If you had choice between happiness and making a mark...

what you chose?

Happy but shallow existence and then disappearing with few remembering you or a struggle, often difficult on the edge experience by making impact for generations to come?

Happiness is meh. The greatest men and women are willing to sacrifice it for something more.

id rather dissappear and have made a mark

Why can't someone be "happy" and "make a substancial contribution at the same time"? Why does someone have to be a marter?

You don't have to choose one or the other. It is quite possible to do both.

I don't know about others, but I would rather be a person who can make a substancial contribution and sit back and "enjoy seeing people "happy" and in "peace". I don't know why we seem to need to "sacrifice" all the time to have something "life changing" that is "positive".

Isn't it enough that so many young men go off to "fight some kind of war" and see so much carnige and do this thinking that in order to "make some kind of positive change" they need to "sacrifice" themselves this way? Maybe even believe someone needs to tie a bomb onto themselves, blow up innocent people in order to "make a major contribution" somehow?

I am actually tired of the "I suffered so you can be happy" mentality. I am ready for someone to come along and "be happy and give others permission to be happy too". Happy doesn't have to mean a "shallow exisitance". Unhappy is more of a shallow existance to me, it bogs humanity down and our health care costs and pharmacudical supply proves that.

Open Eyes

i just like living a reclusive life. im not all about being around others. but if i got to do something great i would do it and then disappear. i like to leave an air of mystery. deep mystery.

Happiness for sure

Doing what makes you happy - you, Venus - I think would be the only way to make a real contribution.

Hell ya I want to contribute/matter-I'd rather fight than sit back in happiness.

Hmmm, you did make the parameters pretty narrow and clearcut. Based on that I'd choose to matter. I don't think that you really can be happy and make a full-on effort to make the world a better place. I'm not sure very many people actually are aware of all the bad that goes on in the world or really see through clear eyes. Look at all the people in the US who think that the poor brave Israelis are just defending themselves from the evil Palestinians. Is this a what if question or are you making a life decision?

Hm, isn't this the choice Achilles had to make?

Happiness comes w/ a peace from within. You don't necessarily have to achieve greatness and change the world and bring attention to your good works to find happiness. Be happy in good health, peace of mind, and joy in your heart.

yes, it's a spin off from ancient myths. I am so glad somebody recognized this.

So it's somewhat theoretical just like "long boring life versus short and exciting one".

It's interesting though because Achilles initially chose to live a long yet unremarkable life and withdrew completely from the Trojan war, nearly allowing the Greeks to be defeated by the Trojans. It was only after his dearest friend was killed that he decided to fight again. So there are a lot of different perspectives one can draw from this, and I'm not so convinced that even Achilles cared that much about his impact on history.

Although perhaps I'm distracted from the original question and am making this into a literary discussion. Haha, woops.

One thing that people seem to be doing is minimizing what the "struggle, often difficult on the edge experience by making impact for generations to come" side of it. If we look at it honestly, it's one thing to be happy and do something we love, that still makes a contribution, but another to truly have an impact on the world. If we look at the greatest entrepreneurs, inventors, artists, and some philanthropists, many of them do sacrifice simple comforts and happiness, for their pursuit. Many of them later on in life find a contentment in this, but they rare have a "happy but shallow" existence.

When profiling many entrepreneurs and world leaders, one can see a pattern in which the biggest personal risk these personality types take are not monetary, but rather, time and typical happiness. And realistically speaking, these personality types who then actually become successful in their endeavours that often change the world are rare. We live in a comfortable society that for the most part promotes happiness over achievement, and are taught from a young age in Western society how to be happy with ourselves. That seems to be an apparent pattern.

Fact is, the majority find comfort in certainty, safety and hedonistic pleasure, which often corresponds with "happy but shallow." Yes it is possible to blend the two, but for the most part, the few rare greats we've seen throughout history are prone to sacrificing their time and happiness in order to take risks. That's their drive, no happiness.

" Yes it is possible to blend the two, but for the most part, the few rare greats we've seen throughout history are prone to sacrificing their time and happiness in order to take risks. That's their drive, no happiness." quote TheDragon

What I was talking about Dragon is not the kind of happiness that is prescribed by society guidelines, or the discription you presented in your post. What you discribe as "sacrifing somones time" may not always be "sacrifice" but more about the "time spent by these people to fulfill a dream or a vision they have". They "devote their time to fulfill something they believe in" and their "happiness" comes from doing that. I wasn't talking about happiness coming from "complacency".

One of my "concerns" about "a big government that provides "certainty" and "complacency" for all is that it can lead to what we are seeing taking place in Greece and other "failing" countries.

My father's father was a pilot and worked for Igore Sikorski. Now, Sikorski grew up in Russia and he had an idea for building planes that could carry passengers, something that could become a new way to transport people and could become "more commercial", but Russia didn't allow for that kind of activity, they "controlled" the factories and decided what would be produced. And when someone like Igore tried to do what he was trying to do, their very life was in danger. So, Igore came to America and set up a small factory on Long Island. He didn't have alot of "funds" to build up his factory, but he had "ideas" and he convinced his workers to invest in this venture.
It took hard work and several years of "sacrifice" but he did design planes that carried passengers and he went on to do much more than that. He was not "complacent" and "spending his time with what many consider "happiness", instead his time was "devoted to building his vision, his dream" and his "happiness" came from seeing that idea become a reality. My grandfather was one of his "test pilots". His "dream" became a "contribution" that changed many lives. I suppose one could easily say, many of those men that built that business up, "sacrificed their time" without pay and having the extra time to sit and watch TV or do whatever so many did "in their designated time off" back then. And there was no real "comfort of certainty" either.

