Happiness

[Steppen-Wolf]

Sorry if this is the wrong section, it's not directly related to SA, but feelings of unhappiness seem to be prevalent among almost everyone who suffers from it, so I tought it was a relevant thread.

Cracked is a comedy website, but sometimes their articles deal with real serious issues, and one of them got me thinking:

5 Scientific Reasons Your Idea of Happiness Is Wrong | Cracked.com

I think points number 4 and 1 are particularily relevant for us.

I think many of us tend to think of happiness as some line in the sand that we can cross and afterwards all of our problems will go away, when in reality that never seems to be the case.

The very act of trying to achieve happiness made people unhappy because of the anxiety they felt when they failed. They were happier when they weren't trying. You know, like if somebody had told them it was out of their hands, or that they should focus on doing good things and declare the result to be "happiness," regardless of what it looked like.

Remminds you of someone?

Our obsession with happiness, with having some idyllic and amazing life is probably one the greatest contributors to our feeling of unhappiness, we're so obsessed with what don't have, what we want, what we think we need that we can't really appreciate what we really have.

... the best way to increase your happiness is to stop worrying about being happy and instead divert your energy to nurturing the social bonds you have with other people ... If there's one thing you're going to focus on, focus on that. Let all the rest come as it will.

But there's our problem, the base of emotional welfare seems to be rooted in social bonds, the hardest thing to archieve for us.

Still, I think we need to learn to see life as a journey and not a quest to obtain some magical happiness threshold, learn to enjoy and cherish our social bonds, even if we have only one or it's just with people online. We need the emotional stability of not being constantly obsessed with archieving the goal of happiness in order to take the little everyday steps neccesary to make our journey through life more meaningful.

 

[Beatrice]

But there's our problem, the base of emotional welfare seems to be rooted in social bonds, the hardest thing to archieve for us.

Yes. When I am with people I get along with and love, I am happy. Those are the times I have been the most happy. I am miserable now because I'm alone. I have other issues I'm unhappy about too, but the main factor is the lack of meaningful social interaction. I miss having friends ::