6
votes

Happiness

posted June 14, 2008 - 12:37pm
Happiness

Happiness! A state of mind that everyone wants to be in. What is happiness? It could mean different things to different people, mostly relative to other emotions and feelings.

Albert Camus said, "You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life."

Happiness for me is the feeling of utmost joy. I remember many moments in my life when I could say that I was really "happy". I felt on top of the world. My heart sang with joy and I would burst into a song. I would jump all over the place. I felt light and bursting with energy. And the best part of those moments was that I felt in love with everything around me. What a beautiful feeling. At that moment I was the center of the universe and everything that existed was meant for me. I felt "special" and beautiful inside.

Albert also said this, "When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces surrounding him; and you are torn by the thought of the unhappiness and night you cast, by the mere fact of living, in the hearts you encounter."

If only I could hold on to those moments in time. Rewind the clock, and relive those precious few moments all over again. Is it possible to be happy always? No, every silver lining will have a cloud attached to it.

"Happiness is the undying quest of life, the unquenchable thirst and the insatiable hunger of all human kind. Happiness is what we all seek for, what we long for. But can such bliss be nothing but an elusive state of mind, which is here one moment and gone the next, or is such a positive outlook attainable for a lifetime?" Perhaps it is.....



Comments

Happiness Vs Sadness

Thanks for all your comments. It was interesting to see so many perspectives to happiness. Martin123, I agree that there's a "weird sense of comfort in self pity and sadness." I do that to myself all the time. To answer taprial's comment, maybe because people who have known much sadness in their lives are afraid to be "happy", knowing only too well that that emotion is going to be shortlived and so find comfort in being sad! It suits them. Champagnedreams and veghead are also right in their own perspectives. Yes, it's only when you have known true misery and sadness or tragedy in your life would you acknowledge "happiness" when it came! And I guess it would be boring to be constantly in one state of mind. However, I feel good to be around "happy" and cheerful people as it rubs on you. I find them very attractive. Being around them makes me forget my woes, at least for a moment. Yet again, happiness and sadness are two strong emotions of the opposite side which are equally "cathartic" and makes you feel "alive". It's good to "feel" emotions so strong. I love and embrace them both! I find it very easy to cry at the drop of a hat when I am seeing a "touching" movie, the tears just come pouring down. And equally, I laugh at every silly joke when I see or hear a good comedy or humor. Isn't it good to "feel" alive!

George Bernard Shaw had it right

Not to be difficult, my dear, but it makes me happy to play devil's advocate, so please indulge an old lady one more time. "A lifetime of happiness: no man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth." -George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman Happily enough, GBS is one of the most famous vegheads in history. Also, I find it difficult to be happy whenever I think about all those creatures, human and nonhuman, who suffer every single day. It seems like such a selfish emotion.

veghead's Xombytes

There's a

weird sense of comfort in self pity and sadness.

how come then,

sad people don't realize when happiness arrives. Some of them cling to sadness as if it was their livelihood.

Don't Know It

I think people who are happy don't really know it. They only know they were happy when tragedy strikes.

Make a lot of money writing on Xomba. Join Xomba here. View My Profile.

happiness in small doses

I suspect that a continuous state of bliss would be as exhausting and boring as a perpetual state of depression. What makes life intriguing is its mixed bagful of the good and the bad, the expected and the unexpected, the tragic and the wonderful. Happiness feels better when it sneaks up on you unexpectedly and then leaves in a timely fashion, like a good guest. That's why the Christian concept of Heaven, to me, sounds as dreadful as Hell: both are the same old same old, for eternity.

veghead's Xombytes

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