People who say they are happy

[Secret Chief]

The country you live in obvioualy has an impact:

• Gross domestic product per capita
• Social support
• Healthy life expectancy
• Freedom to make your own life choices
• Generosity of the general population
• Perceptions of internal and external corruption levels

- Happiest Countries In The World 2021

1. Finland.
2. Denmark.
3. Switzerland.
4. Iceland.
5. Netherlands.

...

11. Australia.
17. UK.
19. USA.

 

[InvestigateTruth]

There are people who say they are happy because everything has gone their way and their life is just as they want it to be. They have/had a successful career and a happy marriage and most of them raised children. They have had no real problems or struggles in life. Some of these people are still working but many are retired. Those who are retired planned for their retirement way ahead of time and everything is working out as they planned it. Most of them raised children and many have grandchildren and are now “doing” whatever they want to every day.

If this sounds like a fantasy, too good to be true, then obviously you are not one of these people.

These people might be happy but are these people really better off than those of us who have never had a stable life but have rather struggled all our lives and are still struggling day by day with no plans for the future and no way to know if this is ever going to change?

Please note that I am not referring to financial security. The happy people I described are financially secure but the ones who struggled and still do might also be financially secure, yet they have had other struggles and still do.

This is related to our ultimate purpose in life which is why I posted it here. I will leave to ponder how my question might be related to our ultimate purpose in life but I would appreciate your comments.

No one knows what their end shall be.
I could have all my life, all I wanted and all the way I wanted, but at the end have to die, and that death could be a long or painful death. I may have a difficult life, and things totally different than what I want, but at the end I may become a happy, and calm person, with a quick and easy death. It is hard to know. But at the end we are all in the same boat. We just have to leave the boat one by one when the time comes.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

You live with cats. Therefore: You're happy.

I'm confused. Is this because of how tasty the cats are?

 

[Secret Chief]

I'm confused. Is this because of how tasty the cats are?

Of course you have to get the right sauce.

 

[Trailblazer]

Better off how?

Then your question is meaningless sorry, even as a hypothetical.

This doesn't tell me much, since you won't define what you mean by better off, and the assumption you make about life having an ultimate purpose is not only completely unevidenced, you don't say what it is or how you claim to know it exists?

The question would be meaningless to you unless you believe that humans have an ultimate purpose in life and since you would not accept my evidence that shows how I know.....

Citation for those studies please.

You will have to look that up yourself.

 

[ElishaElijah]

What I have found is having a clear conscience, contentment, gratitude and purpose has led to great life even when there has been rough times.

 

[Trailblazer]

No one knows what their end shall be.
I could have all my life, all I wanted and all the way I wanted, but at the end have to die, and that death could be a long or painful death. I may have a difficult life, and things totally different than what I want, but at the end I may become a happy, and calm person, with a quick and easy death. It is hard to know. But at the end we are all in the same boat. We just have to leave the boat one by one when the time comes.

Yes, it is hard to know, because nobody except God knows the future. I suppose anything is possible if that is what was predestined for us. God might even stop sending me violent tests but I should not even say that because I am tempting fate.

Where we will go when we leave the boat nobody knows and that is the problem but at least we have this....

“O My servants! Sorrow not if, in these days and on this earthly plane, things contrary to your wishes have been ordained and manifested by God, for days of blissful joy, of heavenly delight, are assuredly in store for you. Worlds, holy and spiritually glorious, will be unveiled to your eyes. You are destined by Him, in this world and hereafter, to partake of their benefits, to share in their joys, and to obtain a portion of their sustaining grace. To each and every one of them you will, no doubt, attain.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 329

 

[Riders]

There are people who say they are happy because everything has gone their way and their life is just as they want it to be. They have/had a successful career and a happy marriage and most of them raised children. They have had no real problems or struggles in life. Some of these people are still working but many are retired. Those who are retired planned for their retirement way ahead of time and everything is working out as they planned it. Most of them raised children and many have grandchildren and are now “doing” whatever they want to every day.

If this sounds like a fantasy, too good to be true, then obviously you are not one of these people.

These people might be happy but are these people really better off than those of us who have never had a stable life but have rather struggled all our lives and are still struggling day by day with no plans for the future and no way to know if this is ever going to change?

Please note that I am not referring to financial security. The happy people I described are financially secure but the ones who struggled and still do might also be financially secure, yet they have had other struggles and still do.

This is related to our ultimate purpose in life which is why I posted it here. I will leave to ponder how my question might be related to our ultimate purpose in life but I would appreciate your comments.

It applies to my sister but she is helping me move out of my nasty house to a garage apartment she has for me so I can't complain about her. She and her husband is rich and they have a perfect life 4 children, 2 grandchildren, all their children are grown. They live the perfect life have vacations and smile all the time.

 

[Riders]

They are Christians but do have anxiety from time to time and my niece Anna has taken to meditation to help her anxiety issues.