There are more "great contributions" then we often "realize" and those that made that happen gained "happiness in their "achievement" and that usually required "sacrifices" but not always "sacrifices that meant unhappiness" in making that choice.

That is what "I" meant in having the opinion that "accomplishing a substancial achievement to "mankind" doesn't always have to be considered "something that will not include a person's being able to be happy when they put forth that kind of effort".

Open Eyes

what comes to my mind is domain of politics or human rights. So many people say how these make them "depressed".

Yet, it's something I chose to study. And worry not... strategic studies, international law and all the wrongs in the world do not make me "happy". I found writting my thesis hard, the readings were triggering at times, it difficult to think of some things. I came up with something daring and ambitious, I think.
I still hope to achieve something in the field. And as much as it's fullfilling, it will not be rainbows and flowers.

this is what I am getting to. Fullfilling pursuits can keep one alive... but not happy in classic sense (how we usually understand it).

My idol is one war correspodent/humanitarian worker. She isn't smiling all the time, and she is damn cynical. Or Vaclav Havel. Sure he had moments of happiness in his life, but he went to prison for his beliefs. That is commitment i am talking about.

A.K.A. Not "happy but shallow?" There's content and fulfillment, then there's happy go luck shallow not a care in the world don't worry be happy happy.

The question was "choosing happiness and making a mark..."

That is fairly "broad" IMO, because the question was not make a mark that would bring significant change in the political/cultural unrest challenges of the world that are leading to terror and distruction and costing so many lives.

Just saying....

You can have an often difficult, on the edge experience and then disappear with few remembering you...

Not if you make a major impact for "generations to come."

To matter. There's no contest between the two for me personally.

It is interesting to see how "some" think about this question IMO.

It is a very "general" question and what happens is when someone asks a question like this it is often "assumed" that everyone will come from the same mindset as the OP. And even if everyone just "votes" yes or no, that is still "assuming" and not really seeing the way others really see the question.

If someone has their own idea of what the question means to him/her, and it is different than what the OP is assuming everyone will "think" it means, it can lead to the kind of gridlock we see all around us that we consider "world wide unrest". Often it can take a lifetime of suffering just to learn this. And it can leave a "mark" that is only considered a trajedy of "what not to do" more than something that can be "a much more positive impact for generations to come".

What I see in my own country is such a devide and so much anger because of this "ongoing debate over what the citicizens think the current leadership means to our country".

I watched the election process and it is obvious to me that alot of the messages were not really "direct and to the point where the citicizens had a clear picture/understanding of what each candidate "really wanted or intended for my countries future". And all that was really discussed was just "ideas" and neither candidate really had a "clear plan of how his idea was going to be achieved".

It is often a "normal" human trait to have a strong desire to make some kind of mark that will be remembered for generations to come.
We can look at human history and see many ways this desire did leave some kind of "long lasting mark". However, sometimes that mark was a sign of devestation and emense "ignorance" that while it did cause a change, it also was a setback that took many generations to "recover from". However, the recovery process often contains deep cultural resentments that has led to what we see today in our world.

As I sit in my OE little world where I am learning about the reality of what has made me the person I have been, I am seeing what really went into shaping so much of what I am and how I perceive so many different things going on around me. Many things happened to me in my life that truely distrubed my sense of "self and safety" and then something happened that finally broke me. And I put my trust in reaching out for help and sadly my reality was missed and that only made me feel even worse and that resulted in my hovering around a sense of "insanity".

I took the time to gather files of things that went wrong in my life, I sat across from a man who's answer was "drug treatment" and because I didn't want that, he determined me to be something even farther away from my reality. But once he did see my history, it was much clearer to him, why I was struggling so much, and I will never forget him staring at me in such a sincere and concerned and serious way and he said,"You are a very misunderstood person". But sadly, what was also clear to me is that he was not going to personally take on "making corrections" and that is because he would have risked creating "liablity". In that instant, what I witnessed is not just "my little problem" but a problem that we all see and are disturbed by as we look at the "global unrest" that troubles all of us.

If there "was" a way that I could truely make a mark that expresses that, I would have to say that it already "cost me my happiness".

I think about our history of man and the desire to "make a mark" in so many different human beings. But amongst many of these humans, the mark was not "positive". Instead, the mark left a long future of many that held onto a dangerous "victim mentality" that spread through cultures that fueled "ignornance" and opened many doors for
leaders that perpetuated the kind of ignorance that only leads to the "insanity" of human nature, verses healthier more balanced and meaningful ways for true global "good mental health" which would provide for "world peace" to take place.

Even as I sit here writing this, someone will "misunderstand me" maybe because I happen to be an "American" that is attached to some "stains that can lead to someone in a different culture to deem me "just some crazy, stupid, lets get happy American". Which actually proves my point.

Open Eyes

to be honest this is my worst fear. *shrugs*

I think that there is tension between drive and happiness. I think happiness sometimes means lack of drive, satisfaction with how things are.... drive is unrest, need to do something... and then something else.