What is happiness? When dealing with difficult emotional concepts, sadness, anger, happiness…etc. We delegate a lot of authority to the word itself. Happiness. How do we describe happiness? Being content? Pleased? Proud? I find that sometimes its easier to understand something if you can take an emotion word and attach a memory to it. When I think of happiness, I picture Christmas as a kid and opening up a present that was exactly what you wanted. I picture the feeling of putting down a good book. I picture someone’s face when tell a good joke, and they are laughing. Happiness to me, is a mixture of satisfaction, contentment, and joy. It’s the giddiness of tiptoeing before pulling off a prank, the pleasure when you figure out a puzzle, the feel of your couch as you sink into it.
How do we obtain happiness? We must do something. Reading a book, playing a game, exercise. These things generate happiness, but are fleeting. The first time a child walks, they are happy. The more you walk, the less happiness you generate. Our conscious gives diminishing returns on happiness. Where as a kid, you would get happy by throwing a rock as far as you could, eventually you become numb to your accomplishments. Aristotle stated that we have to have an aim, or a goal. Someone who is interested in finance has a goal to acquire wealth, but at what point does that stop. Do people like Elon Musk still get happy over their newest million. Maybe. Do they get excited for 20 bucks on the ground in a parking lot. Probably not.
As human beings who are chasing happiness. How do we ensure we can keep generating happiness? Do we pick one hard to master hobby that we slowly get better and better at until we die. Or do we pick up hobbies like flowers finding a new one every so often and leaving the others to gather dust.
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