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A deep philosophical theory I would like advice on...
Rather than ask a question, I'd like to pose a theory and get some feedback from it. In a way, this is asking for advice, but really, I need opinions. Id like to state from the beginning that this is something I've been revising for several years now and it has to do with life in general, or rather, happiness. It's a bit abstract in concept and requires some serious thought, as I'd like honest, thoughtful responses. Now that you've all been warned, here is the theory:
Happiness. What is it? How can we achieve it, and what significance does it have? Do some value it more than others, or is happiness the general goal that individuals strive for in their lives?
Over the past 4 years I've been exposed to certain stimuli that have changed my personality and mind in a very drastic way. I used to be an average girl, with average thoughts and concerns such as "I wonder if this boy likes me" and "I really hope I get invited to that party or become really popular in high school" My freshman year of high school I came across a movie that dramatically changed my life. It was called the Secret, if any of you know about it, and really it wasn't a movie but an inspirational video made to help people get over hardships and be happy. This film had a pretty strong effect on me and of course I tried doing the things it suggested although it was pretty outrageous in it's explanation of how the world works. (It's worth seeing if this kind of stuff interests you) However, that film was only the beginning. Throughout high school i became engrossed in this idea of happiness. I researched it, spent hours online looking up ideas and theories on it. I even made it my senior project and presented it to my entire class. While doing all of this, I was living life by the theories I had been discovering. One day at lunch while talking to my roommate about a problem she was having, she asked me: "you know when you have one of those days where you just don't feel good no matter what and you are upset but you don't really know why" and I tried hard to empathize with her but couldn't. I honestly answered her "No, actually" She looked at me funny and went back to eating her sandwich, but that whole rest of the day I tried so hard to think of the last time I had had a bad day and how I felt and the answer was still happy. In high school, I wasn't particularly popular, I didn't have a boyfriend, I wasn't extremely involved in school, but I was always happy. I had gone through some bad experiences, in college I was in an abusive relationship, but nothing too extreme, still I remained happy. So that day I went home and I wrote this:
"Life is not what you see. It's what you ARE. Life is you, and therefore if you are happy, life is happy. But how do you stay happy all the time? How do you isolate those moments where you feel good, ecstatic, excited or even just happy that you're alive when happiness seems so fleeting. Well, we MAKE it. That's the answer. You create your own happiness, even if it's not there. If you lack happiness, make some. Creation is the vessel through which we guide ourselves to success. And creation can be anything from a thought or idea, to a drawing or a piece of paper with your handwriting on it or a cookie freshly baked in the oven. Creation is everything that is around us, and the power to create lies within us, so how can we not be happy if we have the ability to make happiness. The ways in which we control our bodies and minds are what ultimately make us unique, but we are all the same in the respect of the power we have to create. We just have to rewire our brains to think in the positive process of creation. The ways in which ultimate happiness can be achieved:
- Acceptance: this is key to not allowing the outside world to influence our state of well being. When something happens that we do not have control over, we must accept that it has happened and try to move forward. We cannot dwell or ask why because that is not accepting. Once you accept something, you can move past it, so this is the first step. Acceptance is the only thing that allows you to remove negativity and misery from your life.
- Positivity: an obvious but underestimated way of thinking. There is not reason why something shouldn't work out the way we want it to, if we believe it. Why is it that people say "I'm not being negative, just realistic" What makes something realistic or not. A good outcome is just as realistic as a negative one. We can't want something but not believe it is within our reality to get it.
- Gratitude: this allows for acceptance and positivity to create bliss. When we are accepting of the things that happen, and hopeful for the things that will happen, and thankful for the things that have already happened that we enjoy, we open ourselves to greater joy because already we have so much.
- Love: unconditional love for every experience we encounter, if its something we enjoy. Don't just like it, love it. Dwell in how much you love something, and keep loving it no matter how long its been in your life. This applies not only to people but also to experiences and objects.
