A Purview of Happiness

Hey everybody,
I have decided that today is as good a day as any to take a little break from writing about “the future” in a literal sense and refer to it more in a figurative or literary sense. All of us want to be happy in some form, and the problem with this is that happiness the way we want it is almost always entirely unattainable. As humans, we can only dwell on the good in our lives for a very short time before things which bother us take over again, which seems to make striving for a type of permanent happiness completely futile in a way. That being said, here is a list of quite basic things that make me happy.

-Music (singing/playing/listening)
-Sports (playing/watching)
-Technology (playing/using/reading about)
-Eating/Drinking
-Being outside
-Television/Movies

This is off the top of my head, and there are many more, but the basic point is, why is it so hard to find lasting happiness with such a diverse interest base and when I spend so much time partaking in these activities. The simple fact is, overall I am quite happy. I give myself a very hard time because I do spend such a large chunk of my time thinking, but it is just as important as any other time to me. My mental health benefits hugely from spending time in my own head. I think this is mostly because inside my own head I have complete control over everything, nothing is left to chance or to anybody else. It concerns me most times that things that I’m unhappy with in life are things I have no control over. Things I don’t understand fall into the same category, as well as things which simply don’t work the way I expect them to.

I had intended to make this post longer, but it turns out writing about happiness isn’t nearly as fun as it sounds. That might be the most poignant part of this entire story. Anyhow, it’s short but I can’t really be bothered by that. I’m a pretty happy guy right now!


Comments

2 responses to “A Purview of Happiness”

  1. What I find interesting is that the first six things that came to your mind that answer the question "What makes me happy?" are all things that could be done as a social activity, yet the items "Being with friends/family" didn't crack the top six happiness-providing activities.

    My question(s) to you is: For you, personally, does the social aspect of an activity enhance, diminish, or stay non-consequential regarding the happiness obtained from a given happiness-providing activity? Does the nature of social interaction (e.g. You + 1 friend vs. You + group of friends vs. You + significant other vs. You + family member(s)) affect the degree of happiness obtained from the aforementioned activities?

  2. It definitely increases the enjoyment, I was just listing things which make me happy personally, not so much commenting on what parts of those activities I enjoy the most

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