Why Am I Unhappy?

from a post at Progressive U - I think that I have seen this elsewhere.

The following is an extremely long, but serious post. Read at your own discretion.

It's a question that plagues many, many people. However, we should probably first define our terms. Handy dictionary.com never fails!

happiness

1. the quality or state of being happy.
2. good fortune; pleasure; contentment; joy.


unhappiness
1. sad; miserable; wretched: Why is she so unhappy?
2. unfortunate; unlucky: an unhappy incident.
3. unfavorable; inauspicious: an unhappy omen.
4. infelicitous; unsuitable: an unhappy choice of words.

That's a funny coincidence in the first one for unhappiness, which is the main idea we're dealing with.

Believe or not, most people don't consciously ask this question. They go about their daily lives in drudgery with no real purpose, ideal, drive, or satisfaction in who, what they are, what they do, and why they do it. It's just the daily grind--just imagine the stereotypical unhappy American dream. Why don't these people ask this question? It's usually just because they're busy. Busy with their uninteresting lives--by work, by television, by ice cream, by their friends whom they laugh with but soon get the blues right after departing. It's in times when they have nothing on the brain, nothing to think about, that they realize that they are unhappy.

And then they ask: "Why am I doing this?" "Why am I unhappy?" Things like that. A lot of them will shrug their shoulders, and say "well, that's life" and get back to work. Some will say "I don't like this, but I don't know how to solve it--it must be a default to be unhappy." Some will say "I'm not ignorant, I know the world, I'm old now so I can't be happy now that I know what the world is like". But yet, some with the tougher stuff with it will simply choose to be happy.

Many of you will say, "But wait, choose to be happy? It's not that simple." You may add, "How can I be happy when my life is this, that, this, that, and this bad?" The answer is just another question. It's your same exact question. How can you be happy when your life is this, that, this, that, and this bad? Some problems, however, cannot be just fixed so easily. I know that. I'll get to that later, though.

What most people realize, for your run-of-the-mill unhappiness, unfulfillment, unsatisfying, drudge-life, being happy is as simple as choosing to be happy. But there may be another question to do with it: "Why should I choose to be happy?"

No matter what way you look at it, happiness is the ultimate reason to live. The ultimate goal for life--unless you are guided by a personal purpose (or a religious purpose, if that's your thing), which sometimes overshoots that--is to be happy. Let's break it down.

If you're alive, there is no reason to be unhappy. None. At. All. You may say, "but this and that are keeping me down, putting me in a bad mood, making me unhappy!" So what? Nobody says you have to be unhappy about it. Logically, there is absolutely no reason to be unhappy about most of your problems. Nearly all of our problems are completely, absolutely petty in the big picture, and quite silly--and we hold on to them tightly. If you're living, and you are unhappy, there is no point. If you believe there is no afterlife, then the best thing you can do is enjoy your experience while you are here. If you believe there is no afterlife and that when you die there will be no memories to relate to (it makes sense but is much colder), so your experiences here are completely irrelevant--take the time and be happy anyway. Enjoy it while you can. If you believe in an afterlife, then wouldn't living your life the best way you can (which, should at least be satisfying in your purpose if not joyous, if you consider yourself the type of religious person who must sacrifice everything to show yourself as worthy of your God), happily, the best thing you could possibly do? There are finer details to this (such as physiological improvements, mental health, awareness, empathy and some more), but this general idea covers it pretty well.

I should probably make a distinction here: the difference between pain and suffering. Pain is the sharp stab of a fresh wound, and is completely valid. You can't evade pain--it's just something you have to deal with. It's possible to numb it, but it often just stores itself inside instead of going away, and turns into suffering. Suffering is that low, dull, unnecessary ache that you feel in the back of your head, or sometimes as an overwhelming stupor. Depression, lack of satisfaction, no fulfillment--those are often due to suffering, and vise versa.

Many people don't realize that they can CHOOSE to be happy. A few reasons they believe are as follow:

"I'm supposed to be unhappy; that's the way life is." This doesn't even begin to make sense. Who says this is the way life is?

"I can't just be happy." This is also untrue; you can, in fact, just be happy. It can be difficult, but it's definitely possible.

"I don't deserve to be happy." Whether it's guilt or shame (but they're both kind of the same), you DO deserve to be happy. Everybody deserves to be happy (I won't speak on "evil people" yet, that's a deeper moral conflict which needs to be considered in its own topic).

