Is happiness really important?
Most of my life I thought that happiness is a goal in life.
After all, if you and everyone around you is happy then you must have done everything right. As a result it seemed best to manage life and things I touched in a way to make as many people as possible around me happy.
This includes, my friends, girlfriends, wife family co-workers bosses and people that report to me.
Heck if you have a pet would you not simply worry about its happiness?
That's all very nice
That is all very nice. And in fact being nice to people seemed to be a key part of my strategy. You can walk around the planet and make so many people smile just by being nice.
When in college my girlfriend said " I don't know anyone like you that just puts a smile random people everyday" of course they then keep on telling me how that makes me very special etc.
Not useful
The problem as a man all this is not very useful. It's easy to me nice and kind and to be liked. The problem as a man I want to achieve things.
I could easily be at home not work and just be happy. In fact happiness is pretty much a choice, it's super simple to be happy as long as you make a decision to do so.
But it does not get me anywhere. So I basically came to a new conclusion: My purpose in life as a man is not be happy. And for what I actually want my purpose to be it is far more useful to be unhappy and driven as it will be far more motivating to get shit done.
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Great, inspire! Happiness brings you success, not success bring you happiness. Have a good time.
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Happiness is definetely a goal in life and if you don't see it's importance your happiness isn't real. How can you truly be happy if you feel as if certain aspects of your life aren't fulfilled such as a feeling of being useful. True happiness means you're more than satisfied with who you are.
I think for a woman that makes sense. I wish you a happy life.
I've always seen things talking about how people need connection, interaction, and a way to give back as a means to happiness. It seems like all of the people who are happy can have a lot of the other attributes needed for a quality life as well.
Happiness is not a goal in life. It is the basic requirement to participate properly in life.
How do you wanna take care of your wife, friends, family, job etc...when you are not most of the time happy and pleasant to other people???
There is nothing special about being happy or not happy, that's just two sides of the same coin.
If I go out for lunch with somebody most of the time we are happy and having a good conversation.
Is it true happiness or just trivial happiness what I'm discribing? It doesn't matter... happiness is just an emotion that can be created by your own thoughts in your own brain.
Right now, think of an island with white sand, palm trees and the ocean breeze...its that easy to create a good feeling.
The same is true for unhappiness...there is no goal to be reached in both directions it will take you nowhere!
So what is progress, what is the goal in life?
Its almost to simple but the goal of life is life itself.. what?...yeah...only the human mind with its conditioned social conciousnes can come up with something weird as a Goal in Life?
No animal, insect, plant or even the Earth itself cares about your thoughts in your brain...if everything what goes on in our brain would become reality this place would become a total mess!!!
Yes, you don't want that every thought and emotion in life becomes reality it would be total chaos here.
We are all going back to the same place were we came from, and there is nothing you or I can take with us after life.
Goals are only good to be set and reached, but what comes after it is the next goal, and than the next goal...and so on....they don't serve any higher purpose in Life and never will.
I'm sure somebody would have told us if there is any goal that everybody needs to be achieved in life.
Humans are just not comfortable with saying life is good as it happens, because we want to make something very special about our lifes.
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Right, happyness will be the outcome, not the goal.
Often it is better to be unhappy or make people unhappy but achieve a better result. Example: You can have a problem with your wife and you could tell her, which makes here unhappy but wil lead to a solution or break up the relationship. Or you can tell her how amazing she is or that you love her and carry on, be happier but ultimately have a worse relationship.
The unhappy outcome is more useful.
I have more than one goal in life, all require different amounts of attention at different times. I guess my main goal is to live a fulfilling life and that repquires more than just being happy and kind while taking up space on this planet. My goals can't be fulfilled because it's not really fulfilling to have no more things to fulfill.
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What is your purpose then? Isnt everything irrelevant until it becomes connected to your emotions?
It is very easy to get lost down some path where you believe that something (money, fittness, power, self-sacrifice, doing something nobody has done before... ) is a goal in life..
But once you reach to it it just leaves you feeling empty
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Interesting point, but I find it often the other way around. If you do the right thing vs what makes people happy you end up being more fulfilled. That was my point here.
I guess it comes down to a healty egoism.
Dont do things because others expect them of you, do what you want to do.
So many people spend their whole life conforming and following others people's dreams.
I think we work in cycles to achieve happiness as doing certain tasks to get there; particularly when having a family. Providing security, education and health for them are my goals and achieving that makes me fulfilled, but not happy but not unhappy. Confusing but I can indeed understand the conundrum... While from a cartoon movie, I do live by the thought “Happy Wife, Happy Life!”
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I would argue its your happiness that helped with your success. Its hard to achieve anything when unhappy. If we are talking unhappy for a short period of time then I can see it being a motivator to get things done so we can be happy again. Being constantly unhappy will cause depression and thus affecting everything else we do in a negative way.