What does it take to be happy?
What needs to happen?
First, let me try to describe happiness in my own words. It is a mental state of well-being. It is a profound, meaningful and positive feeling that can be further described as a feeling without anger, misery, sadness, fear, shame, worthlessness, pressure, abandoned, neglection, insecure, untrust and other kinds of negative feelings that can fill up the list of what happiness is not.
What does it take to be happy?
As soon as I've read this question, a dialog from the famous TV series Heroes (2006) came up to my mind.
Daniel Linderman: I think there comes a time when a man has to ask himself whether he wants a life of happiness or a life of meaning.
Nathan Petrelli: I'd like to have both.
DL: Can't be done. Two very different paths.
I mean, to be truly happy, a man must live
absolutely in the present. No thought of what's gone before and no thought of what lies ahead.
But a life of meaning...
A man is condemned to wallow in the past and obsess about the future.
I know the negative allegation on meaningful life seems to be in contradiction with the positive psychology literature yet as the character Linderman points out, one of the key things for happiness is setting your feet on present moment.
But one can say that happiness can be felt while recalling, remembering good, old memories and also dreaming of a bright, satisfying yet untold future as you'd ever desired. But that is an hollow, temporary kind of happiness.
to be continued..
Erhan, I really liked your post, even though it is contradictory to the one I wrote on the same topic.
ReplyDeleteAs for the statement "But one can say that happiness can be felt while recalling, remembering good, old memories and also dreaming of a bright, satisfying yet untold future as you'd ever desired," I am that one who can feel identified with it, what does not mean that I don't appreciate the present. I believe that these feelings are not mutually exclusive and that it is quite natural to think about and evaluate your past, think about your future, and meanwhile not missing a chance to enjoy your present. What matters is the depth of the emotions related to the past or the future and it is up to every person to decide whether these emotions should or should not have an impact on the present. And the last thing, the past can't be changed, so only some conclusions can be drawn from it, while the future is in our hands (at least to a veeery large extent). Therefore, I can't fully agree with you that happiness related to the future is temporary (unless we talk about groundless happiness which doesn't have anything to do with the reality). Happiness can be felt when a dream is transformed into (a) goal(s) and is supported by a plan of action to achieve that(those) goal(s). I believe that it is quite possible to feel happy by seeing a progress on your way of pursuing an important goal; at this moment the future is being connected to the present. This is the moment when a dream and the happiness stop being hollow and involve the present...
Erhan, sorry for such a long comment. I really respect and appreciate your opinion. Your post is beautiful and it got me thinking...and at the end I simply couldn't stop expressing some of my ideas in regard to what you wrote.
Thanks again. I will be looking forward to your new posts :)))
Mariya, thank you for your kind and rich comment. I wish it was much longer but if it was so i am afraid, it would surpass my original post :)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I've also read your own blog post.
"As for me, it is harder to "reach" the feeling of "happiness in general", since it requires additional efforts and concerns the feeling of satisfaction with your life (where you stand and how far you are from your goal)."
I can emphatize with you here. I think I know that feeling, nothing extraordinary happenes, it is an ordinary day as it can be, you are relaxed and feeling free. Then slowly this feeling that you mentioned starts to embrace you. You are sitting on the same old coach, drinking from the same old cup but everything feels different like brand-new, fresh, relaxing, meaningful. Slowly all the dots, all the memories starting to connect. Time starts to pass slowly and soulful. You feel like mortality does not bother you anymore.
You dream, you set goals for the future. Then you experience it. Then it becomes your past. How you interpret the results or what happened is up to you. It may sound outrageous or like the forever positive girl, pollyanna but even you did not achieved anything you can be still positive about it maybe telling to yourself as I just found and learned another way how not to achieve what I planned, so I'll not do that again :)
I totally agree with you. That limitless future planning, going back, analyzing where you are, what you have done, how you percieve yourself is all related to the feeling, happiness. And the perception you are receiving and recording is where the effort needed. How am I percieving, interpretting what I experience.
Here comes the big BUT,
It sounds so good with experiences not so chaotic, not so heart-breaking.
What about the negative experiences?
What about the connected dots that shakes your control over your positive perception? I mean why do we call these experiences as negative? Cause we interpret them so. For somebody it will not be as so maybe. I don't know whether you agree or not, but sometimes we record some experiences as negative. Our control over conscious perception fails. Sometimes we cover them as though they had never happened in order to prevent the damage to our self confidence, to our hopes maybe.
I think what the character, Linderman in my dialog tried to point out was this, the other side of the medallion. He is advising to sacrifice this positioning yourself with your past and future because of the negative meaningfulness though this also can be meaningful in a very positive way.
Maybe he is trying to warn about getting used to this kind of happiness, I mean constantly searching for a positive meaning in what one does, always finding yourself trying to connect the dots.
But in the end, I think I do not agree with the character, Linderman. One should not pass out analyzing, interpretting one's life. And not give up searching for meaning whether it is positive or negative. We should work on our perception.
Erhan, first of all I would like to thank you for sharing your personal experience and describing your feelings in the first part of your response. It sounded very familiar :) The only part on which I could not fully agree was accommodating to a comfortable situation rather than insisting on achieving the goal, and still feeling happy and not being disturbed. However, partially I can understand it, since there are different goals in life and we are not always talking about the most important ones. Yet, I believe that the biggest efforts are required for achieving so-called "vital" goals and, thereby, only being truly satisfied with your accomplishments or at least the progress towards them, may bring happiness. If they are not accomplished, it might be hard to get rid of an annoying feeling that something goes wrong.
ReplyDeleteOf course, the statements above and below are the reflections of my personal opinion, so they can be challenged and may be not suitable for other people. I am aware that everyone has his/her own way of tackling uncertainty, frustration and negative emotions, as well as "celebrating" the positive ones...
Back to the second part of your comment, let's look at the negative experiences from another angle. First of all, it is important not to forget that whatever happened belongs to the past, therefore, it has to be treated accordingly. After some time passes, the negative emotions are not being as strongly felt as once they used to...and if still we find in our memories something very disturbing, it might mean that some things staid unsolved and that is why they became a kind of burden. Trying to erase from the memory an unpleasant experience or simply not thinking about the past does not solve the internal conflict. Thus, it might be of help trying to face it at least once - sit down and analyse the possible reason(s) for failure, think about an alternative way of action (just in case you come across with a similar situation again in the future), and after making sure that next time the same mistakes won't be repeated, it is time for letting it go: the next time this failure comes to mind, it is good to remember that necessary conclusions had been made, and that these are just memories which can’t harm anymore… Moreover, looking back even to a negative experience still may bring positive emotions because you become aware that there is a big gap between the past and the present. In many cases comparing the past and the present may help us to observe a personal growth. Furthermore, it might be helpful to know that difficulties and some of the bad experiences make us stronger...
Finally, yes, I do agree with you that perception is extremely important for staying positive and being satisfied with your life, for being able to appreciate and value the things that we already have. Positive perception is a way that permits the life to shine in all its beauty and makes our experiences richer...
In my opinion happiness could finally be achieved via different sources than self. Other people around self are the one and the most important class of these out-sources. Example: N. Erhan Tanrıkulu :) Him being in my life is itself, rememberimg his existance is a big source of happiness for me.
ReplyDeleteKenan YIKILDIM.