How can people allow themselves to be happy despite...

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Fnord
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02 Jan 2019, 9:18 am

Benjamin the Donkey wrote:
BeaArthur wrote:
There is no particular virtue in being a cranky, miserable, depressed, woebegone sack of moldy potatoes.
Are you my wife?
Hey! Any woman willing to put up with an aspie of a husband has to have a figurative "heart of gold".

Besides, Bea's quote may be more applicable to the L&D subforum ... :wink:



LaetiBlabla
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03 Jan 2019, 6:54 pm

I don't feel guilty at all, I don't have any will or pretention to solve it all.

The problem is more that I can't allow myself to be happy because I would feel like if I was drinking champagne and dancing at a funeral ceremony.

I keep in mind the slightest sentence, debate heard at the radio or homeless person seen in the morning, in a very vivid way for the whole day, if not for years, and all the crap is piling up in my heart in a big sadness and I feel it all at a time

Sometimes I am perceived as taking things to seriously, and I don't know how to just forget about it and not care about it



Fnord
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03 Jan 2019, 7:02 pm

LaetiBlabla wrote:
... The problem is more that I can't allow myself to be happy because I would feel like if I was drinking champagne and dancing at a funeral ceremony...
That's my kind of funeral.



shortfatbalduglyman
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03 Jan 2019, 7:48 pm

What I do not get, is why "most people" act like, they are morally entitled to get anything they want , to be "happy".

Just because they are not happy , does not mean that their "rights" have been violated

Entitled lil dips**ts



Dear_one
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03 Jan 2019, 10:18 pm

LaetiBlabla wrote:
I don't feel guilty at all, I don't have any will or pretention to solve it all.

The problem is more that I can't allow myself to be happy because I would feel like if I was drinking champagne and dancing at a funeral ceremony.

I keep in mind the slightest sentence, debate heard at the radio or homeless person seen in the morning, in a very vivid way for the whole day, if not for years, and all the crap is piling up in my heart in a big sadness and I feel it all at a time

Sometimes I am perceived as taking things to seriously, and I don't know how to just forget about it and not care about it


Life has been described as "a mutual eating." Everything has a moment in the sun, but nothing stays there forever. However, a tragedy for me is a bonanza for smaller life forms, and eventually, their ancestors produced what I need to nourish myself. Most creatures are wired to focus on the happy parts of the cycle, but sages take comfort in seeing it all turning about. You sound stuck on the tragedies. Those are compelling stories because they can guide us out of future troubles, and so they are the majority of "the news." Real life is far more boring, about the steady growth of things that can often finish their cycles without a disaster.
To kick-start a habit of looking on the brighter side, one morose child was prescribed a course of fairy tale stories, which she had not seen before. Personally, I spend considerable time reading or watching comedy. You might also want to nurture a plant. I was feeling rather glum about planetary regeneration until the first springtime I spent in the countryside. Your plant can be the symbol of all that grows each day. Start off with something really hardy, though.
"Allow themselves to be happy" is also key - happiness is a habit, and mostly set by deliberate effort. If nobody allows themselves happiness, then the whole show is a tragedy. Happy people are optimists, and they may be taken in by false opportunities, but they also grab all the real opportunities while the pessimists are thinking it over. That's why psychologists recognise "depressive realism," and why about 80% of people think that their driving is better than average.



shortfatbalduglyman
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03 Jan 2019, 10:23 pm

While I appreciate your concern for the problems of the world, refraining from happiness just because of them, is not solving someone else's problems



CockneyRebel
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04 Jan 2019, 12:16 am

I only have one person to worry about and that's me. I figure that if I don't think about the bad things in the world, I'll be happy.


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auntblabby
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04 Jan 2019, 12:19 am

I barely have the energy to save [preserve] my own life. I am not a titanic human being who can "rescue" other people, the few times I tried were spectacularly horrible in outcome.



Piobaire
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04 Jan 2019, 8:33 am

LaetiBlabla wrote:
How can people allow themselves to be happy when they leave in a country where there is peace, when they have enough money, when they have everything to be healthy while they know many people live wars, persecution, poverty and we are running towards a planetary ecological disaster?

I would feel ashamed to enjoy a pleasant life while I know someone is sleeping in the cold outside in my street.

Seems to me that one of the greatest commonalities of happy people is an attitude of gratitude; they're pretty consistently mindful of what a rare gift and wonderful blessing it is to "...leave [sic] in a country where there is peace, when they have enough money, when they have everything to be healthy." Thich Nhat Hanh once wrote that most folks don't appreciate the virtue of not having a toothache until they're suffering from a toothache; that a state of "non-toothache" can be a condition for happiness, and if you look around, no matter what your situation, there are always many similar conditions for happiness to be found in this present moment.

When someone's hungry, the practice of the true religion isn't to recite scripture at them by rote; it's to offer them a sandwich.
All of the wisdom traditions that I am familiar with teach altruism. The Buddha said that if it were his last bite, his last mouthful, he wouldn't eat until he had shared, if there was someone to receive his gift. However, he said to share; he didn't say to starve. Jesus advocated clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, and visiting the sick and in prison. When someone asked, "What should we do?", he responded that those who have two coats should share with those who have none...he didn't say to give away all your warm clothing and freeze in a t-shirt. When someone asked Muhammad "What is most excellent?", he replied, "To gladden the heart of human beings, to feed the hungry, to help the afflicted, to lighten the sorrow of the sorrowful, and to remove the sufferings of the injured.” In all of the above examples, these are acts of altruism and compassion are performed on a microcosmic, interpersonal, face-to-face, person-to-person level. For the vast majority of us, "feeding the hungry, helping the afflicted, lightening the sorrow of the sorrowful, and removing the sufferings of the injured” begins with the next living being we meet (in ways large and small, we're all suffering in some manner). Then we move on to the next one, and the next after that. Will it change the world? Perhaps not...but it might change the world for one person who desperately needs it.
"Whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world."
The Talmud, and the Hadith.

I wish you joy in your good fortune, and may peace be with you.



Last edited by Piobaire on 04 Jan 2019, 8:54 am, edited 1 time in total.

Piobaire
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04 Jan 2019, 8:51 am

Dear_one wrote:
LaetiBlabla wrote:
I don't feel guilty at all, I don't have any will or pretention to solve it all.

The problem is more that I can't allow myself to be happy because I would feel like if I was drinking champagne and dancing at a funeral ceremony.

I keep in mind the slightest sentence, debate heard at the radio or homeless person seen in the morning, in a very vivid way for the whole day, if not for years, and all the crap is piling up in my heart in a big sadness and I feel it all at a time

Sometimes I am perceived as taking things to seriously, and I don't know how to just forget about it and not care about it


Life has been described as "a mutual eating."


There's an old story I once heard that "heaven" and "hell" are exactly the same. In both places, people sit around a bubbling cauldron of the most exquisite soup...with spoons four feet long.
In Hell, no one can eat from the pot with a four-foot spoon, so they're all starving and suffering terribly.
In Heaven, everyone uses their four-foot spoon to feed one another, and they're all warm, well-fed, cared for and satisfied.
And yet, the situation both groups find themselves in is precisely the same.



LaetiBlabla
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04 Jan 2019, 3:25 pm

People would invent whatever crazy story if at least it helps them not to look at reality, and in all case for the convenience of the quantity of soup they can get, the rest, they don't care.

I'm happy when I don't have to eat that bloody soup anymore.