Happiness

I liked it, in the way I tend to like things that agree with and articulate what I already think. Yes, our culture is miserable, and is made more miserable by the fact that we seem to think misery is a curable disease - or even that it's somehow immoral to be miserable when we're all relatively wealthy. One thing I would say, though, which I suspect the author also believes, but doesn't mention: part of the reason people want to be happy and successful is the ingrained belief, repeated ad nauseum, that happy, successful people (or those who project that image,) have made themselves that way through sheer determination and self-belief. We've got dozens of sayings - 'rather curse the darkness, light a candle' , 'pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps', etc. - that reinforce the idea that those who sit around feeling miserable are writing their own fate. That's great, isn't it? If you're unhappy, you're also screwing up your chance to ever be happy again. That's connected to the failure to acknowledge that success in a capitalist culture is more often down to luck, ruthlessness and nigh-on psychopathy than anything else. Sure, Celebrity X can claim they got where they got by willpower and hard work, but how many similar people have put in exactly the same willpower and hard work and not reached that status? And anyone who mentions this is obviously just lazy, or full of self-doubt, and trying to justify their lack of achievement. Right.

I once played in a band called IPOH; it stood for In Pursuit Of Happiness. We did The Jimmy Young Show. It didn't make me happy.

It's like asking people who are 115 how they got to live to that ripe old age and they say something like, "I eat 20 kumquats a day, stick biros in my eyes and talk to goldfish"... and we take it as some kind of infallible subscription! (well some people do, anyway...) ~PEPS~ “You do not truly know someone until you fight them.”

One thing everyone seems to have missed is that 'success' is a relative term: the 'success' that one automatically thinks of is material success, when actually there are thousands of manifestations of success that don't involve anything in a capitalist culture, either of wealth or reknown or having a big house. There is also an underlying assumption that 'happiness and success' by nature go hand in hand, that one must be considered successful in order to be happy, or vice versa; in this way, happiness becomes yet another achievement, rather than a state of existence. Although people always pull out the old chestnut of 'living in abject poverty but happy as a clam', I'm not sure this is true, either. The reason most people are unhappy is because they aren't living lives that are genuine to them; think of the high-powered stockbroker, miserable amongst the tokens of his 'success', who decides to become a potter instead, and finds real happiness and satisfaction in his simpler (and less obviously 'successful') life. The problem with this model is that there are so many unspoken expectations on individuals as to how they're 'supposed' to be living (and these pressures come from the macro down to the micro: 'society', the family, one's spouse/friends/coworkers/children, AND oneself), that few people are brave enough to 'risk' the real possibility of happiness by making a few tough choices.

AG, High Powered stock-brokers account for less than .00001 percent of society. I hardly think one can draw conclusion about "most people" using them as an example. My experience is that happiness seems to be gender related. Women are miserable and they make men miserable as a consequence of association. Visit me http://www.radiodenver.org/(link is external)

Radio - I have the idea that in real life you collect Wade Whimseys and work your way through seven packs of Kleenex a day, and yet on here you think you present yourself as some kind of forum terrorist 'mixing it up' with your wayward, 'out there' controversial views. I think you are kind of boring. You may say the fact I responded to you at all means I don't think you are boring. I would disagree and say sometimes it's fun or helpful to say something is boring, just to let other people who might agree with me that there more than one of us. A bit like when a group of you sit around the TV watching some turgid, unentertaining, self-satisfied crap and 3 hours later someone says, 'That was dull' and everyone else says, 'I was only watching that because I thought You gave a shit.' Know what I mean?

Ferg, I'm killing time before I go to work. Don't expect too much okay? What is Wade Whimseys anyway? Visit me http://www.radiodenver.org/(link is external)

RD, while the example of the stockbroker-cum-potter may be an extreme one, I think that's hardly the point; my point being, that the majority of people in this society are most likely doing things they don't want to do because they feel this is what they 'should' be doing, not what they really want to do. They can justify this in any number of ways: I can't afford to not do this, what will my family think, I'm letting everyone down by wanting to throw pots rather than earn scads of money, I'd be a failure as a potter, I'd have to give up my Armani suit collection, whatever. People keep themselves down with this kind of thinking, which leads to a society of people who have to buy books on how to be happy. I do feel rather sorry for you with your bitter cynicism about women and men. It leads to much loneliness and isolation, that kind of distrust.

