Well, happiness is entirely subjective. To some, happiness is the opposite of sad. To others, happiness might be more the opposite of afraid. For me, happiness seems to be entirely chemical. I have a neverending cycle of emotions. Usually its something like: I go from a state of sublime happiness to a short state of sadness to a state of impatience and unpredictability. Each state lasts from several days to several months. I'm not a manic-depressive but I have some tendencies to switch between the extremes. The phases I consider 'happy' are maybe 80-90% of the time. They are states of comfort, security, creative output. So I guess I would say happiness, for me, is 1. security(which comes from my friends and family) and 2. expressing myself (which seems to re-affirm my life). It will probably be different for everyone. But happiness is definately NOT a warm gun. (Unless you mean it in the pseudo-sexual way lennon was referring) Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Another big Beatles fan! That is one of my favourite songs!!! Hapiness is a state of existence slightly above my norm - chillin'. My noraml state (chillin') consists of me being content with everything and kind of happy but nothing worth mentioning. Hapiness is when something happens to increase that. A good relationship, fun times, minimal responsibilities...
A poorly understood neurochemical state thought to involve the chemical serotonin. Pursue happiness? Sorta. I'm more interested in exploring this range of states, from apathy to agony to ecstacy and everything in between. "Where is the lightning to lick you with its tongue? Where is the frenzy with which ye should be inoculated?" Something along those lines.
Acceptance has a lot to do with happiness. Negative emotions are the result of not getting what you want. Happiness is accepting things as they are and being grateful for what you have. If you can end the desire for things to be different than they actually are youll be content, if you can be grateful for things as they actually are youll be happy. Nice trick if you can pull it off Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
One would be content. But one would never be great, never extrordinary. A fine way to live if one is merely human.
You'd think after all the discussions we've had on this topic you'd have figured it out by now, eh Xev? Acceptance does not destroy drive. It does not destroy ambition. What it gets rid of is any feeling of depression. Think Bill Gates sat on his bed depressed before he became a billionaire? Think Mohammed Ali sat around weeping before he became the best? Think JFK or Trudeau mulled over their problems before they became the most respected leaders of their country? I doubt it.
Tyler luv, you're confused. Read m0rl0ck's post again. Then read my reply. Comprende? Good. Basically, a sort of Buddhist or Stoic acceptance of the order of the earth. Not desiring to change things. I HOPE SO! *Foams at mouth* Bill - Gates - should - suffer - I don't.
"If you can end the desire for things to be different than they actually are youll be content, if you can be grateful for things as they actually are youll be happy." You're taking it slightly out of context, though I'll admitt morlock is not the same as me on acceptance. -- "Negative emotions are the result of not getting what you want. Happiness is accepting things as they are and being grateful for what you have." -- The topic at hand when he made that comment was negative emotions. I believe, and I may be wrong, that he was talking about the end of negative emotions. While I myself still have negative emotions (though, mostly only as intense hatreds), many of them are erased. And of course you will counter back with your 'but you should explore your emotions, all of them'. But it's not a matter of rejecting them when you get them. There is no rejection involved. I simply don't receive them. Where someone might get depressed I don't get that feeling in my stomach or the desire to mope around or feel at all like I'm depressed. Logic just takes over from the get go. "I don't." Perhaps Gates was a bad example. Actually, now that I come to think of it, I believe I'll read his biography. Though I realize a movie is never 100% accurate; the movie Pirates of Silicon Vallyer depects Gates as having intense desire and drive as well as a need to be the best, not depressed.
Happiness is total freedom for me. Sometimes we can forget that we're all free, and therefore forget our happiness. But it always remains within our grasp.
Some people tend to attach happiness with nirvana. Nirvana: 1 : the final beatitude that transcends suffering, karma, and samsara and is sought especially in Buddhism through the extinction of desire and individual consciousness 2 a : a place or state of oblivion to care, pain, or external reality; also : BLISS, HEAVEN b : a goal hoped for but apparently unattainable : DREAM If nirvana is what you're looking for, I guess you could call it happiness. But it seems artificial to me, being devoid of emotion and anything, opposite of all that a human being embodies.
I think you have a misunderstanding of the state of realization, a common one in western culture. Realization is more a state of freedom from the limits of conditioned thinking, it doesnt preclude feeling emotion. From the accounts Ive read empathy and compassion are increased, there is a sense of peace, because of the deep realization of impermanence and acceptance. There is a persistent western misconception that realization of shunyata is a thorazine like state, the opposite is true, being freed from the toxic effects of negative emotion, energy and potential are actually increased. In mayhana buddhism, the most widely practiced form, there is explicit in the teaching that the fruits of realization are to be taken into the world. (Do a search for the word bodhisattva.) Just because your thoughts arent whirling around like cars in a demolition derby doesnt mean youre anesthized. It means that youre more aware of the world as it is , rather than the illusion of the world that your thoughts continually synthesize. Minds create thoughts in about the same way that snails leave a slime trail. Seizeing on these thoughts we attach emotion to them, then the next thought feeds the cycle. Pretty soon youre involved in a story thats only in your head and has nothing to do with the world as it is. You and your world are largely a story that you continually repeat to yourself.
Happiness is waking up with Jessica Alba and Carmen Electra in your bed.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
