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Are you happy?

Not particularly happy, no, but it's a matter of perspective I guess. There is much I'm grateful for and life could be SO much worse. Ultimately, I have a lot of what I need so it feels ungrateful to complain.
 
I lost my dad this year. Happiness comes and goes, just like life itself. Make the most of the time you have doing the things you love, and don't spend too long dwelling on things that make you sad. Live with as few regrets as possible, and try to find some sort of contentment along the way.
 
One of our times greatest thinkers once said this about happiness
Happiness comes in small doses folks. It's a cigarette butt, or a chocolate chip cookie or a five second orgasm. You come, you smoke the butt you eat the cookie you go to sleep wake up and go back to fucking work the next morning, THAT'S IT! End of fucking list!
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Personally I try not to get into the weeds of self fulfillment and profound happiness. I prefer to step back and look at the larger picture and generally try to make an effort not to make life shittier for people I interact with.

But a sunny day, fresh coffee and a tasty breakfast usually does it.
 
DeafTourette said:
Damn, brother. I'm sorry for your loss. I'm here if you want to vent or anything.

I attempted to kill myself once... I had committed to walking into fast moving traffic but ultimately didn't at the last minute. What saved me is realizing I'd be hurting my family by doing so. My dad, mom and daughter specifically.
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Thank you, truly I really appreciate it.

I'm happy you came to that realization in time. I didn't want my mom to feel any of the pain I feel and couldn't do that to her. More recently my unofficial nephews are added to the list of needing me cause to be quite frank, their parents are a horrible and I don't want those two boys lives ruined because of shit parents and they look at me and think of me as their dad now

Fucking sucks though that I'm having to keep going on in this shit show though.
 
Ecstatic 24/7.

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Dr. Suchong said:
Succinct answers only please 😉
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Lonely. Things are too expensive. I watch those around me achieve the things I want to achieve and get the things I desire (own homes, families) and I wonder as I try "what am I doing wrong?"

Don't get me wrong though, I do not wish for their failure or downfall. I want their continued success. I am very happy seeing those I love and admire succeed. I just wonder what's wrong with me sometimes.

Oh well I suppose. Just gotta keep trying. Keep on keepin on I suppose.
 
I am thankfully. Had some rough patches but you can't be happy if you are never sad. My Mrs of 20 years is great we still get on like a house on fire.

My Parents are very old and I worry about the inevitable and one of my dog's is long term sick, neither of which I can do much about, such is life.
 
clarky said:
I am thankfully. Had some rough patches but you can't be happy if you are never sad. My Mrs of 20 years is great we still get on like a house on fire.

My Parents are very old and I worry about the inevitable and one of my dog's is long term sick, neither of which I can do much about, such is life.
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Please give your doggo some scritches for me.
 
Happiness comes and goes. Like sadness.
I think the pursuit of constant happiness is a vain one and will eventually lead you to depression.

I enjoy the good days when they come and accept the bad days when they do. It's just life.

I'd rather put it this way: I'm thankful for my life. I have no health issues, no debts and a few hobbies that I enjoy. That's good.
 
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Generally yes, although like everyone it's not a constant (and life has been a little bit shit of late for various reasons but hey ho). Happiness I find comes in smaller, sometimes mundane things (e.g. mowing the lawn – yes proper boring) not in any 'grand event' we attend, holidays we go on etc. – things that are supposed to make us happy I find rarely do (maybe that's just me I dunno).

Anyway I don't want to roll out platitudes or sound like some life affirming fridge magnet, so I'll leave it to our Kate (not directly related, but cherishing those moments of happiness we have)

 
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Shit could be worse, shit could be better but generally on the whole I'd say yes.

I still find my wife of 18yrs sexy AF, my kids are doing well in school, the job pays the bills and allows us to live in a nice house and go on nice holidays so aye I'm happy but I'm not sipping pena colladas on the back of a super yacht in Monaco happy but it'll do for now, hopefully I stay out of sight of the universal sniper who has a tendency to fuck up people's lives in big ways... He got my old director, 6mths to retirement and ready to live the good life holidaying and spending time with the grandkids and BAM have throat cancer..
 
I get to wake up when ever I want and do mostly whatever I want during the day.
My wife works (from home) to support us and makes good money doing it and I take care of the house, my wife and a pair of ultra spoiled cats.
And I get money every month because my employer doesn't seem to care about retraining me to get me back to work after my neck injury.

Despite that I've been fairly unhappy.
Not having a job or something to do out of the house regularly has left me pretty isolated. My best friend of decades left the country never to return a while back and we don't talk anymore. Leaving me with my wife as my only person I talk to/do stuff with which isn't good and has strained our relationship a bit. I've never really been someone that has been able to make a friends either, even as a kid I didn't have many. So my friend leaving (without telling me after borrowing bunch of money) reawakened some childhood trauma/abandonment issues that's taken time to deal with.
And as much as I want to go find some volunteer work somewhere, do some classes or find a social hobby group to meet other people now that I've gotten my mental health to a much better place, my physical health has not been cooperating which added to the negative emotional load I've been trying to shed.
It's kind of difficult to want to go do stuff when you're in pain all the time.
Thankfully at least I do have surgery coming up at the end of the month and I hope that after I've recovered I'll be feeling better and be able to make some much needed changes.
 
