Is the idea of having a happy life a difficult concept ?

[thepainterdoug]

Vangelo. yes agreed on contentment. Happiness is fleeting for me, contentment is a more stable evaluation. its been years since my love moved on and got married, and I have never quite been the same. Not as happy I guess. But I am very content, which comes back around and knocks at the door of happiness. lol

Amor has a completely different view which I truly get. Amor is a deep and truthful person as I know her. Life is a real trial if you are deeply caring and concerned on a universal scale.
This is not to say that being happy is trite or self centered, but it does require a selective filter. A let's play pretend.
The first thing I often feel when I wake up is this **** storm we are collectively under in this government policy, marxist agenda cancelling, of the constitutional freedoms and laws that I have grown up with.
What will our children be left with that we let happen on our watch? I wake with that, and it doesn't make me happy.

[iota]

Posted by thepainterdoug (here)
How many get up everyday and feel you are happy? That life is happy?

And if you do, do you feel something is wrong, something a miss, that you must not be in proper "reality"?

Is the idea of a happy life something to be achieved, something to be earned, wished for , and not something to simply have or be given?

Who gets up everyday happy?

i acutally used to

as in EVERY DAY

over a decade

then my son transitioned ...

our feelings don't "drop from the sky"

they are directly correlated to our thoughts

our thoughts (other than voice to skull technology) are OUR responsibility to "manage"

no one would allow their kids to run rampant on the highway

yet, think nothing of exerting ZERO effort to "manage" their thoughts

our thoughts happen to be powerful beyond measure

the fact that they DETERMINE our feelings, is just a teenie aspect of this power

so .. yea ..

thoughts are NOT accidental

and they lead to FEELINGS

which, therefore, are ALSO NOT accidental ...

nor that big of a mystery

big effort, maybe .. but NOT "big mystery"



we're WAY WAY WAY WAY beyond crunch time here

our lives? DO have a wheel

and it is ALWAYS steered ..

either by us ... or others who are all too happy to relieve us of that responsibility ...

but the CHOICE? that was ALWAYS ... OURS

[Vangelo]

Doug, let me apologize for not returning to this thread and responding earlier.

Regarding...

Posted by thepainterdoug (here)
...
The first thing I often feel when I wake up is this **** storm we are collectively under in this government policy, marxist agenda cancelling, of the constitutional freedoms and laws that I have grown up with.
What will our children be left with that we let happen on our watch? I wake with that, and it doesn't make me happy.

I get it, I really do. This upsets and worries me as well. I too think of it everyday.

One of the things I should have added to my previous reply about what is happiness, is the idea of action and hopelessness. I have found that I get most upset and sad when I feel that I have no options i.e., when I believe there is nothing I can do to mitigate the thing that upsets me. That is when I feel hopeless and drop deeply.

Over the years I have found that my ability to effect change outside of me actually resides within me and only within me. By that I mean, I can change me. I cannot change the outside world or other people's thoughts. They have to change themselves. I can offer help, I can be the mentor and the model. I can lead by my actions and my words. But I can't force the other person to change. I can only offer new insights, a different way for them to see the world. They need to develop the courage to change. In other words, they have to do their own shadow work.

Yes, I see everything that is going on around us in terms of deep shadow work. To greatly over simplify it all, many folks want daddy to save them. They don't want the responsibility of their own sovereignty etc. (but I don't want to go down that path with this post).

So, what do I do to address this? I have become extremely mindful of opportunities to offer others a different way to see the world and empower themselves. My mission is to plant seeds. As many as possible and as often and frequently as I can. But I am careful, very careful, to not trigger them. The moment they are triggered, they shut down and reject everything. Instead, I drop little seeds that I think will help them to question their paradigm. That is all I want. I want them to ask questions about how they see the world.

I also speak in the first person. I rarely say the word 'you' or 'they' or 'them'. I describe my decisions, my point of view, and how it effects me. In that way, the person I am speaking to does not feel as threatened.

When I started to speak this way, I was amazed at how often I used the word 'you'. Speaking in the 1st person like this does 2 things. It makes my message less threatening to the person I am speaking too and it actually helps me internalize my thoughts and beliefs by facilitating my ownership of them.

[DeDukshyn]

(after reading only the OP) ... I find happiness is less a thing to be attained on its own, and more a thing that just occurs when you free your mind from stress and pain and ground yourself in the moment. I never focus on trying to be "happy" - because that is a nebulous, rather undefinable thing. And there's nothing wrong with being unhappy sometimes, but there is when you get addicted to it ... or addicted to happiness for that matter.

2 cents.