 

[Trailblazer]

It applies to my sister but she is helping me move out of my nasty house to a garage apartment she has for me so I can't complain about her. She and her husband is rich and they have a perfect life 4 children, 2 grandchildren, all their children are grown. They live the perfect life have vacations and smile all the time.

Well, finally I found someone who understands what I meant in the OP first paragraph. I figured if I waited long enough someone would come along.
I cannot relate to that perfect life, I cannot even imagine it.
I am sorry to say that I think it is unfair, but that is what I think, and I hold God partly responsible.

 

[Trailblazer]

They are Christians but do have anxiety from time to time and my niece Anna has taken to meditation to help her anxiety issues.

Fear and anxiety are my biggest problems since I got over my depression.
Maybe I would not be anxious if I did not have anything to worry about, but I do.

 

[Secret Chief]

Fear and anxiety are my biggest problems since I got over my depression.
Maybe I would not be anxious if I did not have anything to worry about, but I do.

Have you tried to consciously change your internal self-talk? An anxious person is anxious because they have anxious thoughts. Get in the habit of deliberately, repeatedly, continuosly having positive thoughts. A happy person is happy because they have happy thoughts. So get thinking!
(I say this as someone who is prone to anxiety).

 

[Viraja]

I hope I am not too late to this conversation.

I have to say, the very 2nd answer to this thread aptly says what one ought to do, to be happy:

"That we have to learn (teach ourselves) to be happy".

This is so true!

All my life, I have struggled on the career-front. I cannot say I have no issues on the personal front, but they are not too major and hence not considering those for the discussion.

I started career as a COBOL programmer in the late 90's, when rest of the world was going crazy over the dotcom bubble. Within a year or two I felt so disappointed over doing the boring old stuff without much scope as a 20-something and I started trying desperately to move on. This is where the problem began.

Nobody would consider me for dotcom programming, given the entire Programming world kinda looks down on the COBOL programmers. Then the rest of the 15 yrs that I worked (with major gaps in between), I was hopping jobs trying to find stability in a good, modern programming job. And I NEVER found one!

I always was pushed into those off-beat, legacy systems as a consultant, having to maintain an extremely huge codebase, and something in my stars made my jobs worse, as I always got arrogant bosses who disliked me to the core! Thus I hopped from jobs pathetically. All my savings were futile, since I was also underpaid, with heavy expenses on my day-to-day front.

This had been the major struggle all my life. I have learnt a lot of lessons from all this. Coming back to the quoted sentence above, I have learnt that if I had stayed at my COBOL job, I would have led a simple, peaceful and happier life. What's more, all COBOL got converted to dotcom, and I would have easily become a dotcom-er.

There is so much more struggle than listed here, which I shy away from narrating. All for my inability to understand career and be happy for what I had, in the first place!

 

[Firelight]

You don't say what you mean by better off, only what you don't mean? Also your question is predicated on the unevidenced assumption that our lives have what you call an ultimate purpose. You need to explain what it is your assuming this is, and demsonrate some objective evidence for this assumption. Happy is a relative term in my experience.

Better off how?
Then your question is meaningless sorry, even as a hypothetical.
Citation for those studies please.
This doesn't tell me much, since you won't define what you mean by better off, and the assumption you make about life having an ultimate purpose is not only completely unevidenced, you don't say what it is or how you claim to know it exists?
Happiness as I said is relative, money doesn't exist, it's an abstract idea, as are things like debt and credit, though they are useful ideas of course.

It’s SUBJECTIVE! That means you use your own interpretation and thoughts to respond. Trailblazer doesn’t need to provide evidence and explanations to meet your demands. Don’t be so critical and rude. You didn’t provide evidence for the statements you made. Sheesh!

It’s so annoying to always have people come along and demand evidence on EVERY little thing! Especially, when the demanders are such hypocrites and fail to provide any evidence for their own statements.

 

[Trailblazer]

Have you tried to consciously change your internal self-talk? An anxious person is anxious because they have anxious thoughts. Get in the habit of deliberately, repeatedly, continuosly having positive thoughts. A happy person is happy because they have happy thoughts. So get thinking!
(I say this as someone who is prone to anxiety).

Thanks, I only wish it was that easy as 1-2-3. I am working with a new counselor and so far so good. Maybe she can help.

Certain things trigger my anxiety so I try to avoid them but I cannot avoid everything and still live. I cannot avoid my husband all the time! One he wakes up it all starts until he finally finishes his routines and gets to the chair to watch TV, remote in hand. Like now, for him just taking a shower is a big deal so I am going to walk down the gravel road and get the trash cans and hope he is finished by the time I get back.

The only positive things I have to turn to around here are the cats and squirrels and birds.... The rest is hell.

 

[Secret Chief]

Thanks, I only wish it was that easy as 1-2-3. I am working with a new counselor and so far so good. Maybe she can help.

Certain things trigger my anxiety so I try to avoid them but I cannot avoid everything and still live. I cannot avoid my husband all the time! One he wakes up it all starts until he finally finishes his routines and gets to the chair to watch TV, remote in hand. Like now, for him just taking a shower is a big deal so I am going to walk down the gravel road and get the trash cans and hope he is finished by the time I get back.

