My English class got into a debate on this subject earlier this week. Do people have any control over their degree of happiness?
From my perspective, they do. It's impossible do enjoy life without trying at least a little bit. Contentment is a choice. This doesn't mean that I don't think people should ever be sad, but that if you dwell on your misfortunes, you'll be a miserable person. You have to choose to work with what you have left and move on with life.
On the other side of the argument, they agree that you have to choose to be happy, but they think that that's unrealistic and rarely applicable to life. They said that you have to think about the bad things that happen too, it's impossible to just ignore them. They also brought up the topic of clinically depressed people, and how they can't really choose contentment.
In response to this, yes I agree that you're going to have to think about the bad things sometimes, but it's unhealthy to obsess with them. Yeah, it's hard to choose to get over your circumstances sometimes, and people may even think you're insane or you don't care, but if most of the world is unhappy, why should you listen to people telling you to act like every other normal person when your goal, in this case, is to be something that they aren't? As to clinical depression, yeah it's a lot harder for them to have a bright outlook on life. But a lot of clinically depressed individuals aren't born that way. The chemical imbalances in their brains are due to them thinking miserable and dark thought over and over again until those pathways build up in their brains and it's harder to think any other way.
Another point that was discussed was that some people are raised in such a way that it's easier for them to look past tragedies. Does that give them an unfair advantage over other people? Well I suppose it does, but that doesn't give people raised in less optimistic circumstances a good excuse not to try. Happiness (or rather contentment; I think that word fits better here) isn't based on whether good or bad things are happening to you, it's based on making a serious effort to live with whatever comes to you. True, it's easier for some than others, but that doesn't mean it's not true.
And contentment doesn't necessarily mean you're constantly frolicking about. As I like to say(but rarely get the opportunity to), "I'm usually happy, and sometimes I smile about it." In general (particularly in the last few months with the exception of last week), I have an internal peace thanks to God that doesn't exactly make me gleeful, but it makes me okay with life.
Maybe that sounds like I'm being too harsh, but I'm not trying to be. This is just what I think, and I have a really hard time sympathizing with people who live by their instinctive emotions.
I mostly typed that just to get what's been living in my brain out there, but does anyone have any thoughts on the subject?
1 comment:
Do I have any thoughts on the subject, you ask? Would you really like to know? You will know whether you like it or not.
Well well well well well well well well well...
I often think upon this very subject because I very much enjoy to be happy, and incidentally, with contentment I find that happiness comes more frequently. Contentment, I think (and so do you, it seems), should be classified as a mindset and happiness as an emotion, and what better source for contentment could there be than the Living God? (There is a right answer.) Incidentally, I find that when the spiritual disciplines are maintained, a contented mindset too is much easier to attain. In part, these remind me of how inane and insignificant most of my troubles tend to be (Must I face temporary discomfort? The world is ending and not in my favor, but it isn't really!) and conversely how great my blessings are. In other parts, other wonders are worked. I have spent enough days and weeks and months in lonesome melancholy to realize just how senseless despairing is. Now, this has not stopped me from wallowing in misery every so often, but still. Much of this can be attributed to my obsessive nature, but obsessiveness I do not believe is inherently pernicious, but as you point out, it easily can be and often is. At any rate (even an extortionate one), contentment (or inner peace/joy/et cetera) and happiness are not the same, but they seem to correlate. This has been a long-winded way of expressing agreement.
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