What is Happiness?

N

nameslot

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Hey
According to me happiness is the result of needs fulfilled. I guess you could say that no one will ever live happily ever after. At least without contrast. But as the others say, it's an emotion, and the feeling is yours and yours alone.
What you other guys think?
 
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I don't think there's a clear static definition. But I have some thoughts about it, as do we all.

In short: I need to believe my life has meaning, and that I'm living life according to that meaning.

I think we have needs, and I think some needs are not actual needs - but perceived needs.

Personally, I think happiness requires a number of needs met - but I don't believe in a constant state of bliss.

For my part, I think to be reasonably "happy" with life - I require basic needs fulfilled (food, shelter, security), lasting true love (as in actual real love), and the sensation that I've made a beneficial difference. Beyond all that, I'd need to believe that there's a "point" with all of this. Life should have meaning - and I must admit I don't always believe that.

At best, there's been a struggle between mere contentment and actual happiness.

Oh, and I think it's a highly dynamic concept based on the intellectual realisation that one is happy - but also on the positive emotional feedback you get from having your needs fulfilled.
 
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Happiness is your body's chemical state when your needs are fulfilled to a stage that all problems seems unimportant or non-existant and your reward system is functional and activated (substances like dopamine).
Your body is then in a state of balance and bliss a long with a sense of joy.

Needs vary from person to person. Common needs include (Maslow's hierarchy of needs):
Physical: Breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis, excretion
Safety: Security of body, employment, resources, morality, family, health, property.
Love/Belonging: Friendship, family, sexual intimacy.
Esteem: Self-esteem, confidence, achievement, respect of others, respect by others.
Self-actualization: Morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice, acceptance of facts.

The reward system can be provoked in many ways:
* Drugs
* Struggling hard and see the effect of your work
* Make an achievement
* Getting exposed to danger and escape
* Feeling trapped and then set free
etc… etc…
 
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When time flies by I'm happy.

When time drags on then I'm not.

Simple and effective way to measure happiness :)
 
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Researchers in the area (e.g., Seligman) distinguish two forms of happiness: pleasure and joy. The former would be typified by the momentary state of pleasure produced by sex, food, etc. The latter would be a more enduring state and related to considerations of meaning and value. For example, being engaged in work you find meaningful, or spending a lot of time in the "flow" state (M. Czisentmihayi, though I butchered the spelling of his name).
 
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Anderson said:
Researchers in the area (e.g., Seligman) distinguish two forms of happiness: pleasure and joy. The former would be typified by the momentary state of pleasure produced by sex, food, etc. The latter would be a more enduring state and related to considerations of meaning and value. For example, being engaged in work you find meaningful, or spending a lot of time in the "flow" state (M. Czisentmihayi, though I butchered the spelling of his name).
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This is one of those areas where I don't envy researchers :)
 
In Catholicism, the ultimate end of human existence consists in felicity (Latin equivalent to the Greek eudaimonia), or "blessed happiness", described by the thirteenth-century philosopher-theologian Thomas Aquinas as a Beatific Vision of God's essence in the next life.[5] According to Augustine's Confessions, he lived much of his life without God. He sinned much and recognized his sinfulness. As a youth, he sinned for its own sake, and later, in the pursuit of a perceived good. When he lost a dear friend to death, it troubled him a lot, and he turned to God for answers. He turned to God to find true happiness and was converted to Christianity. He found that true happiness can only come from a relationship with God and appreciating God's creation for His sake, not its own.
(from Wikipedia)

I believe this expresses what I believe
 
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Psychologists tend to say differently, that buying the "you are sinful but can be happy through submission" puts a tremendous amount of harmful stress in the individual. It's especially harmful to young children and the neurosis continue to cause stress as an adult.
 
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Listening to Psychologists puts a tremendous amount of harmful stress in the individual. It's especially harmful to young children and the neurosis continue to cause stress as an adult. :)
 
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Corwin said:
Listening to Psychologists puts a tremendous amount of harmful stress in the individual. It's especially harmful to young children and the neurosis continue to cause stress as an adult. :)
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I can attest to this as my family have listened and done what psycologists told me and my family to do. I believe the problem usually comes from the fact that many of them dont listen to kids and their issues and make up their mind on preconceived notions. Like i distinctly remember telling my psycologists that i dont like change and moving and guess what they tell my parents to do...?
 
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“What is happiness? The feeling that power is growing, that resistance is overcome.”
-Friedrich Nietzsche 1895, as quoted in Civilization 4
 
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Happiness is a warm gun. Oh wait, it's not :)

Actually happiness can be anything. Different things make us happy and in different ways. What makes others happy (Oblivion) makes me cry :)

And I don't think happiness can be a permanent state for the AVERAGE person, it's fleeting… like anger, frustration, sadness (unless you have deep psychological issues of course). Contentment, possibly. Fulfillment, possibly. But happiness is an elevated state of contentment which is only momentary. Sure, it's recurring and can even occur many times in a short period, but I can't believe there are many people walking around in a state of happiness 24/7.

There are those however, who have naturally cheerful dispositions and are probably happy most of the time, but it's probably rare. And it's MOST of the time... not all of the time.
 
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Relayer said:
Actually happiness can be anything. Different things make us happy and in different ways. What makes others happy (Oblivion) makes me cry :)
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Yup, what makes me happy might make someone else miserable, and vice versa. Furthermore, what makes me happy at 1:00 might make me annoyed at 5:00. It's a very contextual thing, and the ways of being happy are about as numerous as the reasons for it.

And I don't think happiness can be a permanent state for the AVERAGE person, it's fleeting
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Absolutely. They call it habituation. Your brain "gets used to" whatever the new condition is, and the mood returns to baseline. This also works in reverse, barring psychiatric problems — if things change for the worse, our brains also habituates to that new condition, and our mood rebounds to baseline after a while.

There are those however, who have naturally cheerful dispositions and are probably happy most of the time ….
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I hate those people. The ones with high baseline moods. I have a low baseline mood myself, sort of dysthymic. I envy people who wake up cheerful and are in a happy mood all day, without doing anything special to create it. Fuck those jerks.
 
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I believe that happiness is contentment and fullfillment together. IMO contentment is rather easy to get, however fullfillment is another beast. To constantly be doing things that you feel is propelling you towards your rightful destiny, is very hard especially for people who are as lazy as me.
 
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But I'm not sure I would rule out happiness as a near-permanent state. But then, I'm not talking about that "extreme" of being full of joy every moment of every day.

More that you can reach a stage in your life, where you are generally very content and satisfied with how things are - with a positive attitude. But dark times will always come, and it can take a while to get over them - but a happy individual in my terminology would be able to return to that same place once things set into place. Changed, perhaps, but still happy.

I'm not like that myself, though, but I've met a few (a FEW) throughout life that I would claim to be like that. People I know well enough to look through a facade if it was there. But that's just a theory, and one can never be entirely certain.
 
Happiness is what's left when you've let go of discontent.
 
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Happiness, an unexpected warmth, expanding, until the entire area around the middle of the diaphragm is glowing - a joy just to experience while it lasts - within seconds it's gone.
 
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