The only positive things I have to turn to around here are the cats and squirrels and birds.... The rest is hell.

Fingers crossed with the new counsellor.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I have too much money. I never had any medical struggles so I have been lucky there. So now I have no financial or medical struggles. I have some struggles in my marriage but most of my struggles are related to the three houses we own and the tenant who lives in one of them!

So why not sell the rental properties? Why would one do anything she doesn't want to do for money for money that she doesn't need?

Fear and anxiety are my biggest problems since I got over my depression.

Are your renters a significant part of that? It sounds like it. You don't need to answer me, but if they are, why keep the property?

 

[Firelight]

Have you tried to consciously change your internal self-talk? An anxious person is anxious because they have anxious thoughts.

Partially true. What is the cause of those anxious thoughts? Is it worries, experiences of the past, a physiological disorder, etc.?

A physiological disorder causing anxiety can be passed down through the genes and be further aggravated by the behavior of the anxious parent who has the gene. If this is the case, it isn’t easy to just change one’s thoughts because the physiological disorder has influence on the person’s thoughts and reactions. There are techniques that can be learned to help manage the anxiety disorder and/or medication to be taken, but a person will likely live with it to one degree or another for their entire life.

 

[osgart]

There are people who say they are happy because everything has gone their way and their life is just as they want it to be. They have/had a successful career and a happy marriage and most of them raised children. They have had no real problems or struggles in life. Some of these people are still working but many are retired. Those who are retired planned for their retirement way ahead of time and everything is working out as they planned it. Most of them raised children and many have grandchildren and are now “doing” whatever they want to every day.

If this sounds like a fantasy, too good to be true, then obviously you are not one of these people.

These people might be happy but are these people really better off than those of us who have never had a stable life but have rather struggled all our lives and are still struggling day by day with no plans for the future and no way to know if this is ever going to change?

Please note that I am not referring to financial security. The happy people I described are financially secure but the ones who struggled and still do might also be financially secure, yet they have had other struggles and still do.

This is related to our ultimate purpose in life which is why I posted it here. I will leave to ponder how my question might be related to our ultimate purpose in life but I would appreciate your comments.

Happiness to me stems from the ability to learn and apply what you learn, the ability to relate, the ability to explore and living a life aligned with your own personal nature. That may or may not be a good thing that last thing there.

If there is an ultimate purpose or an ultimate truth then happiness would be about having your own personal nature aligned with whatever that ultimate truth and purpose is.
If you are aligned personally then the journey is just as joyful as the destination.

Stagnation, isolation, and being overwhelmed with the big goals, and not living the small things that get you to those big goals is miserable.

For me I have a lofty destination in aspiring to live toward growing with virtues, and becoming more virtuous. My whole life is one struggle after another, and it's a road of painful lessons. I would be delighted to find out that life is eternal. But I suspect life has finality. So I'm never really too happy. But nevertheless I find some things to be happy about.

The easiest way to happiness is to be physically healthy. If you don't have your health, and important and worthwhile things to do then you won't be happy.

To me happiness is a long way from fulfillment. Happiness is not joy. Fulfillment brings joy. Maybe happiness is a small step toward fulfillment, I don't know. I have three disabilities that steal my happiness. Fulfillment to me is perfect virtues.

I see that a lot of people enjoy things that to me are very immoral. But oh well.

I have a vision though and a conscience. If life is forever then the only joy there is is in all the virtues. Honor, empathy, compassion, honesty, love, and about 90 other positive character traits.
That to me is ultimate purpose; the virtues. Everything that is trustworthy is in the virtues. I never really expect to see virtues in human nature. I've seen lots of vices though. Luckily I've known some pretty decent people over my years as well. So I should be thankful for that, and thus happy.
I do wonder if human nature is prone to vices, and thus faulty though. Not everything in reality makes perfect sense. The only perfect sense I can make is with the virtues. That's one way there might be a Supreme existence, or some sort of God.

 

[We Never Know]

There are people who say they are happy because everything has gone their way and their life is just as they want it to be. They have/had a successful career and a happy marriage and most of them raised children. They have had no real problems or struggles in life. Some of these people are still working but many are retired. Those who are retired planned for their retirement way ahead of time and everything is working out as they planned it. Most of them raised children and many have grandchildren and are now “doing” whatever they want to every day.

If this sounds like a fantasy, too good to be true, then obviously you are not one of these people.

These people might be happy but are these people really better off than those of us who have never had a stable life but have rather struggled all our lives and are still struggling day by day with no plans for the future and no way to know if this is ever going to change?

Please note that I am not referring to financial security. The happy people I described are financially secure but the ones who struggled and still do might also be financially secure, yet they have had other struggles and still do.

This is related to our ultimate purpose in life which is why I posted it here. I will leave to ponder how my question might be related to our ultimate purpose in life but I would appreciate your comments.