How to Be Happy

diaeagle

diaeagle

Diaeagle
Apr 6, 2006
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It’s the promise of every product in the store: “Buy me and I’ll make you better, skinnier, smarter, faster and stronger. Buy me and you’ll be happy.” But what makes people happy?

For some people it’s friends and family, for others it’s money and power. For some people it’s how they look, for others it’s who they are as individuals.

so who can tell me which type you are????
 
Cosmo

Cosmo

House Member
Jul 10, 2004
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Victoria, BC
Great question, Diaeagle!

Happiness, for me, is equally shared by freedom and gratitude. Being free to do what I want and be who I am. Gratitude or appreciation for the good things in my life never fails to centre me.

Both those things require a high degree of personal responsibility. It's up to me to live in a place that suits my personality and lifestyle (gawd knows living in a little redneck town in the interior didn't work and I'd never survive at all in many countries!). Making a conscious choice to be glad for the good stuff is really more habit than anything else.

My life contains both crap and gold and my mood depends on where my focus is at any given moment. Of course it's my job to surround myself with things that remind me of all the blessings and to choose people who are loving and supportive of me exactly as I am. Not as easy as it looks on the surface!

Oh, and chocolate. Good chocolate truly makes me happy. It's fleeting, but intense. Sounds frivolous, but there's nothing quite as nurturing as snuggling in bed, mid afternoon, with a brand new novel and some Callebaut. Pure luxury and indulgence!
 
O

Outta here

Senate Member
Jul 8, 2005
6,778
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Edmonton AB
well I have fonded with chocolate too, so it's unanimous. Chocolate is happy-inducing. lolll

Cosmo, your philosophy is a good one - I ascribe to a very similar perspective. When one is appreciative of their blessings, their blessings increase.
 
Curiosity

Curiosity

Senate Member
Jul 30, 2005
7,326
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California
Happiness is relative to our life stages and our life experience

Although happiness does change along with the decades when I was a kid I had one sister who was a bit of a mystic and always checked me out at breakfast by asking: "What are you going to treat yourself with today?"

As I grew older I realized I could give myself a gift which would make me happy no matter what presented itself during the day - good or bad.

I've never forgotten it. The "treats" change but even the smallest thing reminds me to find some happiness in each day.

Chocolate being a major one (as Cosmo writes) - but even sitting quietly in my car as I return home looking at my neighbor's horse stroll along in one of the fields nearby - or catching a sunset - or sunrise. Happiness is everywhere if we look for it.

Not one of us has to surrender to a completely unhappy day - unless we choose it.
 
F

fuzzylogix

Council Member
Apr 7, 2006
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Exercise is very important. If i can exercise, especially outside I feel great- gets all those endorphins running around.
 
A

Amik

Electoral Member
Mar 21, 2006
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Happiness is very simple. You just choose to be happy... or not. It's only perspective.
 
selfactivated

selfactivated

Time Out
Apr 11, 2006
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Richmond, Virginia
Re: RE: How to Be Happy

Amik said:
Happiness is very simple. You just choose to be happy... or not. It's only perspective.
Click to expand...

VERY true! Im allrgic to chocolate......the migrain it gives me doesnt make me happy. I friend listening to my little dramas on the other end of the phone makes me happy. Doing Tarot readings for a friend makes me happy. Cooking for people who love my cooking makes me happy. I create my own heaven on earth.
 
Dexter Sinister

Dexter Sinister

Unspecified Specialist
Oct 1, 2004
10,168
536
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Regina, SK
An interesting and provocative question. I don't really know what makes people in general happy, I can speak only for myself, but I'm inclined to think it's a byproduct of other things, not something you can go after directly. If you have something interesting and useful to do, enough money to be able to stay warm, clean, dry, fed, and clothed, if you know you're loved and valued by family and friends, odds are you'll be happy. If you don't have those things, odds are you won't be happy.

I've been unbelievably fortunate all my life with those things, and I'm one of the happiest people I know. My life so far has been one of extraordinary comfort and privilege, and a lot of that's due to nothing more than the fact that I'm a white, English-speaking, university-educated heterosexual male born into a prosperous upper middle class family, living in a time and place where those characteristics put me on top of the heap. I had nothing to do with any of those except the education, for which I had to pay the tuition fees and do the work, but part of the reason I was able to pay the fees was because I'm a white, English-speaking, etc. My life of comfort and privilege I've done very little to earn, it seems almost entirely accidental to me.

So now in retirement I'm trying to give some of it back. I've just signed up with Habitat for Humanity and I'll be spending much of the summer swinging a hammer on behalf of people less fortunate than I've been. And that too makes me happy, because it's another something interesting and useful to do.
 
selfactivated

selfactivated

Time Out
Apr 11, 2006
4,276
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Richmond, Virginia
Dexter Sinister said:
An interesting and provocative question. I don't really know what makes people in general happy, I can speak only for myself, but I'm inclined to think it's a byproduct of other things, not something you can go after directly. If you have something interesting and useful to do, enough money to be able to stay warm, clean, dry, fed, and clothed, if you know you're loved and valued by family and friends, odds are you'll be happy. If you don't have those things, odds are you won't be happy.

I've been unbelievably fortunate all my life with those things, and I'm one of the happiest people I know. My life so far has been one of extraordinary comfort and privilege, and a lot of that's due to nothing more than the fact that I'm a white, English-speaking, university-educated heterosexual male born into a prosperous upper middle class family, living in a time and place where those characteristics put me on top of the heap. I had nothing to do with any of those except the education, for which I had to pay the tuition fees and do the work, but part of the reason I was able to pay the fees was because I'm a white, English-speaking, etc. My life of comfort and privilege I've done very little to earn, it seems almost entirely accidental to me.

So now in retirement I'm trying to give some of it back. I've just signed up with Habitat for Humanity and I'll be spending much of the summer swinging a hammer on behalf of people less fortunate than I've been. And that too makes me happy, because it's another something interesting and useful to do.
Click to expand...

Dex you truely amaze me. What a wonderful way to give back in life and THAT makes me happy. In my life the things I lacked growing up are the seeds of happiness. Unconditional Love, attention, acceptance, theres more but that gives you the gist. Happiness is a very personal thing, What makes one happy saddens others.. There is no logic to it. Just feelings.
 
G

gd

New Member
Dec 11, 2005
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I think a lot of people try to obtain social status via goods and then try an reassure themselves they are happy, when they are not.

I'd say I am unhappy when I come across people who are trying to delude themselves thus.

For example I can't stand women who are label whores.

blah blah.
 
missile

missile

House Member
Dec 1, 2004
4,846
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Saint John N.B.
it takes so very little to make me happy that I almost feel ashamed to mention it: a good cup of coffee,getting upclose to Nature, and having enough food and clothing. :)
 
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