Stop Chasing Happiness, Look for Meaning Instead - Printable Version +- Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum (https://www.scivillage.com) +-- Forum: Culture (https://www.scivillage.com/forum-49.html) +--- Forum: Fitness & Mental Health (https://www.scivillage.com/forum-85.html) +--- Thread: Stop Chasing Happiness, Look for Meaning Instead (/thread-5342.html) |
Stop Chasing Happiness, Look for Meaning Instead - C C - May 11, 2018 https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-meaningful-life/201805/stop-chasing-happiness-look-meaning-instead EXCERPT: . . . More and more people are recognizing the need to shift from pursuing happiness to pursuing meaning. They are recognizing that the search for happiness will not help them solve the challenges they face or the emptiness they feel. A growing “Meaning Revolution” is taking place around the world as people are beginning to revolt or rebel against this never-ending chase for so-called happiness. MORE: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-meaningful-life/201805/stop-chasing-happiness-look-meaning-instead RE: Stop Chasing Happiness, Look for Meaning Instead - Magical Realist - May 11, 2018 “The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can't be any large-scale revolution until there's a personal revolution, on an individual level. It's got to happen inside first.” ― Jim Morrison “Happiness must happen, … : you have to let it happen by not caring about it.”— Viktor E. Frankl, M.D., Ph.D., Man’s Search for Meaning That's essentially it. You have to stop chasing the goal of happiness and just learn to be your real spontaneous self. You have to stop fighting against the world and learn to flow with the current of all happening. And you have to learn to embrace fully and then totally let go. That is the natural rhythm of life itself. RE: Stop Chasing Happiness, Look for Meaning Instead - Syne - May 11, 2018 The inevitable result of secularization. People who decry the meaning found in tradition and religion finally realizing that meaning is crucial for a life worth living. And hypocrites who only seek subjective validation pretending that they are at peace with the world, all evidence to the contrary. RE: Stop Chasing Happiness, Look for Meaning Instead - Zinjanthropos - May 12, 2018 I don't get it. What happens when I find meaning? Should I feel happy about it? RE: Stop Chasing Happiness, Look for Meaning Instead - C C - May 12, 2018 (May 12, 2018 12:39 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: I don't get it. What happens when I find meaning? Should I feel happy about it? ". . . happiness can not be pursued, it must ensue by committing authentically to meaningful values and goals." I guess it's supposed to be some drawn-out, generalized happiness as opposed to the immediate sensations and gratification of abiding purely in the empirical "given-ness" of situations without any abstract constructs messing with that. (Even basic "devotion to family" might be more of a formalized tradition than we realize, rather than an intuition or inherited disposition. Without prior intent, learned example, or genetics it would still be falling out of practicality, too, though.)The supposed kind of satisfaction / happiness delivered by the governing or discipline of a concept, system, or cultural orientation which either delivers epiphany / revelation or socially integrates the many. As opposed to the individualistic "doing your own thing" one-person church or just arbitrary acts (following unguided impulses). "And it can only do so by extending beyond yourself, either in service to others or to a cause greater than yourself. In other words, when we put meaning at the heart of our lives, only then will we discover true happiness." Even nihilists / denialists of _X_, anarchists, and rebels garner a "greater than themselves" identity by their declaration of "I'm not that" and opposing it. There arises a kind of inverted / negative (or alternate) version of the set of ideas which are being rejected or countered, just via the latter effort."Meaning" as in commitment to a role in some regulating social template, lifestyle, school of thought, or "game" that brings either scattered people or a local community together and gives them a shared identity and common interests / goals to be dedicated to. As we proceed further into the generations of the 21st-century, the "playgrounds" of the past (esoteric fellowships, religions, political experiments, etc) may be retrospectively construed as the original way of engaging in augmented reality games. Without the computer technology to implement either the conceived entities / wonders or the "public good" success advertised by the propaganda as fact.[*] Amish communities that allow limited electricity and automated vehicles like tractors still introduce caveats that protect their oddball identity from being gobbled-up by the surrounding mainstream. Electricity must be propane and solar generated so that they are not sharing a power-grid with sinners. Tractors are okay because they are utilitarian vehicles instead of recreational transport. Ultimately it's all about the meaning and togetherness their lifestyle provides, with the Bible (and its interpretation) just being the original seed / tool / excuse for demanding the introduction of such a "game" to play... and continued maintenance of it into the future. - - - footnote - - - [*] Example of such propaganda in terms of the darker side of the pre-computer era implementation of a hybrid-reality game: George Orwell: . . . O'Brien silenced him by a movement of the hand. "We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull. You will learn by degrees, Winston. There is nothing that we could not do. Invisibility, levitation—anything. I could float off this floor like a soap bubble if I wished to. I do not wish to, because the Party does not wish it. You must get rid of those nineteenth-century ideas about the laws of nature. We make the laws of nature." RE: Stop Chasing Happiness, Look for Meaning Instead - Syne - May 12, 2018 Happiness is a byproduct of striving toward achievable goals. RE: Stop Chasing Happiness, Look for Meaning Instead - confused2 - May 13, 2018 Let's look at one recipe (A) for happiness:- 1/ Believe in God 2/ Go to a church (preferably not an overtly insane one) 3/ Don't forget to clean your teeth. Now another recipe (B) for happiness:- ? Reasons for choosing recipe B over recipe A are? RE: Stop Chasing Happiness, Look for Meaning Instead - Zinjanthropos - May 13, 2018 (May 13, 2018 12:05 PM)confused2 Wrote: Let's look at one recipe (A) for happiness:-Choose plan B because I.... 1. Live in an area where being an atheist probably won't get me killed. 2. Same as above plus have no chance of following a Jim Jones to my grave. Although church is great place to meet ladies. 3. Have good dental insurance Plan B is mysterious and more fun, tending to my inquisitive nature. I can be happier RE: Stop Chasing Happiness, Look for Meaning Instead - confused2 - May 13, 2018 Z Wrote:Plan B is mysterious and more fun, tending to my inquisitive nature. I can be happier.That ^^^ is one hell of a good answer. RE: Stop Chasing Happiness, Look for Meaning Instead - C C - May 13, 2018 "The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.” --George Washington Burnap Given the title of the book that the quote was originally extracted from, it's easy to see why it's often misattributed to someone else (like William Blake). ~ |