My questions...your answers
I'm exploring the concept so I want to know what you think. I'll write an article when I'm finished thinking...

So, what does happiness mean to you?

Comments
on Aug 16, 2006
Surtout n'y pense pas du tout, c'est la meilleure façon de savourer la vie dans l'immediat...For me, carpe diem is the best moto to achieve "happiness"

carpe diem
on Aug 16, 2006
I would seize the day, but for the 4th Amendment which protects the day against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Happiness is fleeting. Happiness is making my baby laugh(on purpose). Happiness is when my wife smiles at me because she loves me and I'm cool. Happiness is an emotion caused by chemicals in my brain.

Joy is a choice. Joy is being grateful for every day when you wake up, and every breath of air when you're awake. Joy is knowing everything you have is a gift. Joy is being grateful for the moments of happiness you get.

That's what I think, at least. Happiness is not nearly as important as joy... so I mentioned them both.
on Aug 17, 2006
Happiness for me a feeling of completeness, weather that means finalizing a task, or coming closer to being successfull in life, knowing that I have a purpose for being on this earth, and so on...
on Aug 17, 2006
Happiness for me is doing the right thing.

Doing right by my God, my family, my country etc.

I find emotions like happiness are fluid, what makes me "happy" today may not be what does it tomorrow. So instead of seeking this fluid and sometimes evasive emotion, I try to do what I know to be right.

Then happiness is a by product of that.
on Aug 17, 2006
For me? Happieness is being well connected and understood in my life.
on Aug 18, 2006
Happiness is a state of mind consisting of being content with the world as it exists in relation to my current state of being.

Or not.
on Aug 18, 2006
All of the above replies are insightful, and this question isn't easy to answer because happiness is so many different things to each and every one of us.

To me, happiness is a spontaneous picnic, a child laughing with joy, an unexpected hug, it's a moment in time that is full of joy. It can be a moment when I fully comphrehend and idea or point that someone makes, it can be found in seeing the light and shawdows on trees in a forest , it can be found, for me, in galloping a horse, listening to the rhymthmic beating of hooves, it's a million different things to me. Mostly to me it's still being alive

on Aug 19, 2006
The best explanation that I saw was in a book by Phillip Jose Farmer.

In it, a man had obtained the homes of the resurectors (I will not go into the whole plot, but just recommend you read the series - River World). And in that homestead, he had mosquitos and heat and humidity.

But then he could retreat from that into his air condidtioned house.

Asked why he would have such pests and uncomfortable conditions in a world he could completely control, his answer was very profoud.

If we do not know what misery is, how can we tell what eden is? I chose to surround myself with the things that we hate, so I can go into my house and then realize what Happiness is.

(Not an exact quote, but to the point).

Happiness is escaping misery and things we do not like. It is not a person place or thing. And we cannot know it, unless we know what the opposite is as well.
on Aug 22, 2006
Not wanting for anything - being content and at peace with all I have and all that I am.

Comes and goes.
on Aug 06, 2008

Moti Weisbrot - Lessons on Lifetime Happiness


Happiness is a religion .

First thing in order to be happy is to live the present .

With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now !

The main problem with looking too frequently into the past is that we may turn around one day and find out the future has run out on us .

Don't let the past or the " future" steal your present .

Remember happiness doesn't depend upon who you are or what you have; it depends solely upon what you think.

Just try your best in order to be happy. Unhappiness starts with wanting to be happier.

Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you make for the present .

Happiness is not a destination or a " target" to reach . It is a method of life , to live daily .

Happiness is a religion, and should never be rationalized. Remeber it !

It is the paradox of life that the way to miss pleasure is to seek it first.

The happiness desire is never extinguished in the heart of man.

Happiness is like a butterfly which appears and delights us for one brief moment, but soon flits away.

Real deep happiness comes from your own inside. Nobody can give it to you.

Happiness is not a matter of events; it depends upon the tides of the mind.

To fill and live the minute and the hour and the day , that is happiness.

Happiness is like those palaces in fairy tales ... The state of your Happiness is nothing more than a reflection of your state of mind .

Enjoy the little things.

One day you will look back and realize they were the big things.

Happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you already have .

Sincerely ,

Moti Weisbrot

bloghappiness@gmail.com


 

 

on Aug 18, 2008
A condition of bliss created by a hard working mind, and a "perfect"love is a close second.
on Aug 18, 2008
All this stuff about the joy of a child's laughter and true love and living in the present are all true I suppose. Yes, it's all good stuff.

But I think many folks are over-complicating the issue with extraneous fluff that 'would be nice'

What does happiness mean to me?

1) A cold beer on a hot day.
2) Having no worries.

# 1 is easy to accomplish, so most of the time I am a mostly happy person.

# 2 is almost impossible to accomplish in our present techno-industrial world. If we're not worrying about paying bills or finishing a job on the deadline then it's issues with the family, the house, the car breaking down. If all of that is good then it's issues with stock investments. Problems with extended family wanting money, eventually going to the bigger picture of worryin' that those no good terrist's are gonna attack wal-mart, or that the cheap chinese goods from same wal-mart are part of the problem that's gonna destroy our society from the inside out as they strip away any form of spirituality and replace it with vapid materialism.

Because # 2 is impossible to accomplish, we can go through life having no cares at all which is a mostly bad idea as nothing would ever get done and we would go extinct. So the only sensible thing to do is take a step back and take a big breather. Once you acknowledge that we are just momentary specks of life in an impossibly huge universe over which we really have no control, things get a little better.

To help oneself along in this endeavour of learning to relax, a joint goes a long way in speeding up this process of voluntarily giving up the attempt to control the universe, at least for a little while.

Therefore, in response to the question of what happiness means to me, I would have to say a cold beer on a hot day, or on particularly worrisome days, a well-rolled joint. FYI, use the stuff grown in B.C, it's the best!
on Jul 16, 2009

There's a great little article over at economixt about what Happiness mean to about 50 survey respondents.  Jeff made a pretty cool wordle out of it too - check it out - http://www.economixt.com/2009/07/happiness-synonyms

on Jul 25, 2009

Happiness to me is making the most of what you have and enjoying it with the people you love. We all have worries, and always will, you have to choose to be happy instead of worry. Some of the happiest people I have ever met share one thing in common, they make the best of what they have and don't dwell on the bad things that happen in life.