7 ms·
Happiness and unhappiness are like the day and the night. Both are needed to differentiate between light and dark (you wouldn't know if you're happy unless you
by yason 7y ago
Happiness and unhappiness are like the day and the night. Both are needed to differentiate between light and dark (you wouldn't know if you're happy unless you also had a sound contact with unhappiness). But life itself is not about happiness: life doesn't particularly care about happiness. Life goes through waves of happiness and unhappiness, over and over again, as it makes progress of its own. Being happy or not merely colors life.
And herein you come into the play yourself: if you want to be happy you'll have to recognise the happy waves and immerse yourself in them for they will pass shortly. Some people only feel the unhappy waves as they don't recognize the happy ones. Other people look for happiness themselves and never find it as it's a matter of knowing how to receive and seize happiness whenever it's there. You could say happiness is a state of mind which is on the right path but there are times you can't get happy by tricking your mind into it. You do have to have the right state of mind to first wait and then seize happiness when it next hits your life.
Happiness is like scooping buckets of water from sea waves. You can only do it when the wave is at its highest phase, you have to be prepared and you have to be in the moment because you ca no longer do it once the wave has passed.
- OneWordSoln 7y agoNo, happiness is the result of making others happy. Unhappiness is the same thing but for when you treat people badly. A person riding waves of happiness and unhappiness is doing so because they do not understand this fundamental reality of human existence and have not learned how to treat others accordingly. We alone have free will and the Law of Karma (reaping what we sow in others) is the universe's feedback mechanism to nudge us away from animalistic competition at the expense of others and towards humanitarian cooperation for the benefit of one and all, no matter what their superficial differences. To become consumed with universal compassion for all others and therefore be committed to helping create happiness in all those around us is to have become the owner of a deep abiding peace and happiness that cannot be shaken irrespective of external circumstances. Becoming consumed by active, selfless love for all others is the zenith of human self-evolution and is the ultimate meaning of life. That so few understand this absolute truth is precisely why so many suffer and those who gain riches are left so very empty.
- coldtea 7y ago>No, happiness is the result of making others happy. If only it was that easy. There are very self-content (happy) people who make others miserable.
- DoreenMichele 7y agoThere are, in fact, sadistic people who are only happy if they are torturing someone for no reason other than their own personal gratification.
- PavlovsCat 7y agoWhich is the opposite of a "deep, abiding peace", would think it's more like a hole that can never be filled.. one might even call it a deep, abiding suffering from which people seek temporary refuge by hurting others.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- coldtea 7y agoMore like "No true scotsman": e.g. "yeah, but those people are not truly happy", etc. Well, I say they are truly happy, doing the thing they enjoy most inflicting pain.
- PavlovsCat 7y agoOh, so you say that. That's different, then, that totally negates anything I ever witnessed. > doing the thing they enjoy most inflicting pain I'm not going to insult your intelligence by listing known sadists and sociopaths with childhood trauma or brain damage -- from serial killers to Hitler, you name 'em... but do you know of examples where no damage could be found? I haven't even heard of that once, nowhere in pyschological literature. And all the truly happy people I've known have been kind. All the cruel people I've known are weak and never really at ease. Your "I say" isn't even a "in my experience", you can't even commit that much. > I learned that it is the weak who are cruel, and that gentleness is to be expected only from the strong. -- Leo Rosten This matches my experience. It's not the argument, it's the summary of it.
- ta1234567890 7y agoWhat a wonderful view and explanation. Thank you. It's hard to let go realizing we are not in control. It's also really hard to be present enough to enjoy things fully or detach ourselves from suffering during the bad times. But it's definitely worth a try.