- Authenticity: this is the other key to bliss. Find what makes you come alive, and go do it. BE true to yourself. We are so different that if everyone were true to themselves we would start to see that we don't all want the same things, and therefore we can all have what we want. Also, if we develop an attitude or want that is not true, that is taken from another, we will constantly be the second best version of that attitude and know it, therefore we can never be happy. Why be the second best version of something when you can be the first best version of yourself?
So there you have it, this what I've come to know and believe in my 20 years of life. Since that day when I wrote this down I have been looking into how we can achieve those things. Evidently we are human, and therefore falter, myself included. But I'd really like some input on what you guys think of this theory and maybe what objections you have...or thoughts... any advice is welcome. Do you agree, disagree, and why?
Thank you!
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Read Erich Fromme's "Escape from Freedom>" I think it will give you another insight that will expand your view of how people and life works.
The main things for me is to find things you enjoy doing, have a sense of proportion (for example, I don't particularly like my job, but it keeps me fed and sheltered and how I live would be considered a vision of paradise by the standard of how half the world lives, so when I start getting a little melancholy I realize that a lot of it is just abject whining) and like yourself by being the best human being you can. When you are a reasonable, compassionate person who loves doing things in life then that happiness is easier to attain even if you don't have a significant other.
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Interesting stuff. I would disagree with quite a bit of it, though. Here are my counter-points:
1) It's not a bad thing to feel sad sometimes. We're supposed to feel sad, or angry, or upset at times. If you're always happy with things, there's no reason to change. If everyone had been happy 70 years ago, there would have been no civil rights movement. If everyone had been happy in the trees, we would never have evolved as a species and would have died out. Discontent is fuel for change and progress.
2) The outside world does and should impact how you feel. When the WTC was hit in 2001, I was sad because of the terrible waste of life, and because I can't fathom the fact that we still live in a world where some people are okay with doing that to innocent people. I joined a good chunk of humanity in mourning for a few days, even though I don't live in the same country. The solidarity that we showed through that helped to support the people of New York through their pain and suffering. To not be sad because of outside events and situations is inhuman. How can you walk whistling past a scene of destruction and misery? It shows a lack of empathy, which is a fantastic human quality.
3) Positivity vs. Reality. I believe in tempering one with the other. It's one thing to aim high. It's entirely another to expect it all the time. If I were to apply to one very difficult university program to get into, there is a very real chance that I might not. Therefore, I should make an effort to produce a Plan B so that I'm not left hanging in the wind because I put all my eggs in one basket. It's fantastic to think positive. Sometimes, though, things don't turn out the way you want them to and you have to be prepared to work with that.
4) Love every positive experience, but what about the negative? I am the sum of my experiences. I am changed equally by the positive and the negative. Meeting my fiancé? Positive. My struggle with mental illness? Negative. Should I totally discount one of the biggest experiences of my life simply because it was negative? I believe that we shouldn't wallow in self-pity because of bad experiences, but we should address them and learn from them. Maybe rather than "love the positive and ignore the negative" it should be "take the positive from every experience". Because even the most negative of experiences can teach us something that will make us better and stronger.
5) Don't take personality cues from others? We are influenced by so many people in our development. I choose to continue to be influenced consciously whenever I encounter a new character. I agree that if we take a whole personality from another person and paste it over ours, it won't fit perfectly. But there's no harm in taking bits and pieces from people you admire. I aim to be content without extravagance, like my fiancé's grandmother. I aim to be strong and move through extreme adversity, like my mother. I aim to be a gentle, kind woman who puts everyone at ease like my co-worker. I aim to never conceal my intelligence from anyone, like Ada Lovelace. I don't have to be a second-rate version of one of them. I'm me, with influences. Even the best artist has influences. My medium just happens to be life :)
It's a pretty complicated theory you have there, and if it works for you, that's fantastic. When it comes to happiness, there's no one size fits all solution. Everyone is different.
The one thing I notice when it comes to your theory is that there's a lot of fighting. FIGHT to repress anything bad, MAKE happiness, CREATE this, DO that, etc. I follow a very different philosophy.
