Many people believe that the most important reason to live is to be happy. However, happiness differs among everybody, as different things make different people happy. So my question to you is what makes you happy? How can happiness be achieved? Are you happy? (please be as thorough in your explanation as you'd like).
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What is Happiness?
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Stinker
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The secular world has proven that true happiness is not the absence of things that make one unhappy, nor true peace the absence of conflict.
The secular world will ask what will make you happy, you name it, get it, and in a while your back to being unhappy again.
The most extreme of this, I think, was Alexander the Great who was so said that he had no more worlds to conquer.
Following God is the only way to find fulfillment.
The secular world will ask what will make you happy, you name it, get it, and in a while your back to being unhappy again.
The most extreme of this, I think, was Alexander the Great who was so said that he had no more worlds to conquer.
Following God is the only way to find fulfillment.
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Happiness is the excercise of power over others. It's so much better than helping people or following god.
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Casstranquility
Potato, pineapple, pickle.
Cheez Doodles...mmm...
Okay, I seem to find happiness when I take life less seriously, when I find something to laugh about in the smallest things. When I see God everywhere and find His Love reaching for me. When I love myself, others, and God, in any order.
Am I happy, no, not really. I'm good at taking life seriously, at not seeing God everywhere, at mistaking God for a hateful being who really does nothing for my happiness. I don't love myself much at all, and because I'm depressed, I find loving others doesn't happen as often as I'd like, and sometimes I'm confused as to which perception of God to love.
Okay, I seem to find happiness when I take life less seriously, when I find something to laugh about in the smallest things. When I see God everywhere and find His Love reaching for me. When I love myself, others, and God, in any order.
Am I happy, no, not really. I'm good at taking life seriously, at not seeing God everywhere, at mistaking God for a hateful being who really does nothing for my happiness. I don't love myself much at all, and because I'm depressed, I find loving others doesn't happen as often as I'd like, and sometimes I'm confused as to which perception of God to love.
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It makes one a slave to the passions living this state of control. You just become controlled by a false sense of 'self.' God can still be looked at with lucidity, just look at many Hindu Swamis,shamans.
Control of self and mind is true mastery but over others it is easy as it's just weakness exploiting others weaknesses and is an endless cycle of little thought above wild beasts.
It will always be a severe weakness.
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Gather around, boys and girls! It's false dichotomy time!
The real name for the state of a man who is a slave to himself is freedom. If you intend to justify your claim that it is false, please do so without citing the bible. Also, I'd like you to back up any metaphysical claims, too.
Do you seriously maintain that it is easier to control others than it is yourself? This is nonsense. No blood has ever been spilled in the attempt to control oneself.
What this really sounds like is an attempt by someone who is weak to ward off one who is strong, for only one who is weak would have any need to concoct this sort of story. No offense intended, of course, Darchangel.
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Studies have shown that among typical Americans, happiness is more strongly linked to genetics than to daily actions. Of course, events in your life are directly related to happiness on a short-term basis, but the way you respond to events in your life is largely determined by genetics.
In other words, if you want an estimation of how happy you will be in the future, take a look at your parents.
In other words, if you want an estimation of how happy you will be in the future, take a look at your parents.
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bob135
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I'd say that the best way to achieve happiness is by building close personal relationships. To the extent that I do this, I am happy. However, some research has suggested that we are all on a "hedonic treadmill." While we become happy with positive events, a new car, a new spouse, etc, that situation quickly becomes the baseline level of happiness, so we are no happier than we were before.
http://www.psych.uiuc.edu/~ediener/hottopic/nonobvious.htm
http://www.psych.uiuc.edu/~ediener/hottopic/nonobvious.htm
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Catherineanne
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Happiness is what you find when you decide to be happy. It is a choice. Sometimes it is an easy choice - it is easy to choose to be happy when sitting on a sandy beach in the sunshine eating ice-cream, watching your children build sandcastles. It is less easy to choose to be happy when your central heating is broken, and you are cold. However, you can still make that choice, if you consider that you still have a roof, and walls, and a home, albeit a cold one.
If you constantly put off being happy until you have that new TV, or that new car, or your children have passed all their exams, then you might put it off one day too long, like the man in Matthew building bigger and bigger barns, and then dying.
Happiness is found in small things. A cup of hot chocolate. A hug from a friend. An unexpected letter. A photograph of someone far away.
Unhappiness is found in comparing yourself with others, who will always seem to have more material possessions. But they will envy you if you are happy with what you have, and can thank God for it, rather than always searching for more.
I heard this morning that 30,000 people in the UK are expected to become insolvent in the next three months alone, due to excessive borrowing and high prices. Many of them will lose their homes, and if they cannot find a place to live, may have their chidren taken into care. If you are not one of those 30,000, believe me, you are happy.
And if you are, then thank God you still have your family and friends, and can work your way out of your troubles. And God be with you.
Happiness is recognising that you are happy, rather than waiting until unhappiness comes, and then realising that it was what you were yesterday, and can be no more. Unhappy is 'Rachel weeping for her children, who cannot be comforted, because they are no more'. Anything else is happy, imo.
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Catherineanne
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Eudaimonist
I believe in life before death!
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That's the one for me too.
RecoveringPhilosopher said:
I think it is far more correct to say that it stems from power over oneself.
To exercise power over others is to seek to disempower them. I have found through personal experience that I have been far more happy with my wife the more empowered she has been in her life -- she is more creative, alive, interesting -- more a person. Not that I've ever treated her like a servant or slave, but servants and slaves (and the self-disempowered) make poor company.
eudaimonia,
Mark
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ChrisCountryGirl
It's better to give than to recieve
Happiness to me is living life to the fullest, enjoying and appreciating the beauty of the outdoor world and living a low-key, simple life. Happiness to me is having a close, personal relationship with God. Happiness to me is taking care of my pets, enjoying a cup of tea, baking/cooking, reading and do things that I enjoy
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for me, happiness is a life lived in reconciliation which is what i see as the Will of God.
to explain this, everything falls under reconciliation for me. to do good at my job, so i can take care of the little 2 bedroom "garden"/apartment that i have. to love my neighbor as myself because it's so important to preach the Gospel to those in need and to those not in need. to hopefully find a woman that stands by me, because i am just like Adam in the Genesis story that needs a partner/helper cause women have that strange affect of making men want to be better men a lot of the times and to keep my sexuality pure and holy and to have love between a me and another woman flow insanely over my life and worldview. to accomplish things in my life that i want to accomplish, which right now, i'm not quite sure what they are anymore but i'll figure them out someday. to love my family the best i can and show them that the man i am in all his good qualities, unorthodox qualities and bad qualities can succeed, love them, be there for them as best as i can with whatever situation in life comes in. to continue progressing in my spiritual life because it is a pivatol part of who i am. to love God with all my heart mind and soul by repenting when i fail any of these above (not for the sake of saving my soul from some paganized hell but because failing any of these in my opinion is failing the responsibility that God put on Adam in the story of Genesis to tend to the garden, metaphorically speaking, i apply it to my own life).
it may sound complicated, but it keeps happiness a lifelong goal, not a goal to meet before i'm 30 and it's a goal that will never completed till i stop breatheing.
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