I'm going to take another slightly more personal turn to get at a bigger issue: happiness.
I'm having a great debate with everyone about being 'happier' without my former best friend. I was not unhappy as her friend. Yes, there were obviously issues or else it wouldn't have ended, but they mostly were ignored in the day-to-day of our friendship. But I've been wondering why they consider me happier, because if it's just in the context of my misery and frustration before things blew up, then that is not a true representation of how I typically felt as her friend. I know that I am better off without her, but does being 'better off' equate with being happier than previously? I can't help but say 'No'. It's not always true that you're happier when 'better off'. I have been dealing with a lot of stuff since that point, not all of it has made me 'happy'. Yet I wouldn't return to the relationship ever again. Also, I generally think of happiness as being conditional on some 'happening', and thus, more likely to be fleeting.
However, ignoring my own personal pedantic issues with the term 'happy', it seems that so many people aren't. There is an obsession with pursuing happiness--there are mass amounts of books on the subject, so clearly there is a market there--and yet it seems the lucky few actually achieve it. Why is this? I've clearly got my own theories, but I'd like to hear your thoughts as well.
I've been having a discussion lately that touches slightly on this: the dreaded rat race. How many people hate their jobs or, at the very least, don't love what they do? Society seems to tell us that if we don't accomplish A, B, C and D by a certain point in our lives, we're doing something wrong. But not everyone is designed for the 9 to 5 work-a-day life. Many of the things Western society tells us are important are not very meaningful. So many people lie to themselves to convince themselves that they're happy or will be happy, if only....(fill in the blank); and so many others just lie to others to keep up the façade that they really are happy. If you want proof of this, just check out five-secrets.com. I by no means presume to have a formula for how to achieve happiness, but I do think it's different for everybody. Whatever is important to you, focusing on that will make you happier than you would be otherwise. But life isn't necessarily supposed to be pleasant all the time. Besides, if it was, we wouldn't appreciate how good it really was if it was all good all the time. You would get complacent, apathetic. We need the highs and lows to balance each other out. You appreciate colourful spring more because of the cold, dark winter that precedes it.
I'd love to hear your thoughts...
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Five Secrets hasn't posted a new set of secrets in a long time, but K is
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2 years ago
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