I appreciate what y'all have said about there being so many different kinds of..... hmmmm.... definitions of your "state of being" maybe?

Happiness
Joy
Contentment
Fun

Hmmmmm..... A therapist once told me "Emotions can be like clouds, they are just there. Not wrong or right. There's no moral connection to a feeling. Its what you do with the feelings that determine the course of your life."

I hadn't ever lived my life that way... My emotions couldn't be trusted and so therefore I had to put them in their proper container. "I'm MAD because of the way they treated me and its WRONG to not think well of someone so quit that right now!"

Quite a few have spoken of how we respond to pain... It seems like the video was maybe trying to express that as well. I love this pic that reminds me what I am capable of. Its not for everyone but my perspective shifts when I realize there are so many things that I can't do anything about...

@BoomerSpooner Always the jokester. hahhahaha

Yet you are content because you have people that love you... YOU HAVEN'T BEEN BANNED BY CC YET

Jubal

Oh, this is an easy one for old Marines . . . happiness consists of getting enough rack time and regular chow hall visits.

(In civilian terms, getting enough sleep and enough food)

sillysassy

@Jubal THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE!!

HOO-RAH

I think you’ve hit on something…. Although I don’t know that everyone can agree that it’s “easy” as you put it. 😂😂😂 Being grateful and content for good rack time and chow in the middle of a war would be an interesting memory.

Hmmmm. Maybe it has to do with perspective and life experiences.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8322231/

This isn’t the article I’m searching for about capacity for painful things, but it’s great about physical OR EMOTIONAL pain that creates a similar response in our body.
(It was sort of like people who have large grief or pain have the ability to endure smaller amounts of pain without it disrupting their lives as much. Sort of like people who have never been hungry have a different ability to cope with food scarcity or empathize with those who are suffering. MAYBE someone else knows what I’m referring to.)

I’m going to keep looking for ideas and I’m always grateful for research and everyone’s sharing of life. 😊

Jubal

@sillysassy Here's another breadcrumb - Jonathan Locke's philosophy on having children wear 'leaky shoes'. Don't have a link to share at the moment, but I'd gladly ship a copy of his book to you if you'll read it.

I do have a quote from "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" to share - will have to find a digital copy to cut & paste from. (edit heh, gonna have to do it the hard way, copying from my book ...will post it up later) For now, the gist of it is that happiness comes from within.

sr182

Wow! So many comments. And thoughts from so many.

TBH, I’ll note this and listen to this later. I think. I hope. My intention it to do this. But reality, I may not.

But happiness. The brevity that I actually read. Maybe some fodder for cuddle chats.

My happiness comes from myself and where I put myself in my world situation and how I manage my life and my choices and how I choose to act with others in my life.

And I like to ski. So they’re that. I think I’ll ski.

frankparker9

I’ve found Tony Robbins’s concept of a “life blueprint” to be useful. Basically, just below the level of consciousness, you are comparing your life to what you always wanted it to be, or think it ought to be, or keep trying to make it. This is your blueprint. If it matches, or if you are making progress closing the gap and attaining what you want/need/think you need/should have/etc, you will be happy. If not, you won’t. You might feel anxious or depressed. Your blueprint can be changed, by engaging with it, just as you ultimately have control over, and responsibility for, your beliefs, and your patterns of thought and action in general. Maybe you can accept your life exactly as it is. Maybe you are working towards big goals. The thing that doesn’t feel good is having goals or requirements of your life that don’t feel achievable. Sometimes there is low-hanging fruit, too, in the process of being happier by adjusting our lives or our blueprint, like things we don’t even want that were put on us by our parents or society.

