What is happiness?

[Reincarnate]

What, in your opinion, defines a happy life? What are your goals? What is your mindset if you fail to achieve a goal and are forced to find happiness in unexpected ways? How do you deal with good fortune?

[Shikari]

Originally Posted by Reincarnate

What, in your opinion, defines a happy life?

Happiness is relative. One can be happy making music, making money, doing girls, killing, and so on.


For me, happiness is to do what you like to do, with the ones you like to be with, either friends, relatives and lovers.

[Magooskie]

Happiness.

Is being somewhere other than life in my teen-age common life, Listening to music and socializing. That's when I'm happy.

In terms of when I'm over 21. Well that all depends on my future job, lover and kids doesn't it.

I'd say If I was in a muscle car, with my best friend who helped me through classes to get where I am. In a highway to a fantaaastic city. Truth.

[rushyrulz]

I remember being happy only in comparison to not being happy which is what I am now.

(this is more than a song reference for a lot of people)

[Hakulyte]

I believe that happiness is when you actually forget yourself because you enjoy something.
An happy life is basically the same thing as being happy except on a long period of time.
(with good memories, good friends etc. whatever you can think that would constitute something that would lead yourself to happiness.)
My goal is to live as old as possible and do the above as much as possible.
If i fail to achieve this i'll just look for alternatives to do the above but i don't think it's something that can be failed unless you get in a seriously depressive mindset.
I mean, i could be in terminal phase in an hospital bed and laugh at the situation regardless of the facts because in the end it doesn't really matter.
Good fortune is always welcome but it's not something you want to rely on too much.

We could complicate the question a little more by saying something along the lines of do you need to experience true sadness to find true happiness?

[Oni-Paranoia]

Happiness - A moment in when no negative or neutral emotions exist as a majority. (This isn't my exact definition but it's something similar.)

By the way, the best definition is one that can apply to all situations and be true at the same time. (Some people tend to forget about that).

Also, the happier we are, the easier it is to make us unhappy. Just stating.

EDIT:

Originally Posted by Hakulyte

We could complicate the question a little more by saying something along the lines of do you need to experience true sadness to find true happiness?

The more negative emotions, such as sad, you experience, the easier it is to be happy. There is no such thing as "true sadness or happiness" IMO. Most emotional experiences are based on personal experiences.

[mhss1992]

I think about this all the time.

Originally Posted by rushyrulz

I remember being happy only in comparison to not being happy which is what I am now.

(this is more than a song reference for a lot of people)

This is horrible, and can't possibly be true. Your life can't be a constant lowering of your happiness level. You'd eventually stop feeling bad at all if you never felt any sort of happiness (this is not a paradox. You'd just feel neutral). I've heard of this happening many times when people are held in captivity for too long, for example.

As far as I have observed in my whole life, dissatisfaction is only possible when you already have the perspective of something satisfactory. But the contrary is not true.

E.G: If you have never felt the actual satisfaction of being rich and never saw anyone rich, then you have very little perspective of this happiness. It's entirely possible that you are happy even though you are not rich.
However, if you become rich and feel the satisfaction it proportionates, your standards will rise, and with it your expectations and desires, so you'll also become harder to satisfy. If you ever become poor again, you will feel really bad.

I also believe that pain itself is only bad because we have a notion of physical comfort and because of it's meaning (your life could be in danger).

And also a local example: once you get used to get perfects all the time, a single "good" is actually a pretty bad thing. But you don't really care about it before you actually feel the satisfaction of AAAing songs.

To sum up: everything that's bad is really a lack of something good, but it cannot be said that good is a lack of bad. Happiness is an actual thing, and unhappiness exists due to contrast (much like light and the concept of darkness, there is no actual "dark force", just lack of light)

Originally Posted by Oni-Paranoia

Also, the happier we are, the easier it is to make us unhappy. Just stating.

Fact.

[Rubin0]

I think happiness is subjective. Some people are happy playing video games all day in their basement while this seems like utter and complete failure to others. Personally, happiness for me right now involves being with the person I love in my basement watching a movie. In the long run, happiness is having a good career, a good salary, and having a nice apartment with the person I love. In the long run, my main goal is to get married and have a stable life. For others this might seem boring. I have a friend that dream of being a famous singer. That is happiness for her while being in the spotlight is my worst fear.

I also don't think you need to feel happy all the time to be happy. I'm not always happy with my significant other. We fight and sometimes I get bored in my relationship, but overall I am happier in my relationship than I would be if I weren't in it. I think when people think about being happy they believe that means they always have to feel the emotion of being happy, which is impossible. Being sad, angry, and depressed are all necesary and healthy emotions, and without them, you would never be able to appreciate the times that you feel true and utter happiness.

[mhss1992]

Originally Posted by Rubin0

Being sad, angry, and depressed are all necesary and healthy emotions, and without them, you would never be able to appreciate the times that you feel true and utter happiness.

I guess that these feelings are what stop us from getting our expectations too high (being "spoiled"). That way, we get to value what we have a lot more, and, therefore, get more happiness from it.

[awein999]

A happy life is one where we listen to our inner self and recognize our individualized needs AND apply these findings to our lives. You know you are successful when you find you are excited to do things in general and you are able to provide for yourself confidentally.

Goals:
-Do what I want to do for the majority of my time.
-Satisfy school work.
-Love myself.
-Meet people.
-Make the world a better place everyday.
-Help other people.
-Personal impossible badge quest on kongregate.