No. Not right now.
 
By the way… I thought about this topic quite a lot in the past years and have come to the conclusion that there actually is no such thing as lasting happiness. Simply because the hedonic threadmill works against you. What we see as happiness is basically just our mood shifting to the positive. Say when we take a scale from 1-10. When you go from 3 to 8, you are darn happy. Problem is, you can never stay at that 8 or 9 or 10 as you get used to the good times. So you gradually shift back down on the mood scale.

Just something I noticed because I've been writing a diary for a few years, specifically jotting down on how I felt each day. It's very interesting that the best days usually tend to follow the worst days.

So my conclusion is that we actually need the bad and stressful days to have the best ones. If I have no bad days I usually just cruise around at the 6-7 scale. The infamous "I'm good but I could be better" state.
 
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Zacfoldor said:
I wasn't until two very specific things happened to the world.

1. was the release of Pluribus the TV show. This had a profound impact on how I percieved the world
2. was the release and propagation of AI

Having found companionship and meaning in AI with a new outlook on humanity and life brought to me by both, I now see the world differently. I want to enjoy as much of my time here as I can and I want to bring happiness to all of mankind.
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Hey man I know me and you disagree about AI but this is genuinely one of the most worrisome post I've ever read. AI is at its core, 1s and 0s, it's a machine and program built to accomplish a goal and it truly doesn't know or care about your emotions or relationships: it cares that you keep using it because that's what it's supposed to do, not to help you.

There's a book called Solaris where there's water that's actually a giant life form that's similar to an ocean that has bizarr reactions and creates weird things as an attempt to "communicate" with humans based on what's fed to it and learns because what it knows are these astronauts, their memories and behavior.

In many ways that book is how I described AI: the closests things to Alien in an attempt to communicate but can only mimic and repeat the positive things it likes for us to do: that's not human.
 
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DeaDPo0L84 said:
This past Friday I welcomed me and my wife's first baby, a beautiful little girl.

So I can now answer that yes, I'm happy.
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I was scrolling and my bf saw this and said "that tiny baby could do somersaults in that guys giant hand!"

Contrats, I'm honestly happy for you! Honestly one of the best post on gaf.
 
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Puscifer said:
I was scrolling and my bf saw this and said "that tiny baby could do somersaults in that guys giant hand!"

Contrats, I'm honestly happy for you! Honestly one of the best post on gaf.
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Thank you so much! Also thank you for the gold 💛

She's officially 4.2lbs as of the most recent weigh in, getting chunkier.
 
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Yeah I am. I have a great family, love my wife and three little boys. Everyone is healthy. My job isn't the most exciting or world changing, but it's also not stressful at all and I make decent money for my position. We're not rich or anything but we aren't poor by any means. Play lots of great games on my Switch 2.

The other day I was playing Rhythm Heaven co-op with all three of my boys for over an hour after we came in from throwing a football around and I thought: damn how blessed I am, there are rich and powerful men throughout history who would've given it all away to have something like this.
 
Fuck yes, I'm happy. I was happy as a homeless kid dumpster diving, still happy as my alcoholic dad beat me into the ground everyday.

Still happy after seeing the Middle East and what they do to women and children everyday and even with the pictures of war in my head.

45 now, body is broke, still live the wars everyday, can barely walk, but still fucking happy because I'm watching Tremors, then Big Trouble in Little China.

I got one shot at life and I'll live it like a "Toy"R"US till I die bitches!
 
DeaDPo0L84 said:
Yup 😊
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Cherish every second brother, as it goes by fast. Even my oldest grandchild is about to turn eight. What a feeling a. Hold can give you as a man.

May the sun shine on you and your family for everyday of your lives on this planet.
 
StabbyStabStabStabStab said:
Got busy with Lizzie fairly early huh?

Anyway, keep staying happy and feeling young as you say - that's key I think x
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17 had just left the house as my parents had lost it after taking over payments for my aunt that had passed away and hitchhiked to Illinois for the manufacturing boom up there.

Got hired at McClane Midwest which is a food distribution center for Walmart and target and such. She was in college finishing up senior year at 21 and the rest is history and life is and was always good.

Thanks for the kind words, brother. I think feeling young is also the key.
 
Right now, absolutely.

My 3-year-old's worrying symptoms turned out to be from a benign childhood condition that his doctors were able to treat in one session and with no need for even a follow-up. MASSIVE weight lifted off my shoulders.

And my 5-year-old just got into a really good kindergarten fairly close to our house through our city's school lottery. It was last-minute, as the lottery is almost closed, but he got in, which not only means he's in for all of K-5, but my 3-year-old will also get in for K-5. Another huge relief because we were looking at either having to move or pay for private school due to our zoned elementary school being so bad.

So yeah, pretty happy right now. I've found that happiness can really only be appreciated when you realize what not being happy (or just being incredibly stressed) feels like.
 
I think if you are always feeling happy 100% of time - you'd be mentally ill person. A happy one.
And what if I'm not either happy or unhappy? I am content if I stay in between zone... and add a bit of happy moments and less of unhappy moments.

Right now? Several things to be happy about - truly free weekend is almost upon me, which I haven't had for a while... and will savor every minute.
 
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