This is just one puzzle piece in a much larger picture. There are so many dimensions. Self-love, taking care of your body, and being comfortable enough with your emotions, including negative ones. The differences in people’s circumstances (financial situation, trauma, and physical health, and how manageable they are). Community (the role of other people in our happiness, growth, care, and actualization, including friends and family and larger groups). When I’m engaging with all of it and charting a course, with some humor and detachment, I feel like I’m really living.

sillysassy

@Jubal oh my!!! I just got done with an interesting course learning about all sorts of philosophers etc…. John Locke…. Maybe my clearest memory is that he believed that we all start with a blank slate and our experiences form our personality sort of?

Would you be willing to just give an overview of what you are pondering/applying here? (SO FUN by the way!)

@sr182 yes. Skiing is LIFE! Happiness abounds.

@frankparker9 that is such an interesting theory… it makes a lot of sense on certain levels. Thank you so much for sharing.

Basically, just below the level of consciousness, you are comparing your life to what you always wanted it to be, or think it ought to be…

I love the visual of a blueprint. We get to re-engineer it whenever it needs it…. Hmmmm so many thoughts emerge!

sillysassy

This was a curious thought in my reading today…

A theory about the Mona Lisa’s smile was that she and her husband had lost a baby. When DaVinci was commissioned for the painting, he tried to coax her to smile wider. She was pregnant again. She did not want the joy she felt for her new baby to erase the pain she felt from losing the first.

She was experiencing full joy and full grief at the same time.

Going back to the idea of a blueprint (either what we told ourselves or what our parents and society told us…. If we imagined/expected that there would be no pain in our lives, we would be CONSTANTLY surprised. Upended. Thrown for a loop.

Hmmmm… many many ponderings here.

Iluvcozycomfort

The stoic philosophers, who were very wise and noble, believed in this concept wholeheartedly, with their doctrine - "amor fati".

Amor fati is a Latin phrase that may be translated as "love of fate" or "love of one's fate". It is used to describe an attitude in which one sees everything that happens in one's life, including suffering and loss, as good or, at the very least, necessary.

Jubal

@sillysassy found the quote. Turns out my memory was faulty and it was in a different story.

“Ah, yes, the "unalienable rights." Each year someone quotes that magnificent poetry. Life? What "right" to life has a man who is drowning in the Pacific? The ocean will not hearken to his cries. What "right" to life has a man who must die if he is to save his children? If he chooses to save his own life, does he do so as a matter of "right"? If two men are starving and cannibalism is the only alternative to death, which man's right is "unalienable"? And is it "right"? As to liberty, the heroes who signed the great document pledged themselves to buy liberty with their lives. Liberty is never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is least likely to be cheap and is never free of cost. The third "right"? - the "pursuit of happiness"? It is indeed unalienable but it is not a right; it is simply a universal condition which tyrants cannot take away nor patriots restore. Cast me into a dungeon, burn me at the stake, crown me king of kings, I can "pursue happiness" as long as my brain lives - but neither gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs, can insure that I will catch it.”

― Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers

This is a more poetic way of saying what @sr182 did, you find happiness within yourself from your own choices. Consider how often we hear about high net worth celebrities who are absolutely miserable, despite being among the most 'privileged' members of society.

Regarding Jonathan Locke - his essay focused on the idea that children are savage animals, and need to be educated and trained in the company of adults, rather than other children. By all means, allow children to socialize and play with one another, but they must learn from mentors, not peers. His ideas about having children wear leaky shoes was to accustom them to discomfort and hardship so that they could be content and happy with what they had, rather than 'trying to keep up with the Joneses'.

CuddleHugs01234

@Jubal That’s interesting. Thanks for sharing!

frankparker9

@Jubal I read your post while on a family trip with my partner and kids, and I ended up reflecting on the Declaration of Independence, happiness, philosophy, and Heinlein for the rest of the day. I've read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, but not Starship Troopers.

I think it's great to be able to have a positive mood or outlook even when cast into a dungeon, and, of course, people shouldn't be randomly cast into dungeons, either! The Declaration of Independence is basically saying that a government should protect the individual's right to their life, liberty, and property, not harm and oppress its people or allow them to be harmed or oppressed. These "rights" are indeed, technically, imaginary. Jefferson adapted Locke's philosophy and replaced "property" (land, possessions) with "the pursuit of happiness."

