Well, are you? If so, how do you know? What makes you happy?
I came across this list of questions about happiness on an h2g2 ‘talking point’ and thought they would make for a good starting place to discuss some thoughts and ideas about what happiness and being happy means to us.
- Are you basically a happy person?
- Can you learn happiness? Is it a skill?
- Are some people just born under a dark cloud?
- For the terminally miserable, is happiness just a phase that some people are going through?
- Can a dyed-in-the-wool unhappy chappy suddenly wake up one morning to find that they’ve turned happy?
- Are ‘things’ underrated? Can material stuff bring long-lasting happiness?
- Is good health the secret of all happiness?
- Is loneliness the root of all unhappiness?
- Is being happy actually a bit boring and overrated?
Feel free to deviate from the questions and/or add some of your own…
casa azahar 
Not the best question to ask someone with a unipolar mood disorder!
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1. I think so
2. I don’t know – can you teach someone to have an outlook on things that really differs from their own?
3. I realy don’t know what that means, but things like bi-polar do exist and I’m not sure how much you can teach someone out of that – except coping strategies.
4. I can’t know that – fortunately
5. See 4 – though I would have thought it is unlikely, or unlikely to last.
6. Maybe that depends on what is meant by things, and why you want them. I imagine to a craftsman, a beautifully made piece of furniture can bring long lasting happiness. But, for me anyway, the latest gizmo, beacuse it is the latest, no.
7. Maybe not the secret, but I’m sure it helps.
8. Is that saying that lonely people can’t be happy? If so, surely the answer is no, but I can’t imagine that loneliness breeds happiness, except for a few people.
9. Not for me!
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Number 9 made me laugh! Of course you will be able to find people who say that being happy is boring and over-rated. They’re the drama queens, the emotional vampires, the ones who are so unhappy, they’re only happy when they’re making others unhappy.
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I see your point, WC.
The questions were just to provide a starting point – they clearly won’t be meaningful to everybody.
Although I am quite neurotic and strange in many ways, I think being happy is actually my ‘default setting’ … it just seems to be what suits me best. Because I do know people who seem ‘happiest’ when they are miserable, if you know what I mean.
Yes, I think people can learn to be happy. And that material things can also add to happiness – I know if I weren’t living in a beautiful light-filled apartment in the centre of Sevilla my happiness level would suffer a lot.
Good health, as I have recently found out, is also pretty darned crucial to feeling happy and optimistic.
Not sure about feeling lonely being the root of all unhappiness. Though of course there is a big difference between being alone and being lonely. Humans tend to be social creatures, so when our ‘alone time’ isn’t chosen by us then I think it could end up with feeling unhappy.
In terms of happiness being seen as boring, etc … I suspect this refers more to complacence than happiness. Being happy is a full-time job. It takes a lot of effort and energy to be happy. How can that be boring?
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Happiness is when what you think, what you say and what you do are in harmony. Mohandas Ghandi
Best description of happiness I’ve ever come across.
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Happiness?
Well being bipolar I get to experience both ends of the scale very strongly. Although I often feel I’m feeling both at the same time. It’s called ‘mixed state’ by doctors. 🙂
But more subjectively I’d say genuine ‘happiness’ is when I feel really ‘connected’ to people in general and nature. A kind of warm love for everything.
Unhappiness is the opposite.
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Hey Az, let me know what your TDP name is so I can add you as a friend (but only if you want to). I’m there under Wandering Coyote, not my real name.
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can it be taught? learned? maybe… i’d say it’s more something that can be “achieved” – and “occasionally” would be my modifier. happiness seems transient – as toby’s Ghandi reference captures – when it all ‘comes together’.
what i think a lot of people miss is knowing when that happens… Kurt Vonnegut told stories of his Uncle Alex, who was very good at pointing out when things were right. Sitting under an apple tree on a summer day, drinking lemonade, he’d say “well, if this isn’t nice, i don’t know what is”. i’ve taken to doing that same thing… a little footstomp to remind myself when good things are in alignment.
whether a dyed-in-the-wool unhappy chappy can wake up one morning happy? hard to say. i’ve still got my fingers crossed for my mom…
(and ian – love the phrase “emotional vampires”.)
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I liked that one too, daisy. 🙂
It seems the general concensus is that happiness is considered to be that moment when a few good things come together for a (usually) short time and when one is aware of it.
But does being happy always have to be associated with feeling good?
When I’m feeling very stressed, frightened, upset, etc, I often ask myself if I am also unhappy. And most of the time the answer comes back negative. I find this helps me a lot because I know whatever is going on is only something temporarily getting in the way of feeling happy, not something that’s actually damaging in a serious way.
I think I equate unhappiness with despairing. I hate when that happens.
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Happiness is. Just like oxygen. I am just happy, often for no good reason. I know I sometimes get angry and rant on but even then, I am happy I am able to have strong feelings and express them.
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Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about, Archie!
Even when I feel totally miserable sometimes … I’m still happy. Like I said, it’s only despair, loss of hope, that can put the kibosh on my happiness, which is why I fight it with all my might.
I always try to find something to believe in, something that matters. I remember back in Salamanca, not long after the abortion, and when I was planning to move to Sevilla. I suddenly just couldn’t find the wherewithal anymore, couldn’t find anything that mattered in a way that would make me want to go on.
And then I looked at Lua’s four young kittens (they were just learning to crawl) and something woke up inside – I said to myself ‘stop being so bloody self-indulgent! these little guys need you!’ – and you know, that really did snap me out of it. Knowing that helpless little beings were dependent on me being okay.
Sometimes I think it takes more effort to be unhappy than to be happy.
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