Happiness is a state of mind. I can't tell you how to get there but I do know that you can't expect things and people to make you happy. It's all around us but only you know what your state of happiness is. You have to find it for yourself.
Are We Living in a Post-Happiness World?
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Re: Are We Living in a Post-Happiness World?
#12Happiness comes from within. Our social medias are stifling that. Get off them (or at least know how to limit and ignore)!
Re: Are We Living in a Post-Happiness World?
#13Family, friends, health, purpose. Even without the latest gadgets and being a millionaire, if you have the love of family and friends you can find happiness. I guarantee you won’t find happiness by reading the NYT all day and getting worked up.
I agree - I feel the "post-happiness world" that they're talking about is really just people attempting to find happiness through money and possessions as defined by other people/groups, and validation of that happiness through social media. The most happy times and happy events in my life may get a mention on my social media; but the truly happy memories and feelings come from things outside of what I expect to post publicly. I think what people need to focus on is what has made them truly happy, without direction from others (NYT or otherwise) and without any public validation of their happiness.
Re: Are We Living in a Post-Happiness World?
#14What does being happy even mean? What does it get you as a goal? I’m not sure it’s even worth chasing. My favorite view on “happiness” comes from The Oatmeal, How to be perfectly unhappy: https://www.theoatmeal.com/comics/unhappy It boils down to this: stop chasing happiness or joy or whatever marketing departments have decided you need and their product can provide. Focus on meaning.
Unless meaning makes me happy, I don't see the reason to focus on it.
This discussion is rather circular, to be honest. Happiness, by my definition, is a state of having achieved a goal or goals. (I wrote this lengthy thing over ten years ago trying to put hard definitions on words like happiness/satisfaction/pleasure etc: http://www.karmatics.com/docs/dictionary.html )
Maybe you define happiness differently than me, but I have a hard time understanding how it can be considered "not worth chasing" by any definition that makes sense to me.
Re: Are We Living in a Post-Happiness World?
#15I still like Naval Ravikant’s definition from his extraordinary guest spot on the Farnam Street podcast[1]:
“Today, I believe that happiness is, it’s really a default state. It’s what’s there when you remove the sense that something is missing in your life. We are highly judgmental, survival, and replication machines. We are constantly walking around thinking I need this, I need that, trapped in the web of desires. Happiness is that state when nothing is missing. When nothing is missing, your mind shuts down and your mind stops running into the future or running into the past to regret something or to plan something.”
Re: Are We Living in a Post-Happiness World?
#16I think when people say they want to be happy what they really mean is they want to find contentment. Contentment is a long-lasting feeling. Happiness is ephemeral.
Re: Are We Living in a Post-Happiness World?
#17Re: Are We Living in a Post-Happiness World?
#18Happiness is a state of mind. I can't tell you how to get there but I do know that you can't expect things and people to make you happy. It's all around us but only you know what your state of happiness is. You have to find it for yourself.
Should you expect to be happy most of the time? I feel like a lot of youngsters self-diagnose themselves with depression/bipolar disorder because they feel they should be happy the majority of the time, then feel there is something wrong with them if they aren’t.
Tangentially related: why are some people always in a bad, meanie-pants mood? Don’t they too believe happiness is a mindset they can just be in if they want to?
Re: Are We Living in a Post-Happiness World?
#19It's like watching children pick 3-4 random things off the internet, weave a connection between them, and then broadcast the creation to millions of people. Well done nytimes. Keep it up.
Re: Are We Living in a Post-Happiness World?
#20I still like Naval Ravikant’s definition from his extraordinary guest spot on the Farnam Street podcast[1]: “Today, I believe that happiness is, it’s really a default state. It’s what’s there when you remove the sense that something is missing in your life. We are highly judgmental, survival, and replication machines. We are constantly walking around thinking I need this, I need that, trapped in the web of desires. H…
If you think even basic social interactions are lacking for suffering, you’re wrong.