What is happiness??? As the trainer that I am, I would say that this is an open ended question.... with many possible answers.... or is there?
I use to think that buying stuff, doing activities, going on vacation, having a car, a house... would make me happy... However, this feeling of happiness would not last... and I tought that I needed something else... Perhaps this is how the "big money making machine" keeps moving foward... Having us believe that we need all those things... And quite honestly, it is true that many things seems very appealing... The color, the smell, the sounds... the urge to conform, to be like other people... to not miss anything... to not be left apart... I bet most of you know that publicities are studied to create an urge for us to buy... and in the movie 99F, they even say that those guys are deciding today what we are going to buy in 5 years! Huge machine!!!!! but did you know that even stores do that... The way the store is layed out, the smell in it (they use perfumes creating an urge to buy and specific to a store so it creates a smell memory and makes you wanna go back - for the smell - and hopefully buy more! All this is subconsciously obvioulsy), the music (loud music creates a rush to buy, an exitement)!
Now at one point in my life I had a house, 2 new cars, a pool, lots and lots of everything and would go on vacation twice a year but I was quite unhappy!!! I was sick and not in a good place in my life... but ever since I met this great psychologist who did not wanted to give me medication and pushed me towards meditation and yoga instead and I slowly started turning things around in my life... and here I am... I have not buy unecessary things in almost 3 months... and don't miss it!! I am actually happier then ever!!! I can read, do yoga, knit, spend quality time with my son and husband instead of shopping!
Now, in the book that I am presently reading ("How to go further"), they state a statistic (quite interesting) according to which, in the USA, the number of people claiming to be happy peaked in 1957... (and went downhill since then) consumption has double since... (people are spending more and more money to try and find happiness)
But are they looking in the right place?
What does that tell you???
Is it possible to be happy all the time? Can we have some down moment and not fell so guilty about it? Is it possible to not have doubts in life?
ReplyDeleteAll in all I consider most of my life as happy, but there is the odd like part of my life were there is doubt...
I think you are right... there will be unhappy moment in everyone's life... and doubts... if not, what would make us move foward?
ReplyDeleteHowever, I think that the general state must be happiness... There should not be mostly unhappiness... for a long period of time... This I think is an indication that changes need to be done in one's life...
Seeking happiness is what makes us move foward... I do not think anyone has a right to be in a stagnant unhappiness mode... We are on this planet for a short undetermined period of time - why not try and be happy????