So what you actually mean is that success and happiness do go hand in hand, it's just the way people in general interperate success. If the psych of success was aimed in more directions than material worth then man would be happier with his individual success.

Unless of course, one is perfectly happy being a failure. AG...I buy books to be a lonely cynic. I just don't trust those book stores though. Visit me http://www.radiodenver.org/(link is external)

Don't fall into the trap of thinking a stockbrocker successful, a stockbroker exists in an extremely highly motivated society where there are few limits to success, relative to his or her peers, a stockbrocker is far less successful than a primary school teacher. At least a teacher can claim to have done something useful at the end of the year. Financial rewards are fleeting too, there are precious few people in this world who have more money than they want, and they are mostly limited by imagination, not cash. As someone who finds happiness elusive (putting myself, I imagine, in the overwhelming majority), I rather like the idea that I shouldn't expect it and can just wallow in my bad days safe in the knowledge that this is what life is. It makes me happy, even.

No matter how many stockbrokers realise that their true goal in life lies in pottery, our culture still ties success to financial/career success, so anyone even slightly vulnerable to the influence of popular opinion (and we all are) is going to feel small from time to time - even those who insist that they've found happiness elsewhere. Part of the reason even the stockbrokers feel unhappy is that even they can't reach the upper limit. However successful they are, they're still unlikely to get into newspapers, or be remembered, and again, our culture, however misguidedly, attaches a lot of importance to that. There's always someone around to make you feel small. I think the point of the article, though, is that *nothing* is going to make you permanently happy. Happiness is a mood - it's not a plain of consciousness or a magical land behind a system of labyrinths. The big mistake is believing that you're on some kind of quest, and that one day you'll put all suffering behind you. But then, maybe people would go nuts if they didn't believe that. RD - Fergal's pointing out what I've tried to point out before, albeit rudely. Your 'I'm just wasting time' attitude sounds like a badly conceived, ongoing game of oneupsmanship between you and everyone else, where your only strategy is to stick your fingers in your ears and smile. Do you understand? I'm not wording it very clearly, I know. Maybe if you think of it this way: if people take the time and effort to care about what they're writing and saying, even on an Internet forum, it's a graceless snub to constantly imply that you don't give a shit. If it is the case that you don't give a shit, don't post on that topic.

I unashamedly count myself as a member of the Archergirl Fanclub. Once again she has taken a perfectly proportioned nail, placed it perpendicularly in a plank of 2-by-1, grasped a large and hefty hammer and thwacked said nail precisely on its protruding protuberance. Happiness is indeed a state of mind and we (equals “human society,” very generalistically speaking) take advice from all the wrong people on how to achieve it. If only we could be happy despite all the trappings of materiality, “success,” social standing, etc, etc, etc. That would truly be the elusive, invisible Utopia, would it not…? (Like the sound of that book, Span, but being a lazy sort, I'd probably like to have someone summarise it for me) ~PEPS~ “You do not truly know someone until you fight them.”

JC, I've honestly attempted to refrain from insulting you directly, but it is getting really hard...you know? Rather than you tell me what I should and should not write and where I should or should not write it, why don't you regulate what you read instead. A good high pressure air line inserted in your ear may clear some of the feces lodged between your ears. Don't make me bitch slap you. Visit me http://www.radiodenver.org/(link is external)

You can't bitch slap me. Bitch slapping is physical, not verbal. We're thousands of miles away from each other. Stop using phrases you don't understand, stop pretending it's other people's fault if they find you an insufferable shit, and for the love of Christ, stop trying to be witty.

"So what you actually mean is that success and happiness do go hand in hand, it's just the way people in general interperate [sic] success." Yes, I would correct my first point to emphasise this! 'Success' needs redefining in this culture to include things that give us *satisfaction* and fulfil our sense of purpose, rather than an exclusively material benefit. Peps, you -are- a dragon! :-)

RD is very happy Span, no need to worry. JC, you are correct, I can't bitch slap you, we are thousands of miles away. And even if given the opportunity I wouldn't really do something like that, you know, like in real life...physical like, you know....You are very astute, almost genius perhaps, you found a map...but, If I could, I would lick my finger and stick it in your ear with a good swirl and then muff your hair up like a puppy. Visit me http://www.radiodenver.org/(link is external)

Bitch slapping? From your asides I will know you.

