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oblivious
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- Feb 5, 2013
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- 100
Attention grabbing title, check. Anyway.
I'm sure you know someone, or are someone, who wants to be happy all the time. They'll say "I just want to be happy", or something alike. Well, you might think that, but you are wrong. Assuming you want your life sorted long term, happiness is not what you seek. And here's why.
Happiness is an emotion. I.E. a temporary reaction to an external event. Keywords being most importantly temporary, and less importantly external.
Temporary is important to note because it signifies that emotions dont last long. I make the destinction between emotions and states of mind*(SOM). Where sadness, fear and anger are emotions, their respective SOMs are depressed, stressed, and agitated. And while you might not agree with that, the point is that emotions dont last. And as such I think specific emotions aren't what one should seek long term. Sure, you might go to an amusement park or hang with friends for short bursts of happiness, but that changes your emotions, not necessarily your SOM.
Secondly, external signifies that you are dependent on input. While that is not a problem of itself, it will become one when you start expecting certain things from that input, which people tend to do from what I have observed. The problem with this is that input is random in the sense that you never know exactly what it is that you will get, only that you will get it. So making assumptions about and having expectations from input will ultimately lead to dissapointment.
So what then. Well, as I said, emotions have their respective SOMs. These are neither temporary(though changeable) nor external, what I think is the problem with having a specific emotion as a goal. So what is the SOM related to happiness? Personally I think it is contentment, but satisfied and blissful might work as well.
Whatever the word, I think this SOM is perfectly illustrated by the following saying from the bible (which is a translation from a phrase I've heard people say, without myself having actually read the bible):
God looked onto the world, and saw that it was good.
You dont want to be happy. Nobody wants to be happy. You want to be content/satisfied regardless of input or emotion. You can be sad while still being content if you realize that your emotion is a healthy, normal, adequate response to whatever happened, and its alright to be sad now. Same goes for anger, fear, or any other emotion. Because its not the emotion that matters, but the frame in which that emotion is present.
* state of mind, perspective, mindset.
I'm sure you know someone, or are someone, who wants to be happy all the time. They'll say "I just want to be happy", or something alike. Well, you might think that, but you are wrong. Assuming you want your life sorted long term, happiness is not what you seek. And here's why.
Happiness is an emotion. I.E. a temporary reaction to an external event. Keywords being most importantly temporary, and less importantly external.
Temporary is important to note because it signifies that emotions dont last long. I make the destinction between emotions and states of mind*(SOM). Where sadness, fear and anger are emotions, their respective SOMs are depressed, stressed, and agitated. And while you might not agree with that, the point is that emotions dont last. And as such I think specific emotions aren't what one should seek long term. Sure, you might go to an amusement park or hang with friends for short bursts of happiness, but that changes your emotions, not necessarily your SOM.
Secondly, external signifies that you are dependent on input. While that is not a problem of itself, it will become one when you start expecting certain things from that input, which people tend to do from what I have observed. The problem with this is that input is random in the sense that you never know exactly what it is that you will get, only that you will get it. So making assumptions about and having expectations from input will ultimately lead to dissapointment.
So what then. Well, as I said, emotions have their respective SOMs. These are neither temporary(though changeable) nor external, what I think is the problem with having a specific emotion as a goal. So what is the SOM related to happiness? Personally I think it is contentment, but satisfied and blissful might work as well.
Whatever the word, I think this SOM is perfectly illustrated by the following saying from the bible (which is a translation from a phrase I've heard people say, without myself having actually read the bible):
God looked onto the world, and saw that it was good.
You dont want to be happy. Nobody wants to be happy. You want to be content/satisfied regardless of input or emotion. You can be sad while still being content if you realize that your emotion is a healthy, normal, adequate response to whatever happened, and its alright to be sad now. Same goes for anger, fear, or any other emotion. Because its not the emotion that matters, but the frame in which that emotion is present.
* state of mind, perspective, mindset.