By choice.
We all have happiness, it’s just hard to see it past all the other stuff we got going on in our heads.
Happiness is fleeting, like other emotions, it comes and goes. Focusing on it is like chasing a wave.
Understanding your own values and what you find meaningful is essential for moving through life, because we’re not in control. Stuff happens, and we get to deal with it.
Small things. Sounds. The temperature of the air. The fact that my side isn’t hurting right now. The kids costumes who were just trick or treating at my house.
still on the topic of small things that bring happiness: coffee in the morning, listening the air on the trees, the birds, nature in general, food (good food, not processed, made by you) good friends, good talks, walks.
I really love seeing a well curated list, and that’s a well curated list.
if only our lives were the only thing we focused on
I was just about to write “by lowering the bar”, but I like your version more.
Find an IRL community that means something to you. You have to feel like you belong somewhere, and people need a support group to help when they’re down. You can’t feel happy if you’re lonely.
I’ve never felt like I’m part of a community, and I have no idea where to even look for that. I feel like I’m doomed to be lonely and unhappy my whole life.
That’s depressingly common in modern times.
It’s easier if you live near a city with lots of people, but going to meetup.com or similar will show you lots of communities that are eager to get more people involved.
It is always easier to stay home so sometimes I need to make myself go out and be social, but consistency is key. Showing up every week to a meetup will root you in a community more that once every couple months.
A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy.
Albert Einstein
I‘m completely switching up my life right now to live to 87 to be able to watch the total eclipse on my birthday
This is key - goals!
Happiness is fleeting. Sometimes you’re happy, sometimes you’re not. I was told as a young man that what I should seek instead is contentment, because someone content with their place in life will be happier more often. That said, a lot of people find satisfaction and happiness from helping others. Volunteering, and being a part of your community gives someone a sense of belonging, and purpose.
Happiness is not found. It’s not an object, rather a state of perception. The more you’ll objectify and discretize happiness, the less likely you’re to achieve it.
That being said, usually drugs.
On a serious note, two books helped me to understand this mystery a bit more
- Zen Mind, beginner’s mind by S. Suzuki
- Flow: the psychology of optimal experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
I think your comment is the key. Many others tell what to do, but yours addresses the core in that you won’t be happy unless you decide or allow yourself to be happy (perception).
I used to mock those people who would say things like “smile in the mirror and tell yourself that it’s going to be a great day”. Later in life, I figured out that that’s what they needed to do, so good for them. For me, it’s something else. I need to be around nature to ground my feelings. Other times, it’s physical cardiac exertion, like a bike ride.
Medication can help if there’s a real medical problem, like depression. Self medicating can be dangerous.
Saved the recommendations, thanks !
It seems that happiness is something in one’s mind, an internal state. I’ve seen people happy who have very little, and the opposite. Happiness is therefore a perception. The mind is the lens through which we perceive everything, so focusing the lens at the right things and ensuring it’s a clean lens are the right starting point to “finding” happiness.
Cleaning the lens: Eat well, sleep well, exercise.
These three fundamentals lay the foundation of a clean lens. If you do the above, you have created the best physical conditions for your mind. You are unfortunately a chemical creature, so the physical state of your brain is critical to all pursuits, including perception of reality.
The next step is pointing the lens, stay tuned for our next episode!
stay tuned for our next episode!
When will it be airing?
You don’t find happiness. It comes and goes. Imagine being happy all the time; it would just become normal. You need non happy times to appreciate the happy times.
As someone that is either very happy or very sad, I find happiness in my hobbies. I need my mind to be occupied to pass the time, but then there is the thought I’m just waiting to die and passing time.
Hobbies that make me happy are:
- Indoor bouldering (rock climbing) is the only thing I’ve found that lets me escape the constant train of thought and be in the moment. It’s a nerdy hobby as lots of problem solving mixed with strength training.
- Running
- Rubiks cube
- Lego
- Cross stitch
- Paint by numbers
- 3D printing
- learning
- many more but this is getting long.
As someone who is down a lot of the time and has ADHD but stopped the meds as the side affects were worse than living with ADHD; I’ve found that routine is a massive thing required to be content with life. Consistent bed time and wake time. I am not a morning person but after 18 months of waking at 07:30 or 06:00, depending on if I’m taking the train to work, that I now wake up a few minutes before my alarm quite often; I’m still tired and I hate it but it gets easier.
Spending time with other people is key too. I find if I’m down it’s usually cause I’ve been alone a lot (which I love) and that can be bad for me so I’ll go see friends even if I don’t want to just to engage.
Luckily I can spot when I’m spiralling. I have an urge to fire up Minecraft and live vicariously through Steve and shut out the world.
Hobbies, do things you like to do. If you don’t have any yet then have some fun figuring out new things to see what clicks for you
Find your thing.
For me that’s been different things as I’ve gone through life. Currently in my 50s and enjoying riding a motorbike at weekends. When I’d ridden all the local roads so many times it was starting to get boring, I added another layer and am now riding my bike to every Village in my county. It’s going to take a while, but has given another layer of interest and purpose. Many people won’t understand why it’s interesting to me, and that’s fine, they don’t have to. Finding what works for you is half the challenge.
BTW, if you’ve got depression, then finding happiness without resolving that is really, really difficult. Been there and absolutely everything felt bleak and pointless. Fixing that is the first step.
I find happiness getting lost in projects, projects being anything & everything from writing to designing to stuff around the house to whatever. Just something that gets me obsessed for at least a few days or weeks. I can’t predict when it will happen, it just has to be a sufficient problem for me to look at.
I also find happiness with some people, but that sort of happiness is unpredictable as well since people have their own lives going on and feelings can change over time. Getting too close to people though can just as easily make my life feel meaningless and make me depressed when things turn sour. I tend to crave affection and physical touch, so this is a hard one for me to just ignore this.
I find happiness getting lost in projects
I relate to this on a visceral level
Kind of surprised no one has mentioned it… But kids. Kids bring a lot of happiness.
Kids can also completely ruin marriages. I know multiple people who have straight up told me “my marriage used to be great and then having kids ruined it.” Of course kids can also bring tons of happiness! But it’s not universal.
I guess that’s one perspective. Another one might be that their marriage wasn’t as great as they thought it was in the first place.
Kids are stressful, no argument there. But blaming kids because their marriage buckled under the added stress just feels like an easy excuse. I suspect there were deeper issues that those people weren’t particularly interested in exploring.
Yea that’s definitely possible. I completely agree. But some people just have like a stress cap, ya know? It can put you over. There are definitely multiple reasons why it could happen.
Yep, they’re stressful too – but it’s usually the good kind of stress (exhaustion) and not the bad one (uncertainty). Although that pivots once they hit their teens.
Ehh, they have knock-on uncertainties. Especially if you are financially hurting.
They bring happiness, and a lot of other things too.
It depends.
For a lot of adults, I would agree that they are a bright point in their lives. But it isn’t universal.
Yep, just like how every single other answer in this thread isn’t universal.
Basically everyone I’ve talked to in my age range that has kids basically has Stockholm syndrome, but I guess there are also enough people that do intrinsically enjoy having kids.