You're more likely to know me from my arrears. Visit me http://www.radiodenver.org/(link is external)

leaving aside the barbs for a moment, I agree with archergirl. I think that people are largely unhappy because the society we live in makes it very easy to happen. Largely i think because choices have in many cases been taken away. We do things because we have to, because we're constrained to; either economically or ideologically, living as we believe we should, not as we want. Religion has a part to play, in that so mant of our social conventions are products of religious pressure (marriage, etc). But mostly I feel its economic. You have to pay tax, you have to pay, pay and pay, so you do what you have to do becasue you're locked into a system that requires it of you. I have a hankering after living on one of those Caribbean islands where you build your own house, not buy it from someone, and there's no welfare state. I think I'd prefer to look after myself rather than be forced, compelled, to, pay the state to look after me. Compulsion limits freedom, and I believe it is fundamentally freedom that makes us happy. I would bet there's an inverse relationship between compulsion and happiness. I would also bet that societies where people are or feel freer ,are societies where peopel are happier. Wonder if anyone's researched that?

Caveat first – I haven’t read most of this thread, it’s two in the morning…. I’m supposed to be logging off and locking up. Anyhow, just an un-thought-through thought (god that was hard to type) – maybe it’s the What Ifs that make us unhappy. It's not that we are constrained, it's the feeling that we’re not constrained and the unrealistic believe coupled with that – that if we really wanted to, we could achieve anything we wanted. And then when we don't...

Yes, I am a dragon! ***ROARRRRRRR!!!!!*** Feel my fiery breath! Be intimidated by my fearsome countenance! Pepsoid the Dragon! Terror of the Forums! I'm off fer a brew... ~PEPS~ “You do not truly know someone until you fight them.”

"Largely i think because choices have in many cases been taken away." But we have more choices now than every before in the history of mankind. I think 2Lou is closer to the truth - our culture is obsessed with goals and besotted with stars - from celebrities to 'great' people in history. So people get miserable when they fail to achieve an unrealistic goal/dream, or when they achieve it and find out that it isn't all its cracked up to be, or when they realise that there's always someone greater than them. Our concept of success and post-mortal fame is entirely relative - you're either among the Very Few, or you're a failure. When you set that kind of criteria, people are obviously going to be miserable.

Yes, I can agree with that. But I really meant choices in the everyday things of life, things so fundamental that mostly we do not recognise that choice has gone at all. For example, I am compelled to accept my local council's 'services', I have no choice over that. I am compelled to pay for them, whether I want them or not, whether they ae any good or not. I am compelled to send my children to school, whether or not it does tham any good, whether or not I agree with state education. I am compelled to pay "National Insurance" for public services, whetehr I want them or not or use them or not. I have no choice, I cannot opt out. I am compelled to buy a TV licence. If the government gets its way, I will be compelled to accept an ID card, even compelled to vote. Perhaps we accept this often choice free existence because we have become conditioned to accept that the State is in charge of our lives, not ourselves.

Raking that ball cross-court off your opponents serve with a topspin backhand drive taking your opponent out, before he'd recovered from his service action. That made me happy. No ecstatic! Better than sex. God I'd give my right arm to be able to play tennis again. The tsssk sound that a can of tennis balls make when you first open them, that makes me happy. Which perforce is the sound that a can of lager makes when you open it. Ah! That life-giving ambrosia. Cheers!

I like tennis, but sex is better... ... Yes, sex wins hands down, every time... ... ~PEPS~ “You do not truly know someone until you fight them.”

But having sex while your playing tennis - mmmmmmmmmmmm!

It should read - you're.

Life's pretty much a fight to the death. I can't see many reasons for expecting anyone to be happy ALL of the time. Happiness is as much a temporary sensation as any other feeling: sadness, anger, aggression, etc, etc. Some people make themselves unhappy in believing that they are MEANT to be happy, go in pursuit of it fanatically, and then frustrate themselves when they realise that it is, and never was, sustainable. Blah blah!