What is Most Essential for HAPPINESS, ? (page 2)

snare&racket

Depends who you are, where you are, what you need and what you want. Self respect is earned and takes time, but you can be happy during times of no self respect.

Happy is a temporary chemical state.

Contentment with the areas of life you can control, is surely the closest we can get to influencing our state of mind. Its not a one or the other matter, i.e. happy or not happy.... its a scale that varies throughout each minute, hour, day, month, year or a life.

There is so much emphasis on pursuing happiness.... its the equivelance of pursuing excitment or tiredness. Happy is a consequence of a temporary recent interaction or state. Ok I am sounding like such a douche, but i think its important, some people waist their life chasing a feeling, when they could be working on their education, career, security, financial status, family planning and hobbies and pleasures.

For example, my life is about revision, tiredness, fear and concern. I have medical exams in 5 weeks. Happiness is working a hellish year in university and passing the exam at the end, but its not the passing that makes me happy, its what it means, the best moment in the world is when I wake up after a night of celebrating passing and relax with a film or a good book, no pressure, no stress, no fears AND I have took a step closer to having a secure future in a job I love, also the summer is usually on the door step..... it is an amazing feeling that has happened every post exam period the last 5 years. Happiness is something we can induce by action.

Ok this is a real long winded, boring way of answering " for me...education" but I really , really mean it and I would suggest it to anyone interested, even if they are not as young as they once were x

Saying all this, life is too short to not be happy, if you hate your 15 yr job... leave now !!!! This is your one life!!! You want to be a writer? A midwife? An astronaut? A musician? An Eewok ?Go and do it !!!!! Cos this is your one chance. Go make your life, make you happy x

fortis et liber

Operating as close as reasonably possible to your 'true' self. What is your own personal 'truth' this, I believe, is one of the great questions in life. Esentially, at our core, I believe we are all generally pretty happy it's all the other 'stuff' that we heap on (i.e. obligations that feel like huge burdens) ourselves that wear away at our essential happiness. Of course, there are unavoidable obligations that are simply a must to fullfill and not always super pleasant to do so but, as closely as we can marry the two -- aliging the meeting our obligations with activites that bring us realative joy and fullfilment, the 'happier' we will be. This is because real happiness doesn't come from the outside but from within.

~ Fortis

tornapart

Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you... Nathaniel Hawthorne

fortis et liber

Oh and Twitch, good one.

caliber

Where do most people go to satisfy their pursuit of happiness? They try to satisfy the criteria in their mind that tells them what they have to do in order to feel good. That might also mean doing things to compensate for fears and beliefs of something painful happening. The end goal is happiness and all the beliefs, fears, assumptions, and perceptions in the mind dictate the path. You can find these beliefs hiding behind thoughts or comments like, “Ill be happy when…” or, “I would feel much better if..”

http://www.pathwaytohappiness.com/pursuit_happiness.htm