That's not the only reason I think "happiness" here refers to more than a positive mood or internal state. Word meanings and concepts have shifted since the 1700s. Science was called "natural philosophy," then, and technology was "the useful Arts." The word "happy" comes from "hap," meaning good fortune (not "hapless"). According to one source, "In the 18th century, the Enlightenment ushered in the notion that happiness was the attainment of a worthy life." The concepts of worth, virtue, what's natural, what "reason" tells us, what's "godly"... were all intertwined. Which is how a document putting a new government on rational footing could refer to our "Creator" and make moral/spiritual assertions!

I think there's value in treating external and internal happiness as intertwined, and while sometimes we may falsely think we need certain things to be happy, or we may have different needs than others, there are also lots of universal human needs that, if not met, will deplete someone's spirit. People need friends, they need agency, and so on. I'm sure my personal history influences me here; I was very depressed in my teens, and it was treated as a neurochemical imbalance—an internal dysfunction—whereas now I see the situational causes.

Heinlein often writes about fictional societies that differ from what we are familiar with. Starship Troopers, the book, as I understand it, portrays a more militaristic society, where only people in the military are full citizens who can vote. I think a major point of the quoted monologue may be to, instead of thinking of the government as the protector of the citizens, think of the citizens as the protectors. Indeed, a world where people survive or flourish is not necessarily more "natural" than one where they don't. It's good to remember that having the rights we want to have may mean a widespread, ongoing "fight" (in the sense of activism, at the very least).

At the same time, we commonly envision a peaceful world, and an egalitarian society, as the ideal. Faith in one's fellow man, and trust, are strong forces, despite being "passive." We associate talk of endless, inherent war against hostile aliens with Orwellian fascism or xenophobia. The movie of Starship Troopers took the story in a satirical direction based on that.

It's important to remember today that the government's job is meant to include securing our rights to pursue happiness, by opposing oppression and exploitation. Rich and powerful elites in the U.S. are driving the country in anti-democratic and anti-egalitarian directions, vocally. (Edited to hopefully avoid getting too political.) A non-fictional person who makes libertarian criticisms of the Declaration of Independence is probably not someone I would see eye to eye with, and may just want to subjugate people without anyone getting in the way.

But I know that's not the point of posting the quote; the point was just the idea that feelings of happiness (or satisfaction, equanimity, meaning) are subjective and come from within.

Jubal

@frankparker9 by all means, do read Starship Troopers. It's well worth it. I hate that bastardized version of the story that Verhoeven made!! - that movie would have been much better if it had been titled "Bug Hunt" or something similar, and simply acknowledged "inspired by Starship Troopers" in the credits somewhere ... but I digress.

Yes, my point was simply that happiness has to come from within. No matter how much external stuff you have - wealth, possessions, family, influence, whatever - it's easy to be miserable if you don't have that capacity for contentment and happiness within yourself

TheFunCartel

The happiness from within comes from 95% of philosophers going all the way back to Socrates.

“He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.”

Socrates

TxTom

Excellent post, @frankparker9 !

@Jubal , I never watched the Starship Troopers movies because I was turned off by what seemed like another CGI-overloaded shoot 'em up. But I had no idea about the original novel. I will definitely check it out now.

Jubal

@frankparker9 I re-read your reply and thought it deserved a bit more answer: the way I have always understood the quoted passage (it's from the instructor who teaches History and Moral Philosophy at the officers school) is that the natural rights are not free. They're not GRANTED by government, but as you correctly noted, they are SECURED for us by government, and they're never free, there's always a cost.

ForeWheels2Roll

Sure, I can delude myself into denying my current state of affairs, and have hopes for a better tomorrow, but, by denying my current state, why wait, I can be happier now!