I read a set of books when I was in high school, and they changed the way I feel about things. The Tao of Pooh and the Te of Piglet by Benjamin Hoff are fantastic explorations of Taoist philosophy using common Western references (Winnie The Pooh). Taoism basically promotes the idea that rather than fighting the flow of the world, we should find the path of least resistance, like water. Instead of fighting to forget the negative, you wash up against it, see it, and accept it for what it is. Then you move on. Everything is what it is, and we won't make ourselves anything but frustrated when we try to put square pegs in round holes. I don't follow it to the letter, but I do like the quiet tranquility of it and try to put it into practice whenever I'm feeling angry or blocked.
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Very interesting stuff. I love philosophy and this is actually an area I gave some thought to myself some years back (albeit more from the angle of the importance rather than the cause of happiness), so its fascinating to read what you have been working on.
I tend to have high "highs" and low "lows" (no actual disorders or anything though) and I used to spent quite some time wondering if I should be changing the factors that lead me to having those "lows". Personally, I decided against it, since I believe that it somehow taints by perception of the world and my situation. I do not want to see and feel things different from what they are. To do otherwise would be like talking a happy drug (albeit one without any side effects)... I simply would not do it.
So, I definitely think happiness is indeed valued more by some and less by others. I recall reading a philosophical piece on ethics (sadly I do not remember who wrote it) where they posed a question that went something like: who has the right idea about life? A wise person who values and studies ethics, is good towards others, but whose enlightened state makes him unhappy, or an evil old hag who cares about no one but herself but is perpetually happy?
This is not to imply that being good means being unhappy, but rather to ask how much is happiness worth to you. Answering that question, I ranked it lower than I think most others would. I would always choose truth over happiness, I often choose pride over happiness, and I have sacrificed my personal happiness several times in order to stick to principles that I think are correct (at times making me miserably unhappy). So, certainly I can say that happiness has never been my ultimate goal, though naturally I do like being happy.
I am also afraid by the way you described the happiness process that one would lose touch with or bury emotions like hatred, anger, the desire for revenge, etc. All of these, in the right circumstances, are extremely powerful and useful emotions that are generally incompatible with a state of bliss (at least the way I understand them). Yet hatred towards something evil is a very powerful motivator to eliminate said evil. The desire to enact revenge when wronged is a powerful deterrent, by teaching those who would hurt you that their act will not go unpunished.
You said: Why is it that people say "I'm not being negative, just realistic" What makes something realistic or not. A good outcome is just as realistic as a negative one.
I disagree with this. Something is more realistic when it is the most probable outcome. I know people who played tennis all their lives and they are as crappy now as they were 10 years ago... if they assessed that they do not have what it takes to be a pro player, they would be 100% correct and realistic. To believe otherwise would be delusional. The advantage of making this realistic assessment vs a positive one is that it might save them years of wasted efforts and broken dreams. Most certainly, one can want something and realistically assess that it is not within one's grasp (just look at the first rounds of the American Idol auditions to see why so many people would have benefitted from making a realistic assessment of their situation).
It only becomes negative when one is incorrectly assessing ones situation, or when the "realistic" assessment prevents a person from trying in a situation where he should be trying anyway.
Now, from a psychological point of view, I think you are on the right track. Recently I translated a book on coaching - a subject that normally makes me cringe, but I did pick up one or two things. It was written by a brain researcher, and it had a whole bunch of ways to affect the state of your mind. At times, it was similar to what you are writing. Certainly the gist was that anyone can affect their state of mind far more than people normally think, and learning to condition your mind by talking to it a certain way could lead to radical changes.
So, my previous comments aside, I think your ideas are probably quite sound. Its just important to keep in mind that different people have different genetic limitations that would make it harder for some than for others.
Well, thats that :) I wrote this in a bit of a hurry so it is undoubtedly disorganised... but hope you can use it for something.
Great question though. Rarely get this sort of stuff on advicenators.
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