Happiness is a State of Mind
[ A rough draft/collection of ramblings from 2004 ]
This is THE website for unhappy, bitter losers.
Happiness is a state of mind. Not a feeling, emotion, or reaction.
You can be happy with your life, all you have to do is accept it. If you play the "what if" game you will dig yourself a hole you can never climb out of without serious help. Nothing will make you happy, you have to choose to be happy. If you walk around with a smile on your face you will be happy. You cannot fake it though, that will not help anything or anyone.
When you go out and have a good time, you are not "happy", you are having "fun." Fun ends when what you are doing is over. You go back to your own thoughts and feelings. If you weren't happy before, you won't be happy now. But that's what you try to do. You fill your life with "fun" things thinking that it will make you happy. But at the end and the beginning of each day, if you aren't happy then it's not working.
Material things cannot make you happy. Activites cannot make you happy. A new pair of shoes cannot make you happy. Other people cannot make you happy. They can improve your mood, cheer you up, or brighten your day. They cannot make you happy. Happiness is a state of mind. You have to accept yourself and your life to be happy. The grass on the other side is always greener, until you get there.
Say you have a favorite song that you say makes you happy, right? A song can't make you happy, and you can't listen to that song 24 hours a day to keep you happy. The song just; cheers you up, lifts your spirits, takes your mind off of your troubles maybe for just a few minutes. But the feeling fades.
Say you love going to movies and that makes you happy, right? It is fun to go to the megaplex and spend 30 bucks for tickets and munchies once in a while. But you can't live your life in a movie theater, even in the cheap theater, they will kick you out!
Speaking of getting kicked out. Remember those 2 words that everyone hates to hear. "LAST CALL!" Everyone has been having a fun time, smiles all around. Nobody wants it to end. Some people fret about what to do next? Where else can we go? They don't want this feeling to end. No matter how long you prolong going home to your own thoughts and feelings, you still have to.
I'm sure that everyone has known at least one person, probably many, who have tried to live their lives that way. Always on the go, always partying, always in need of a phone call or a message to keep going. Well the bars close and one day your phone might not ring, and nobody will answer when you call. Then again, you are left alone to face your demons. Yes your inner thoughts and feelings have been there the whole time.
There are so many distractions you can keep yourself occupied with. Something to occupy your mind, keep you busy. Your job, a baseball game on tv, a good book, drinking, a day on the golf course, all just keep you occupied. But each one of these is like a vacation from your thoughts. Every vacation has to end. You eventually have to go home. When the workday is done, the baseball game is over, you finish the book, it's last call, and the ball is in the 18th hole... there you are again.
We are taught from day one to desire and rely on the acquisition of material things. When we first tie our shoelaces, we get an ice cream cone. When we first..... Happiness is..., we've seen all of the signs... Happiness is not baby kitties. Happiness is not a warm cup of hot cocoa. Happines is a mentality that you can live with every day instead of search out like the holy grail.
We live in the greatest country in the world in my opinion, but people will still find something to complain about. You complain about paying $2.00 a gallon for gas, but don't flinch about paying $1.50 for a 20oz bottle of water. Water! Some people in other countries are happy to even drink good clean water. In just about every american home, water comes right out of the faucet, but we can complain about that. People in other countries have to walk miles for water that isn't even clean. People get on a boat and try to float at least 90 miles over an ocean to come to this country, we should feel blessed to have the honor of calling this place home.
Say your not happy and nobody notices it. You want people to know you are not happy so they will try to cheer you up. But you have to get people to notice that you are unhappy. So you begin purposfully acting unhappy, worse then you even felt in the first place. Then they notice. In the meantime, this change in demeanor has become normal to you. You have taken on this role and you begin playing it every day when you wake up. This begins another never-ending cycle.
So how do you do it then?
Happiness is a State of Mind
Be happy with what you have, because waiting for something to
make you happy only starts a neverending cycle. It will begin
with one thing, or many things, but once those are resolved...
there will be something else. Trust me.
So look at your life, take a snapshot. It could be much worse,
and you know it.
to be continued...
Fear - The strongest enemy of Happiness
Am I as happy as I can be?
Would I be happier at a different job?
Would I be happier with a different mate?
Would I be happier with a newer car?
Would I be happier if I had more friends?
Each of these thoughts diminishes your opinion of what you have.
You know, if I had a _____ like my neighbor has, I would be happy.
You know, if I had a job like my neighbor has, I would be happy.
You know, if I had a house like my neighbor has, I would be happy.
You know, if I had a wife like my neighbor has, I would be happy.
You know, if I had a car like my neighbor has, I would be happy.
Though shall not covet thy neighbors goods
Though shall not covet thy neighbors wife
God saw this coming, he knew what we were like, he made us! Adam and Eve didn't think god had given them everything they could possibly want. They thought he was holding back. So they fell for the devil when he came with a promise of something more enticing. Look where that got us. We are all now tainted with Original Sin. All because the first humans on this earth yearned for more than they had. Do you understand the cycle now? It has been going on since the dawn of time!
So think about this. The biggest thing keeping you from being happy is the thought of being happier. What kind of way is that to live your life? You are creating yourself an impossible outcome that will eat away at you every day. So live your life to the fullest, every day.
Such fear is intensified by our soul-deadening routines, unsettled feelings about our accomplishments, grudges we can’t let go of and the weight of all our sorrows and pains.
Blaise Pascal, 17th-century French philosopher and scientist,
described this condition in a way that sounds 21st-century:
"We never keep to the present. We recall the past; we anticipate
the future as if we found it too slow in coming and were trying
to hurry it up, or we recall the past as if to stay its too rapid
flight. Thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since
we are always planning how to be happy, it is inevitable that
we should never be so."
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