There's also another reason a lot of people don't want to admit: they want to be unhappy. They've become so used to it, so familiar with it, that it's all they know--and they cling to it. This is often the case with people who are self-pitying, or self-important and loathsome of others.

Yet another reason is just that people don't want to take the responsibility to be happy. That would mean governing themselves! It would take effort! No, they won't do that. It's so much easier to just be unhappy and not do anything. If only they know what it was like to be happy!

But most people don't even know what happiness is. People believe that happiness is what you get when you have a secure life, a home, a family, a nice car, and a well-paying job. Unfortunately, this isn't the case (but sometimes is if you have a really great family life, but that's about the only reason). As a quote goes, "There is no path to happiness. Happiness is the path." That's what most people don't understand--happiness is not something to be achieved. Happiness is a state to be. You don't get happiness when you get a few things--happiness has very little, if not nothing, to do with material possessions.

Happiness by the material is not happiness at all--that's comfort. Often, it can even lead to sloth and further unfulfillment and general distaste, once you finish playing with your toys and realize--oops, you're still not happy. Many rich people are lonely and unhappy, I assure you. That's because money really can't buy happiness-- and don't say drugs, alcohol, or women/men are happiness. In that aspect--they're the same as material entertainment. Not happiness.

So, you might be thinking, "then what the hell is happiness?" True happiness is contentment, joy, self-assured satisfaction in life as it is. This is the kind of happiness that can ride you through life and all its difficulties, if you know how to work it. And there are several ways to do it.

The simplest and easiest way to do it is just through appreciation. Appreciate what you have. Look around at your life--look at everything you have that other people don't have. In fact, look at everything you have that other people do have--because it's possible that you might not have it. If you feel you don't have anything--you do. By the fact that you are reading this blog, this means you have life. Even if you're near suicidal, to the point that you want everything to stop--just think about it. Think about the fact that you can be happy if you really want to.

That leads me to the next way--fix your life. If you have things keeping you down--do everything you can to fight against it, to break free from it! If you don't like your friends, leave your friends. Find new friends. If you have an addiction--break it. If you hate the way things are going--make new goings. If you don't like your job, quit and find a new one. Even if you think you can't do anything--with the drive, anybody can do anything. There is this homeless man who sells bottled water down a busy street--I really love that guy. He posts posters up all along the street, saying great things like "Homeless, but not hopeless"--and when you look at him--you can just tell. He's a happy, striving guy, striving for better things. If he can do it--I'm sure you can. However, a note of warning: if your life situation is dangerous to your well-being, avoid doing things that will get you out of the frying pan and into the fire.

There's another way, which is possible but a bit unnatural seeming to some people--you simply tell yourself you are happy. You emulate happy--you almost force happiness. You shoot down negative thoughts and encourage positive ones--and believe it or not, this works. It works like a charm if you stick with it, but it can be a bit difficult. It also helps you learn to discipline your mind. After you practice this for a while, you realize that almost permanently, your mental composition is changed--and you are happy.

Then, there are more spiritual, transcendant-type ways to be happy. If you're a skeptic or in general not too big on that sort of thing--you don't have to listen. But I'll talk about it a bit in-depth for those of you who do want to hear it--and it's a really big subject, so I'm not going to cover it all here. There's about two or three transcendant/spiritual type ways to become happy. One is realizing that everything in the grand, grand scheme is incredibly, incredibly unimportant and petty. I'm going to get some hate for saying this, but even Hitler's doing--the death of 6 million jews, while horrid, atrocious, and despisable--is, in the grand scheme, unimportant. The stars, the cosmos, the planets and comets don't care--they'd sooner crash into this planet and blow us to bits than care. I can't take something like the Holocaust lightly, being where I am in my mind (and I'm sure many are the same way), but it's incredibly easy to just laugh most of your problems away. It's really quite funny that you're worried about such small issues in the scope of everything.

The second way is part of a long, long journey--straight to the motherload--Enlightenment. It's said that all unhappiness roots from one source: being incomplete. To understand what this means you have to know that everything is one, and seperate existence is an illusion. In pursuing all this, for the skeptic, a good dose of Eastern mysticism, quantum physics and cognitive psychology help a lot in understanding this subject. It's quite a hellhole to deal with, but the benefits are great.

The third is realizing that no matter what, you are completely whole. Your mind may be in pain, your heart may ache, but you--you are whole. But who are you, if not your mind, if not your heart? Think about it. I will cover this in depth in another blog post.

I guess I have nothing more to say on this topic. The rest is up to you. You always have a choice.