In Highschool (I'm now a freshman in college) I wanted to find happiness by becoming social with people in my school but I found it impossible for me. I couldn't pass that goal and it was unbearable to face and it seemed like no one could or would help me. I had to turn myself to something else. A distraction. I discovered poker and found happiness unexpectedly with that for 2 and a half years in the darkest time in my life. Poker clicked for me because I am very good at it, it's all about reading people which I love to do, it helps me meet people, my self doubt would completely leave me while playing the game. Last summer I made a average summer job's worth of money playing poker in Canada with friends after I turned 18 (unfortunately out of the 6 of us we were down plenty because 4 out of 6 of us were not very good. Almost everyone loses money playing poker in casinos. You really have to know what you are doing). But since college started I've pretty much stopped playing poker because I haven't needed it anymore. It also taught me to think for myself because my parents were all anti poker and I had to pretty much play in secret. The fact that they were wrong about it being a luck game made me come to the realization that my parents are human and that I need to think for myself to get to where I want in life. Poker made me a better, more well rounded, and satisfied person. It was unexpected, but I just went with it. And if I ever need it again, it will always be right there.

When I am very fortunate (which has been pretty much all of my life up to now) I think that maybe sometime in the future, I won't be as fortunate. And I have to prepare myself mentally for times like those. That's how the "just do the school work" mindset clicked in a couple months ago. I just compare doing the work to getting a badge by completing it (kongregate) and it's almost exciting rather than unbearable.

A little over a month ago I lost my back pack with my DS and all the games inside. My 128 Gig i-pod and a couple other things of smaller value which added up to about 700 dollars worth of stuff. I just left it somewhere carelessly and I searched for it for a week and couldn't find it. So I assumed it was stolen because I live in a college where most people are just getting by financially. 4 weeks later I get a notification online that my backpack is in the front desk of the library. I run to the library and ask if they have it and sure enough the student worker at the desk finds it in the back and just hands it to me without checking my ID or anything. I look inside and EVERYTHING is still there after 4 weeks. That is UNBELIEVABLY fortunate. Anyone could have taken it at anytime. I've learned from this fortunate experience to keep better track of my stuff. Which I have been doing since.

A happy life is (more simply put) one filled with individualized self improvement.

[mhss1992]

I forgot to answer the questions from the first post...

Like many people have said, the things which make someone happy are relative.
Most of my happiness comes from the feeling that I am improving in some aspect.
My current biggest goal is to publish my sci-fi book series and make my ideas known to as many people as possible. That would make me very happy.
If I fail to achieve it... I guess I'll try to create something else.

[Mulie]

The healthy body has a natural propensity for elevated moods, because it deals with problems more easily. So, with mood being homeostatic, wellbeing is the answer.

[ichliebekase]

Originally Posted by Shikari

For me, happiness is to do what you like to do, with the ones you like to be with, either friends, relatives and lovers.

This. Pretty much puts it perfectly for me. Money is nothing to me, a big house is stupid unless you live with 30 people.

[carlin]

For me, true happiness is being with the one I love. Pretty much any other form of happiness I receive from the world around me goes away by the end of the day.

[bender5]

In my opinion, happiness is finding what you're good at, what you love to do, the people you love, and keeping the things you love most happy as well.

There's no one thing that happiness can be seeing as it's really just a release of dopamine. Being a genuinely nice person, brings genuine happiness to me and the people around me, even if it's only temporary.

If you fail to achieve you have to consider, are my standards too high, or did I not try hard enough? Usually in my case, it's because my standards are FAR beyond what they should be to any situation, because given chance of success the reward becomes much greater, therefore, more happiness. If you became lazy and didn't strive, then the question to ask am I just happier being lazy, or do I want to better myself to make myself happy?

[mhss1992]

I also see the "standards" matter like this:
If your satisfactory models aren't too difficult to reach, you can have a good deal of happiness even if things aren't perfectly according to the model. If your models are too harsh (you're a perfectionist) the tolerance value will be too small and it will be much harder to gain happiness, but it will be MUCH more intense (think of a normal distribution with very small deviation). I think I'm usually in the second group, but I also try very hard, so I'm usually happy.

[TimeShaper]

It cannot be achieved because there is no such thing as 'happiness'.
The only lasting and powerful feelings are those of hatred.
To me, happiness is just an illusion, silly daydreaming and a complete waste of time. Humanity would never evolve through happiness. The urge to kill, to dominate, to have revenge, these will make one achieve perfection.

This is such a matter of perspective though.

[Chic1223]

Happiness is whatever makes you feel good in my opinion.

[mhss1992]

Originally Posted by TimeShaper

It cannot be achieved because there is no such thing as 'happiness'.
The only lasting and powerful feelings are those of hatred.
To me, happiness is just an illusion, silly daydreaming and a complete waste of time. Humanity would never evolve through happiness. The urge to kill, to dominate, to have revenge, these will make one achieve perfection.

This is such a matter of perspective though.

Insane troll logic...
Actually, the only reason people do these things at all is to achieve happiness.

[Izzy]

Originally Posted by TimeShaper

It cannot be achieved because there is no such thing as 'happiness'.
The only lasting and powerful feelings are those of hatred.
To me, happiness is just an illusion, silly daydreaming and a complete waste of time. Humanity would never evolve through happiness. The urge to kill, to dominate, to have revenge, these will make one achieve perfection.

This is such a matter of perspective though.

Yea, teen angst is a bitch.