The way to happiness is to stop chasing it.
Never mind all the ads ... It isn't 'out there somewhere'.
A proposal to classify happiness as a psychiatric disorder (1992)
31–40 of 107 posts
Re: A proposal to classify happiness as a psychiatric disorder (1992)
#32Ha, this is fun. But there's a kernel of truth to it. The problem with American culture specifically is that it treats "happiness" as a goal, rather than a fleeting feeling that is probably better described with a more specific word (joy, accomplishment, excitement, satisfaction, contentment). Our culture leans on this so hard that people start to think there's something wrong with them if they're not feeling general…
happiness euphoria
Re: A proposal to classify happiness as a psychiatric disorder (1992)
#33Overall happinesses and motivation and belief are signs of too high level dopamine.
Most business owner people have it. That's why they are often out of touch with random Joe.
They belive in success even if math is saying that's bias.
Form of pychosis
Re: A proposal to classify happiness as a psychiatric disorder (1992)
#34Ha, this is fun. But there's a kernel of truth to it. The problem with American culture specifically is that it treats "happiness" as a goal, rather than a fleeting feeling that is probably better described with a more specific word (joy, accomplishment, excitement, satisfaction, contentment). Our culture leans on this so hard that people start to think there's something wrong with them if they're not feeling general…
"Happiness comes in small doses folks. It's a cigarette butt, or a chocolate chip cookie or a five second orgasm. You come, you smoke the butt you eat the cookie you go to sleep wake up and go back to f---ing work the next morning, THAT'S IT! End of f---ing list!" -Dennis Leary
Re: A proposal to classify happiness as a psychiatric disorder (1992)
#35Ha, this is fun. But there's a kernel of truth to it. The problem with American culture specifically is that it treats "happiness" as a goal, rather than a fleeting feeling that is probably better described with a more specific word (joy, accomplishment, excitement, satisfaction, contentment). Our culture leans on this so hard that people start to think there's something wrong with them if they're not feeling general…
Indeed. This just illustrates Goodhart's Law.
Re: A proposal to classify happiness as a psychiatric disorder (1992)
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
A few years ago I read a claim that the word 'happy' is relatively young - ~500 years old - and that translations of others words into 'happy' are somewhat approximate. My takeaway is that (presuming the argument is correct) that much of human striving is probably better described with specific words (as you suggested - joy, accomplishment, fulfillment, excitement, etc). For most of human history, most people probabl…
Oh, absolutely. 99.999% of human history has been "just want to survive another year." Russ Harris has a great book about this called The Happiness Trap [0], which is an introduction to ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) [0]: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/76053/the-happiness...
Dunno. Traveling to less developed places parents still want the kids to be happy for a start. It's surprising in places without roads, internet, phones etc. how normal everything is.
Re: A proposal to classify happiness as a psychiatric disorder (1992)
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've always loved, "what's so morning about it?" What are other people's favorite humorous responses?
There's Eeyore: "If it is good. Which I doubt." But I knew a guy who didn't answer with words. He would just growl until he'd had coffee.
That sounds like me. There's a 1:1 correlation between how many cups of coffee I've had and the number of languages I speak.
And like a true computer nerd, of course it's an unsigned integer, meaning if I drink too much coffee I'm back to grunting only (this time on the toilet)
Re: A proposal to classify happiness as a psychiatric disorder (1992)
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh, absolutely. 99.999% of human history has been "just want to survive another year." Russ Harris has a great book about this called The Happiness Trap [0], which is an introduction to ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) [0]: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/76053/the-happiness...
Dunno. Traveling to less developed places parents still want the kids to be happy for a start. It's surprising in places without roads, internet, phones etc. how normal everything is.
It's normal for parents to want their kids to be happy… it's less normal for those kids to be "happy" all the time.
Re: A proposal to classify happiness as a psychiatric disorder (1992)
#39Ha, this is fun. But there's a kernel of truth to it. The problem with American culture specifically is that it treats "happiness" as a goal, rather than a fleeting feeling that is probably better described with a more specific word (joy, accomplishment, excitement, satisfaction, contentment). Our culture leans on this so hard that people start to think there's something wrong with them if they're not feeling general…
More like modern marketing depts and marketing theory leaning on it. They have replaced what religions used to offer when people asked about purpose, meaning, transcendence or what is the point of my story? Just telling people this is all just some biology and chemistry doesnt really answer questions about meaning. They will start searching for meaning elsewhere and marketing depts of corporate wonderland step in to fill the void.
Re: A proposal to classify happiness as a psychiatric disorder (1992)
#40The critique feels valid to me. There’s a tendency in modern psychology/media to pathologize the average human baseline: if you’re not consistently optimistic and thriving, something must be wrong with you, or at least you need to be in a pursuit of this. But constant happiness isn’t realistic, it’s like a desire to be permanently high. From my own experience I’ve landed somewhere near the Buddhist framing: the healt…
> healthy default is just calm and neutral, with happiness and sadness coming and going away.
This is a very healthy attitude, and people often miss it. Every feeling/emotion/state of mind is impermanent. It will come and go on its own, its biology and there's nothing you can do about it. It's trying to "cling" to a specific state, forever, that leads to our own suffering. The moment you've move from "I feel happy" to "I hope this lasts forever" is where you will suffer. Just be a witness to the coming and going, you witness happiness occurring, you don't become happiness, and its the same for other feelings and states.