[blip.tv ?posts_id=2070380&dest=-1] Can we be mistaken on the appearance of happiness?
First, what is the definition of Happiness? In an online dictionary, that’s what you find: “hap·py 1. Characterized by good luck; fortunate. 2. Enjoying, showing, or marked by pleasure, satisfaction, or joy. 3. Being especially well-adapted; felicitous: a happy turn of phrase. 4. Cheerful; willing: happy to help.”
Just like in french, the word comes from good fortune. Happiness comes from luck?! Is a happy guy, a lucky guy that has everything going his way?
According to Dr. Seligman, founder of positive psychology, happiness is made up of three segments:
1. Positive Emotion or experiencing pleasure. 2. Engagement in life or losing oneself in meaningful activities. 3. Meaningfulness or participating in meaningful activities.
Activities! That doesn’t seem dull.
Have a look at the wikipedia page on happiness and you realize that, even though happiness is a common human theme, we didn’t come to a unified definition yet. How can we achieve happiness if we are not able to define it, if we don’t know what it looks like? Could happiness seem dull from the outside? May be we judge of our happiness with a twisted set of believes.
]]>
this is going to be too short, but still i believe it’s worth the try:
as true as it seems impossible to reach something that has no definition, if we agree on happiness to be a feeling, it seems to me the language stops being as simple as ‘achieve a goal’. explaining feelings has been such a difficult task over our entire history, that it can be held responsible for quite a lot of various art forms. not that i believe we will never be able to express happiness in words, but what if its being a feeling, we don’t really need to know how to describe it, only recognize it when it appears?
as for the way it may appear to the outside world, why would that even matter? if we are happy, what ever we project should have that same positive vibe we feel inside. now if that seems dull, so what?
i am much more intrigued by the idea that bliss can come from ignorance. if we have no conscience of whatever bad can happen to us or around us, if this same ignorance can bring us the peace that will lead us faster to the state of bliss, i.e. happiness, why not take that short cut? and i do believe, at least that is how i see the world, the answer is in what that ‘corporate’ looking guy is saying about how we have to integrate the self-consciousness to the process in order for it to work well for us. what ever the answer may be, we have to accept who we are, and believe that the feeling of bliss is possible even in a head filled with what ever our personality makes us.
let us be no dolls in order to be happy, even if we do end up looking dull 😉
Happiness is a feeling?
I believe it is as important to understand happiness that it is to understand love or economics. It gives us clarity on ourselves. The more I grow, the happier I feel. And one of my growing area is to understand happiness 🙂 You say « but what if its being a feeling, we don’t really need to know how to describe it, only recognize it when it appears? » But if it doesn’t appear, are you condamned? Can’t we teach the ropes of happiness in school?
I love your catch phrase « let us be no dolls in order to be happy, even if we do end up looking dull 😉 » You should write songs 🙂
« How can we achieve happiness if we are not able to define it, if we don’t know what it looks like? »
I’d rather rely on buddhism definition which defines happiness as an inner state.
I would say that happiness is a positive way to look at the world (your environment right in front of you).
So being happy is being satisfied with what you have here and now.
Happiness has no specific flavour, no specific place, no specific moment.
That’s what I think.
Cheers,
PG
I share that vision of happiness being not specific but being satisfied with here and now. Thank you so much for your contribution.
Happiness can seem dull. This is the cliché of happiness.
But I do not think it is.
To me, to be happy you need to know yourself deeply. So being happy is not about being stupid…