Happiness

Happiness for me is a slippery term. Google "happiness" and you get about 83,100,000 results. Definitions of happiness abound.

From what I have been reading, the Eleanor Roosevelt quote has the most efficacy based on the scientific studies. Of course, my view is simply one person's opinion. We all get to choose.

These articles figured in my decision:

What is Happiness? Definition of Happiness
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/op...anted=all&_r=0

What do you think? What does happiness mean to you?

Hm-m-m-m-m... I'm not really familiar with that term... Every time I see my pdoc, he asks me if I've done anything fun since the last time I was in. "Fun"? I don't DO fun! I don't do happy & I don't do fun. I do things like: tolerate, put up with, go along with, participate reluctantly, etc. So I don't really have a definition of happiness. But I suppose, if I were to invent one, it would have something to do with being on the path toward achieving whatever goals one has. I've heard it said that enlightenment is a journey, not a destination. So, perhaps, something similar could be said of happiness.

Yes. This.

It's so wearying to have to cope with well-intentioned professionals hopefully whose aim in life is actually to help/not to harm/hinder ... And not just get through the patient load today to get clo$er to building that $econd home, or buying the Pari$ apartment.

Much less, to have to refamiliarize them with that essential term, forgotten, anhedonia. I have to stress that this 'fugue' state or whatever has eclipsed the normal me. "I am unable to enjoy anything, food, music, fragrance, texture, bubble bath, flowers, landscape, scenery. I am incapable of being or having fun. I am become a dud. So please don't tell me to go enjoy myself, have some fun. It feels like an injunction to hear it."

My best friend said once, that I refused to allow myself to be happy. I didn't know what the hell she was on about (I was 19)...I've since grown and realized she wasn't far off the mark. It's difficult to embrace happy when you know unhappy and hurt are right around the corner...like the unsuspecting fool going downstairs into the basement to check out the 'noise'.....and leaving perfectly enjoyable company to do it.

Like I can't help just .....missing it. Or getting slammed by the flipside.

'Happy' to me is elusive. I only glimpse and it runs back into the forest from whence it came.

My experience of life would have me in the above Conroy and Eleanor camps of thought on happiness. Unlike Mr. President Lincoln, who himself suffered deeply depression, I am lacking the neurocircuitry, the elemental neurotransmitters, whatever, when I am beset, to simply " make up my mind to be happy."

Debilitating depression, annihilating anhedonia, no basis to build on is not conducive to the inner and external conditions likely to allow happiness to arise, to flow gently in the natural course of my days, of simply being. I truly have known and lived that. That's what I call normal, my normal.

Interesting thread.
I look forward to reading the articles for which you posted links.

I don't want happiness. I want success in my chosen areas. I don't care if that makes me happy, I just want to fulfill my calling.

I wish you well, -jimi-.

I think I like this quote the best....

"Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of traveling."
Margaret Lee Runbeck

We alway hear...I will be happy when: I land the best job or lose 10 pounds or find the person of my dreams....and so on....

If happiness is so elusive for some...maybe a day without terrible pain or having enough money to fill up your gas tank or sleeping well through one nite....and so on...might be a positive experience/happy? - or maybe not.

I believe happiness is both a meaningful destination and a manner of getting there that offers some joy, and at least is worth any pain in the end.

There are many things that make me happy.

My work makes me happy. To create a story and watch my characters as they grow, to write of adventure and love and things in the paranormal realm make me happy, Reaching my goal of 10K words a week makes me very happy.

My cat, Little Man, makes me happy. That unconditional love is like a drug I can never get enough of. When he purrs because I touch him, to hear his happiness, is a profound and joyful experience for me.

Beauty makes me happy-nature's beauty and the beauty we make in art and music. Even a good book makes me happy.

Thank you for this question glok. I see no reason to dwell in perpetual darkness when happiness is always there to be seen.

According to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs...first we have survival, then security, then belongingness, then self-expression, then self-esteem.

I don't think "happiness" is anywhere in the equation, but is instead a by-product of accomplishing these other things to our own satisfaction. We cannot "choose" to be happy, per se, but we can choose to not let little things discourage us or get in our way.

I never knew Eleanor agreed with me ;-)

Nobody really cares if you’re miserable, so you might as well be happy. ~Cynthia Nelms

"Well," said Pooh, "what I like best," and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn’t know what it was called. ~A.A. Milne

Happiness? That’s nothing more than health and a poor memory. ~Albert Schweitzer

Happiness is the feeling you’re feeling when you want to keep feeling it.

Enjoyment is just the sound of being centered. ~Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

Happiness is a matter of one’s most ordinary and everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self. ~Iris Murdoch

My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it’s on your plate. ~Thornton Wilder

We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements in life, when all we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about. ~Charles Kingsley

Well, it's Friday. I get to ride tomorrow, I will be out of my driveway at 3 AM if all goes well, and cover somewhere around 70 miles by the time I get home around 9 - with a breakfast stop and couple of short breaks. It should be a beautiful ride, everything is lush and green here, just on the very brink of feeling like summer. That makes me really happy.

