What is happiness? How do you know when you are happy? Can one person be happier than another? Personally, I don't believe that you can have a 'happier life' then someone else. All lives are equally happy. To be happy, you must have once been unhappy and vis versa. I believe that if happiness was measured, it would only be shown has a grid of lines shooting upwards and downwards, but eventually evening out to where it is equal to both sides. Once you become 'happy' then you will continue to want to be happier, you do not stay 'happy'. A rich man is not happier than a poor man, a blind man is not happier than a man with perfect vision, an olympic athelete is not happier than retarted homeless man, and so on. A homeless man would be extremely happy if he was given a three room apartment where as a multimillionaire would be very unhappy if he has given that same apartment. That doesn't mean the multimillionaire is unhappy, it only means his degree of happiness is higher. He is still happy just as much of the time a homeless man is. There is no pursuit of happiness. Once you reach happiness, what do you do? How do you know when you have reavhed happiness? Your thoughts?
interesting thought... thats a good question but i gotta say the starving kids in africa are probably miserable 24/7 and the stoner is happy 24/7
I'm a very happy person most of the time. I try to be as care-free as possible, and thats when I'm at my happiest. I guess it just really depends on what you define happiness as. Its all relative I think. A homeless man would be happy if he had a thousand dollars, whereas money probably wouldn't interest a rich man.
If you give the starving kids in Africa an apple then they would be happier than if you gave someone else an apple, but then they would want more and they would go back to as happy as they started, maybe even less happy because they now expect another apple. When the stoner runs out of money and realizes his family disowned him I doubt he would still be happy. He became extremely happy, and then became extremely unhappy. If you are completely care-free then you are neither happy, nor unhappy. That brings up another thought, people become happy because of what they believe is going to happen in their future. If you get a good grade on a test, you are happy because then you will get a good grade in the class, which makes you happy. If you get a new car, you are happy because you will be able to drive the car and people will look at you better. If you wreck that care, you are unhappy because now you can't drive that car anymore. If you get money, you are happy because you can spend that money and what you spend that money on will make you happy.
Of course a person can have a happier life than another. Your claiming someone who has been jailed for life for accused murder, when he didn't actually commit the crime could have a life as happy as mine, for example? (I lead a very quirky life )
I agree different things make people happy Like somebody said giving a apple to a starving child will make them happier Giving one apple to somebody else and then they want more may make them less happy
Impossible. You can't be happy EVERYDAY. Without being unhappy at least once, how can you know when you ARE happy?
As Town said, without Unhappiness, there is no happiness, via versa. To be happy, you must have been Unhappy before, to be unhappy, you must have been happy before. Being happy and happy are just a straight line, they are both equal measures in our life.
hmm i thought about this the other day actually i was thinking i havnt been happy in awhile and i havnt been sad? so i guess ive just been content this whole time or i have been happy and not known it, hmm
I am right now more unhappy than i have been in my entire life I have been thinking lately how easy it would be to take my own life... but i'm smarter than that I know it will get better... in a few years...
i personally think i live a pretty good and happy life, i mean, im happy a lot of the time, with friends, family, pets. sure im unhappy sometimes but who isnt? i think you know when you are happy when you feel good about yourself and about your life. and yes one person can be happier than another, like thikr said, a person starving in 3rd world countries would not feel good about their lives, and any other person living in north america that are well fed and healthy are happy with their lives.
If they have never known anything better then how do they know that they are not doing well for themselves? The difference between rich American teenage girls and people starving in Africa is that said Africans don't compare themselves to the supermodels they see on TV. They don't feel the need to be better than people in the United States. Of course, they are unhappy if their well becomes too polluted to drink and they have to walk an extra 3 miles to the village down the road and back but the days that they get a full three meals they are just as happy as that teenage girl with her brand new purse.
