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Sunday, November 06, 2011

Happiness


Some people say that happiness is just a useless expression of the human mind that I beg to differ with. Happiness can come from so many different events in your life that it can not be cornered into one human emotion. Some people would be happy to have the egg yoke not break for their morning breakfast which for other people can be a tragedy. Some people would look at love being a direct relationship to being happy but love has so many different perspectives to perceive it from that it could never be explained in a simple post like this one. Loving your mother and father is different from loving your children or the person you're are supposed to be sharing your life with.

You can be happy with a home improvement job that as a novice you managed to complete with some self satisfaction knowing that you had no clue what you were doing to begin with. That isn't happiness. You can be happy with a work project that you poured you heart into and know that you gave it your best. That isn't happiness. You can be happy with a child that made the honor role even though you know that they didn't have to work hard to get it because they are smart beyond their age. That will make you happy but it isn't true happiness.

Happiness in some peoples definition is pure adrenalin when everything is going your way and all of the barriers of other emotions are dropped and not considered. I tend to be very happy when I have a Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie from one particular establishment. But that isn't happiness. All of my other cares, fears, dislikes, hates, and darker thoughts are gone while I eat that cookie but it is not true happiness. The cookie is what makes me happy for the moment. Then I am sad when the cookie is gone. Sadness is a topic for another post.

Take it one step further when you have a relationship with someone, a person that you spend time with, love, argue with, discuss deep thoughts, and just have the sense that you are happy with that person. That person is the core of your happiness. When you see them, the muscles in your face create a smile which some people would say is the lazy way of greeting someone since it takes fewer muscles to smile than frown. That is the same happiness when you see your child, your mother, your father, sister and brother, etc, etc. Happiness is found in love and acceptance of another

Happiness is an individuals definition of their own life. It can come from the simple love of your children and the understanding that they will love you till the day you die. It can not be defined by what anyone else thinks or believes that should mean or demand that you be happy. Nobody can tell you what is your definition of happiness. The ground work for any personal happiness has to begin with every single person. It can not be rammed down your throat. Happiness can not be forced on you because someone else thinks that you should be happy.

The end result of happiness is defined by you. How you accept and deal with all of the actions and reactions in your life is where you may or may not find your happiness. It may have been my mother or someone else influential in my life that told me to never let anyone destroy what would make me happy in my life. Thinking about that thought, I am thankful for the many friends that I have and very thankful that my life is better spent seeking out happiness. If you find love in your life from another person that loves you for all your gifts and for who you are then that is one path to happiness. It will not be easy but it is the best path to follow if love is there.

Thus, I am happy with my life, where I am in it, and where my future will go. I am in new love and look forward to many years of this love. In that respect I know where my happiness is and I can embrace it and respect it. The rest of the crap that life throws our way is just details that need to be worked on to get through. That is the crap that you should never let keep you down and away from your own happiness.

At the end of your life, would you rather have regrets or thankful thoughts that you spent your life happily embracing love and living life to the fullest?

Comment if you like on how you define happiness. There is no wrong answer.

Papamoka

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2 Comments:

Blogger John Myste said...

Some people would be happy to have the egg yoke not break for their morning breakfast which for other people can be a tragedy.

Absolutely right. Moreover, some people are happy without regard to the yoke, and without regard to much anything else that is going on. Most things that make us unhappy, a car accident, a bad grade on a paper, even the death of a loved one, stop making us unhappy as soon as something worse replaces them, or when a small amount of time has passed. In other words, people are unhappy because they embrace unhappiness and use the most direly unpleasant thing around them as the excuse.

My wife’s dog, and my dog by adoption, Hercules, has a dislocated jaw, so his teeth do not occlude properly. He has a bad back which sometimes bothers him. He only has one eye, and he is losing his hearing. He is one of the happiest dogs you would ever hope to meet. He embraces the good and forsakes depression.

Hercules knows that both good and bad co-exist in all of our lives at all times. Whether or not we are happy often depends on nothing more than which things we choose to acknowledge most. We feel like a victim of sadness or a beneficiary of happiness, but usually we are neither. We are one who embraces happiness or embraces sadness, and that is mostly all there is to it.

On the sitcom, Rosanne, the lights go out because they cannot afford to pay the bill. Rosanne laughs at her misfortune and the family talks and plays games. She is learning to embrace the good. It is not a big deal, unless we embrace it as a big deal. A year from now, it will be nothing but a memory, and whether that memory is a good or a bad one with be decided by what we do with it today.

What we call problems are usually nothing more than the worst thing going on. They are usually tasks, things we must deal with, nothing more; and we will always have tasks. It is a part of life, nothing to get upset about.

We can be pleased about things and displeased about others, but those are gut reactions, not happiness or despair. Our emotional outlook exists independent of most events we use to justify it. Of course, there are exceptions. Winning the lottery may be powerful enough to provoke a legitimate change. We were a slave and now we are not, for example. But in most cases, most of the things that provoke happiness or sadness are triggers to release whatever is already inside us, nothing more.

As a very wise man once said: You can be happy with a home improvement job that as a novice you managed to complete with some self satisfaction knowing that you had no clue what you were doing to begin with. That isn't happiness.

So, I wrote all of that to basically agree with you. We can’t have that, now can we?

That person is the core of your happiness.

I take this to imply that this person “completes you,” which is a dangerous state to be in, and really is not that fair if she brought a whole person into the relationship initially.

Happiness is found in love and acceptance of another.

I would say, love and acceptance of another flows from happiness, but I am sympathetic to the notion, nonetheless.

The end result of happiness is defined by you.

Hmm, that is a very profound statement. My head is too fuzzy to analyze it.

I am thankful for the many friends that I have

I am thankful for my friend, God bless him.

8:39 PM  
Blogger Papamoka said...

Did you end the comment by asking God to bless your friend? Holy crap John! That is new for you, I think???

If your friends make you happy then God should bless them. Blog on dude!

8:04 PM  

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