That sounds like a wonderful day you have planned. Have a great time.

I'm going to spent tomorrow curled up with a good book and my dogs at my feet or in my lap. As long as they keep books rolling out I will be happy on my couch.

It's been a long time since I've read a book successfully - when I am down, I crash, I fall asleep and the next thing I know, I wake to the sound of the book (or more recently the iPad) going "plunk" on the floor.

I have been known to do that, too, but it usually hits me in the head.

I roll over onto the Nook and find the glasses are still on my nose, light on, etc.

I dont know what happiness is now... do not believe it was meant for me. simple

I think I might have a chance at happiness if I could learn how to live with M.I. The ADHD seems to have no solution. Or at least no one in my area seems to know how to help a middle age person with ADHD. Happiness and contentment are out there, but there seems to be no portion for me.

I would have to say, from my perspective, there is an attitude pervading the mental health system in general that, at some point, (I don't know exactly what that point is) people are too old to be worth worrying about. So, from that point on, the expectation is simply that we'll just swallow our med's & suck it up.

Thanks Skeezyks. I do not think I am too old to be helped with my ADHD. I think much of my MH struggles come from the ADHD. The disorganization in particular causes depression, anxiety, procrastination. Anyway, those having this disorder will know what I mean. I have pretty much given up on getting help on this issue.

Sorry...went off on a tangent. Poor focus. I guess I wanted to say I could be happy if my life did not seem so chaotic. Sorry, not focusing well this morning.

I'm happy when I'm not in a depression.

LOL. If only it was that simple, right?! Take away the depressions and take away whatever anxiety level is plaguing me, and I'm alright.

To me... happiness is feeling safe and accepted. I don't need to feel accepted by everyone, as that would be impossible for me to convince myself.. but to feel like I have a few people in the world who accept me as I am. Happiness is feeling like someone actually wants to have me around.

I am pretty good at finding happiness is little things though. They're what kept me going when I didn't have the above, which was the first two decades of my life really. Getting lost in a book, nature, the atmostphere of a fair, exploring new places, etc etc.... I can find little bits of happiness in them. They are temporary, but I can bring the memories back or easily reexperience it, and the happiness can be felt again.

It took me a long time to accept that those small fleeting moments were ok and acceptable. It felt for years like there is something wrong with me, because they best I could feel was linked to things and not to people. But I have learned to accept them, and in fact I cling to them sometimes. I struggle with being happy with myself as I am, and I doubt other people care a lot of the time, so I have a harder time holding on to the larger things which make me feel happy (and I lose them quickly when a depression strikes!). But the little things are always there, and very very rarely have I lost in enjoyment in all of them at once - at least one or two tend to stick around during the depressions.

But I had to work a lot to get to this point. I remember soooo clearly the first time I was like 'Hey, life is ok! I'm content!"... I'd stopped dead in my tracks and was then in shock for a little while. I really, really, had to work at it. It didn't just happen; it isn't random. It took me, oh, 5-6 years of solidly working on things to get to the point of feeling content with my life. Before that, I think I just felt like it would never happen or that I should just BE happy. I still think that it's like that for a lot of people, but clearly not for those of us with depression.

I have loads of relapses (HELLO depression, my stupid nemesis!) whereupon I backtrack and think I'll never actually be happy because it keeps returning so what on earth am I doing wrong?... etc etc. Those are times where I just can't grasp it, but at least now I know it's possible for me to feel happy so I just keep waiting and hoping that it'll come back and try my best to help myself get there quicker.

And it gets scary, when I am happy, because I know that eventually it'll just get yanked out from under me. And sometimes that worry makes it happen, hahaha, yay self-sabotage right?! And sometimes it doesn't which is always a pleasant surprise.

But at least I always know that happiness is a possibility for me. It's just not a constant state. So I treasure it when I find it!

I don't think I'm beyond hope either, seekersinking... but I definitely believe the mental health system thinks I am. Sometimes I concede they may be correct. I am kind-of an old buzzard at this point!

I think happiness is pie in the sky wishing. I'd settle for being content.

People spend so much time pursuing "happiness" that they forget to enjoy the moment. I'm with Eleanor happiness is a byproduct.

This thread got me thinking so I googled the American concept of happiness, apparently the concept of happiness has changed over time. Happiness was once thought to be good luck and favorable external circumstances but is now considered to be an internal feeling. No wonder it is so elusive for most of us.
Also "the pursuit of happiness" makes more sense when applied to the first definition. To pursue favorable external surroundings and good luck(fortune) makes more sense to me than pursuing some ambiguous internal state of being.