When I was at university I was very unhappy. One night, sitting alone in my flat, I experienced a moment of total contentment - pretty much out of the blue. I've only experienced such a moment twice in my life; to be so totally at peace with everything. The other time was when I was thirteen, wandering around town at night, and looked up at a really beautiful shot of the moon.
After the second time, I told myself that the key to being happy was to stop being unhappy - that it was a state of mind. But it didn't work. I had no idea how to just make a choice to be happy, or even to stop being sad. Just recognising that it was true didn't change anything for me - despite having experienced that it was possible. I can make a choice to pick up a pencil but I can't even visualise happiness - it's not an object I can represent in my head as something I can perform operations on in the same sense that numbers are.
I wasn't really happy until I left university and started doing things that I cared about.
One of my friends, who used to do a lot of drugs, wasn't really happy until she got her husband and kid.
I'm not gonna say it's different for everyone, because there are obviously common themes. But I suspect there are some variances in how people are wired up. (For example of another instance of people being wired up differently, some people count audibly in their heads, whereas others visualise numbers - and this is testable by asking groups of people to speak and count a certain period of time out. (See What Do You Care What Other People Think? )) As such, while I'd urge people to try just being happy, if they can, I'd hesitate to tell people that if they think they need something to be happy they're never going to be happy. I've seen people who think they need things to be happy, and after getting those things they seem subsequently to have been happy.
After the second time, I told myself that the key to being happy was to stop being unhappy - that it was a state of mind. But it didn't work. I had no idea how to just make a choice to be happy, or even to stop being sad. Just recognising that it was true didn't change anything for me - despite having experienced that it was possible. I can make a choice to pick up a pencil but I can't even visualise happiness - it's not an object I can represent in my head as something I can perform operations on in the same sense that numbers are.
I wasn't really happy until I left university and started doing things that I cared about.
One of my friends, who used to do a lot of drugs, wasn't really happy until she got her husband and kid.
I'm not gonna say it's different for everyone, because there are obviously common themes. But I suspect there are some variances in how people are wired up. (For example of another instance of people being wired up differently, some people count audibly in their heads, whereas others visualise numbers - and this is testable by asking groups of people to speak and count a certain period of time out. (See What Do You Care What Other People Think? )) As such, while I'd urge people to try just being happy, if they can, I'd hesitate to tell people that if they think they need something to be happy they're never going to be happy. I've seen people who think they need things to be happy, and after getting those things they seem subsequently to have been happy.