You already know what they are going to be, don't you? It's interesting to be able to think something while simultaneously knowing the opposite.
Perhaps that's a capacity that will make you happy. And that might explain this.
March 16, 2012
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"Money can't buy you happiness. That statement should end with, 'just kidding'. Happiness buys a wave runner. Ever try to be unhappy on a wave runner?"
Daniel Tosh
The only thing I agree with on that list is that genius does not lead to happiness. Fame is often associated with wealth and power, so it overlaps, with those categories. On the whole, I'd rather be wealthy, attractive and powerful than poor, ugly and in servitude.
The most reliable happiness I have experienced is that rare confluence of a sun, slight warm breeze, around 68 degrees, the vague odor of flowers, nature-quiet, and nothing at all on my mind.
Treasured all the more for it's scarcity and transience.
Those things provide one with greater opportunities and security, which certainly pave the way for happiness.
Put these five things next to the PERMA list and you can see how much easier the PERMA ingredients are easier to attain when you don't have to worry about money or security.
Cracked.com??
My son reads that tripe. He tried telling me that cows always orient north-south when grazing, and that he read it on cracked.com.
You know, Cracked was just a sorry copy cat of Mad magazine.
Money may not be able to buy happiness, but it sure can rent it for a while.
That said, Cracked is one of the bestest sites on the interwebs. It'll probably now be a regularly visited site for some of the folks you just introduced it to. I'm curious to know...is our hostess a regular reader of Cracked, or did that article pop-up during a Google-search about "happiness"? (Nothing wrong with the latter...I'm just curious)
This being a conservative blog and all I'm surprised
this song hasn't been quoted yet.
It's true-- at fifty-eight I'm happier than I have ever been. My life hasn't improved a great deal, but my outlook certainly has. I find myself wanting to say "Thank you,God" at the oddest times.
@Phil I'm unhappy with your blog-reading diligence.
PS - anyone surprised that someone named "madAsHell" would support Mad Magazine over everything else? Hehehe
(and yes, that's a friendly laugh! Nothing personal meant at all...for real)
@Phil I'm unhappy with your blog-reading diligence.
Not just blog-reading diligence, but also the comment-reading diligence. I posted that song before you mentioned it today ;)
This may be why studies show friendships, altruism and religious practices bring happiness
If I replace ‘religious’ with ‘spiritual’, this is 90% of how 12-step programs work.
@Phil I'm unhappy with your blog-reading diligence.
Sorry Professor you're going so fast I can't keep up.
Forget the other four, but you need enough money to pay the bills.
You can't be too happy with a collection agency on your neck (I know there are people who just walk away, but they don't care anyway...).
After that, the fifth one can go, too.
Why would anyone think fame would bring happiness? The idea of fame, thought through, is horrifying.
Millions and millions of people knowing of you and most of them probably having some feeling of knowing you, as though you were a distant friend. And yet, none of them actually knows you at all. They are complete strangers to you, wishing you good or ill on whim. And then there will be a tiny subset of persons who become obsessed with you, trying to break into your home or abduct you. You could never go anywhere and be alone with your thoughts. People would follow you, take pictures of you, ask you to sign things, mob you. You'd also be expected to be "on" all the time. When strangers would speak to you, they'd expect you to be their perception of you.
Fame seems as though it would be misery.
Happiness does not come from reading snarky articles about how dumb/screwed up Americans are.
Freeman - "Fame" is never really what people want. What they want (or think they want) is universal approval.
I still wouldn't want it though.
Then they're totally irrational becausemthat doesn't exist. One may as well hope and wish for a pet unicorn.
Yep.
That feeds them donuts.
It's always irrational to think that there is a panacea for happiness. Pretty much if you want happiness, you need to work for it. Fame, fortune or any of the other "magic bullets" are bound to lead to disappointment.
This week's sermon is on Ecclesiastes 2.
I know that these five things do not guarantee happiness, but there total absence is an accurate predictor of misery.....We all seek the retail version of fame, i.e. a good reputation....I developed a different attitude towards work when I finally acquired sufficient money to retire. Work seemed more like an art form or vocation than drudgery. I suppose there's a downside to great wealth, but I can find no downside to financial independence.
We all seek the retail version of fame, i.e. a good reputation
Excellent word-smithing, William. I'm going to covet that.
"My son reads that tripe. He tried telling me that cows always orient north-south when grazing, and that he read it on cracked.com."
Only on sunny days.
:)
They took pictures of cows from space and it seems they stand north to south... but can they take the pictures through cloud cover?
So Bessy is standing out in the sun, chewing her cud. She's got one eye closed in that sort of bovine smiley way as the sun soaks into her bones. Her other eye is open and giving her a nice 180 side view.
If she was facing the sun, or even away from the sun, wouldn't she get the glare in both eyes?
In any case, until they can take pictures of herds of cattle through cloud cover, I'm not buying for even a moment the stupid "magnetic lines" theory. Gah! Stupid.
I don't think that looking at extreme situations is useful.
I think that most of our unhappiness is self-inflicted, but when it comes right down to it wealth and power are important. We just don't call it wealth and power until it's big and destructive.
It's miserable to be over-extended financially. And if you've got no power over your own life, that sucks even more.
Well, I read ~30% and I think I know exactly what it is about - fame, money, whatever, will not make you happy, thinking of yourself will not make you happy, only thinking of other, i.e. persuing universal justice will (ascetism and altruism is all the hype).
This is the idea communist lifted from Christianity and have been running with as one of the main brainwashing tools.
As mentioned above, money can buy you happiness. It can buy a waverunner.
I've been extremely poor, in the middle and am now financially comfortable. I'm definitely happier now than then, and would be happier if I had enough money to retire. Seriously. Dealing with company bureaucracies is the road to madness.
(I've also been married and divorced. I'm a helluva lot happier divorced. I'm also happier having left the religion of my birth.
I babysat my three-year-old granddaughter last night. That made me very happy.
Happiness, apparently, is late-breaking news of a possible Mitt Romney/ RAND Paul deal. I would have guessed Rubio, but this is interesting as well.
The Journal of Irreproducible Results –a scientific satire pub—once published an article that showed that cows lined up on ‘bovinty rays’.
"I've been rich and I've been poor. Believe me, honey, rich is better." - Sophie Tucker
I agree, speaking from personal experience.
I was definitely happier with power, fame, money, and being called a genius all the time. My problem, today, is being an eagle forced into acting like a woodpecker. I never practiced woodpecking - I worked on souring my whole life. And I'll probably never be truly "happy" until I can fly again - not because I arrogantly think I deserve to look down on others (I've always been good to people, offline) but because I'm supposed to be doing that which lifts me up overhead.
Somebody said music is the sound of feeling, and I feel a LOT - so people reward me for it. That's how it's supposed to be. Suppressing my feelings for a buck is all anybody wants now.
Like I said, I've always been pretty cool to people, but working under idiots and assholes, now, gets to me a lot - mostly because it's never who I think it'll be. People in management are usually the worst, while that overlooked black guy with the permanent hairnet, who asks me to hand him something by saying "reach that to me," will turn out to have a philosophical insight into the business those over him would wish they had if they ever bothered to really speak to the man. But, recognizing them for what they are, he doesn't want them to speak to him either. It's pretty sad and speaks volumes to me about the problems of this country.
i'ma write songs about it, one day, again,...
Maybe a new avatar will make me happy.
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