up:: [[🏠 My Home]] Tags:: #🗺️ # Happiness MOC > "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." - Shakespeare From all of my research on happiness, this is the most crucial concept: It is [[Your judgements of events hurt you, not the events themselves|your judgement of events that hurt you, not the events themselves]]. It follows that learning not only what happiness is, but understanding how to subjectively make yourself feel happier is a crucial life skill. Many people I know mistakenly treat happiness as the ultimate goal in life, but [[Happiness is not the ultimate goal of life]]. In fact, [[The pursuit of happiness for its own sake is foolhardy]]. This isn't surprising considering our [[Affective forecasting]] of how events will affect our happiness is pretty terrible. If happiness isn't a goal, then what is it? - [[Happiness is the mixing of consistent short, medium, and long term feelings of pleasure, enjoyment, contentment, meaning from ones life]] - [[Joy is the long term activity of aligning values with action]] - [[Happiness is a present phenomenon but is influenced by the past, present, and future]] - [[Happiness is a social phenomenon]] - [[Happiness is a sense of belonging]] - [[Happiness is a byproduct]] - [[Happiness is order in consciousness]] - [[Everlasting happiness comes from living a life in accordance with virtue]] - [[Relationships are by far the most important predictor of happiness]] - [[Happiness is acceptance of what is]] - [[Who is the happiest person I know]] [[Why is it so hard to be happy]]? - We feel a lack of meaning in our lives. We are socialized to think happiness comes from the wrong things. [[Modern western society is confusing having needs with being needs]]. As a result, [[Humans feel horrible when we don't think we are living up to our potential|We are stagnating in the growth of our character despite the fact that this is fundamental to us as humans.]] We are amusing ourselves to death. We don't feel [[Meaning comprises three things|meaning in our lives]]. - We think we desire things we actually don't need. See [[Mimetic Theory]]. - [[Hedonic adaptation]] over [[Positional versus non-positional goods|positional goods]] - [[Negativity dominance]]. Consume news. - Miswanting - Boredom - Negative [[Psychological energy]] - [[The pursuit of happiness for its own sake is foolhardy]] How can we better practice the activity of happiness? - Learn about the fundamentals of the [[Flow State MOC]] state and [[How to enter flow|how to enter it]] ultimately so that you can [[How to create a universal state of flow through cultivating meaning in ones experiences|create a universal state of flow through cultivating meaning in one's experiences]]. I find the flow state one of the best places to focus on for increasing happiness because [[The happiness that follows flow is often of our own making]] - [[Better to avoid the things which make you miserable than optimize the things which make you “happy.”]] - Act in the world. [[Humans most often regret what they didn't do, not what they did]] - [[Experiences matter more than possessions for happiness]] - Realize the impact [[Miswanting]] has on your happiness - Lower your expectations. - [[A good life is found on the line between chaos and order]] - Practice [[Mindfulness MOC]] so you can [[The biggest benefit of mindfulness is awareness|become more aware of your actions]] - Define your values by looking at different [[Philosophy MOC|philosophies]] or [[Religion MOC|religions]] and finding things that resonate with you - Start [[Journaling]] so you can practice [[Lifestyle Design MOC|lifestyle design]] - Adopt a [[Gameful mindset]] - [[The frequency of positive emotion matters more than the quality]]. Remember at the end of the day that [[Negative emotions are often indicators you need to change]] and no matter how aware you become of your life [[Humans aren't Machines]]. There will be times when you simply feel more negative or flat. Like when you are in a [[Liminal Spaces|liminal space]].