What is happiness?

[Tachikoma]

It's not terrifying, just awkward. Because having a mental illness would compromise one's ability to think, combined with the fact that one has to think in order to make the decision to see the specialist, provides a weird situation.

Of course it's awkward. Nobody feels comfortable spilling their personal aspect of their life to a complete stranger. However, a good specialist knows this and has the skill to approach new patients without being too intimidating.

Also, your logic is a bit circular and not always true. Mental illness can compromise one's ability to think in various ways; but that doesn't mean that it will impair your cognitive ability on all counts. It depends what the condition is. For example, if you get phobias or panic attacks for situations that other people would find harmless, then you can easily deduce that there is something wrong.

[Tachikoma]

I was told once feelings are like muscles. They get stronger with use, and atrophy with disuse. You cats think that idea is plausible? Do I really just work towards it, and eventually it'll get strong enough to where I understand it?

That's a fairly generic description, but yeah your brain is fairly malleable on many fronts. You can "unlearn" some of the bad habits your brain picked up - basically gradually recondition yourself. For example, find something that makes you anxious and gradually expose yourself to the situation until you will become accustomed and more comfortable with it. It's slow, hard but it's the only sure way. Medications will not fix that, they only help you to suppress some of the terrible feelings and they give you a window of opportunity for your recovery.

[Tilting Clock]

x

[Fishpick]

Happiness is an emotion we most likely evolved in order to survive as a species. Most people find happiness through social contact in one way or another, which lead us to become a social species, and therefore improved our chances of survival. We also enjoy being around happy people, which makes us more likely to work to please others, thus pleasing ourselves. All this leads to a society that, for the most part, seeks to help each other and work in harmony. With the end goal being one emotion: happiness. (The level of helpfulness and social harmony depends upon culture, with large contrasts seen between individualistic cultures like US and collectivistic cultures like Japan.)

This is a little oversimplified, but I really don't feel like writing too much on this. But this is mostly a result of my psychology degree. I recognize this is far from a proper definition, but no one has a proper definition. And this is the best I can do on two hours sleep in the time I have between eating breakfast and taking a shower. So that'll have to do. And so, off I go to take a shower.

I could academically talk all day about psychology, but short and sweet, my third post in this thread already shows how difficult is is for me to accept that train of thought. Seeing as how even among people I consider friends for years, I still feel segregated in my ability to indulge in the joy the people around me feel. I honestly don't 'get' other people for he most part. Considering they seem to get each other, I can only assume it's me.

I'm told I think too much. Can't really help it. If my thoughts were TV channels. I have a dozen TVs going on at the same time in my head. I have control of them and can changes channels individually any time I want, and even turn them all to the same channel, but I only have one power button for all of em. I'm literally monitoring my breathing, my heart, sense of touch, thought about what to type, typing, have music going on in my head, thinking about this topic, my dried out eyes hurting, ASL fingerspelling mentally, and some other things at the same time. Turn it off, or turn all the channels to one thought and I forget to breath o.O I wouldn't say it's ADD as they claim it's one TV and it flicks though channels by itself. It really messes with me being able to get in that 'flow' state. It's like being scatter brained but still able to respond to people. Damn I went off on an tangent again <.<

Long happiness hmm. the word 'long' really changes the concept. I'll ponder that too, thanks.

Honestly, you and I are similar. I said humans evolved this trait for that purpose, but that doesn't mean everyone is a hundred percent alike. One of the reasons I took psychology was because I didn't get people either, but I wanted to. I still don't feel very comfortable around others, but it's gotten a lot better. I can function around others, and I am actually somewhat social at work. But recreationally, I spend most of my time alone in my one bedroom apartment. I also have the same "thinking" problem you have. It's also why I get very little sleep at night. My professors told me I have an analytical mind, which should help me in my future career. That's a plus I guess.

Also, I read some of your other posts against therapy and psychology in general. No one who has ever studied psychology would believe everyone thinks the same. No one. Now, I'll be the first to say not all therapists studied psychology. In fact, some therapists never even went to university. That's why you need to be careful which therapists you actually see. However, any therapist who has a degree would not think that way. It goes every branch of psychology (except Freud. But just about every psychologist agrees with your assessment about him.) I'm not trying to say you should see someone, since most of the time speaking with friends or even speaking on a forum like this is just as helpful. Sometimes more helpful. Unless you do have a severe psychological condition. But it doesn't sound like you do.

[Daitengu]

Honestly, you and I are similar. I said humans evolved this trait for that purpose, but that doesn't mean everyone is a hundred percent alike. One of the reasons I took psychology was because I didn't get people either, but I wanted to. I still don't feel very comfortable around others, but it's gotten a lot better. I can function around others, and I am actually somewhat social at work. But recreationally, I spend most of my time alone in my one bedroom apartment. I also have the same "thinking" problem you have. It's also why I get very little sleep at night. My professors told me I have an analytical mind, which should help me in my future career. That's a plus I guess.

Also, I read some of your other posts against therapy and psychology in general. No one who has ever studied psychology would believe everyone thinks the same. No one. Now, I'll be the first to say not all therapists studied psychology. In fact, some therapists never even went to university. That's why you need to be careful which therapists you actually see. However, any therapist who has a degree would not think that way. It goes every branch of psychology (except Freud. But just about every psychologist agrees with your assessment about him.) I'm not trying to say you should see someone, since most of the time speaking with friends or even speaking on a forum like this is just as helpful. Sometimes more helpful. Unless you do have a severe psychological condition. But it doesn't sound like you do.

Must be because I'm in the bible belt and people are "generally" mentally decades behind lol. And I have trust issues. I know what I have to do. I just gotta do it. I really need to build up my determination muscles. Any venture I wish to do, will have to be done alone. There's no one that shares my interests and are willing to do it with me(not to mention technical difficulties). I also have to keep my mother from making me spiral back into depression like she usually does. I also have to be less hard on myself and others, by take things one at a time instead of wanting/expecting perfection out of the gate.

Even though I still can't really fathom how happiness feels, I can atleast appreciate that you cats gave me some understanding as to conditions that allow it to happen. Perhaps because I'm doing something for me that improves my life for once, and willingly, I'll get it one day.

[metalangel]

Then came the next step. Then came the future. I'd asked myself over and over ever since middle school, asked my family and loved ones for guidance, but still felt no surer about where to go and what to do. Then, I received one of the three best pieces of advice that I've ever been given: don't stress it. My mother told me it was okay that I didn't have everything figured out, I didn't need to. Down the line, I now know she was right. I know that most of those kids who ran off to college thinking they had their life stories planned out were just trying to live out a fantasy.

I've felt the shame of not being where my society says I should and feeling like I'm not living up to my potential.

An excellent post, those two parts above are my favourite. I'm frustrated as anything, I have the opposite to those two (I was pushed towards post secondary educations despite not having a plan, and now I'm where society says I should be and I'm miserable)

I wrote this yesterday about the stupidity of making every young person go to university or college for SOMETHING, regardless of whether they want to or the subject is actually applicable to real life.

I've discovered something which I already kinda suspected anyway (wow, great revelations)

A lot of people of my/our generation went into post secondary education because they were encouraged/pushed/forced by their family, not because they needed or wanted to. I had the sickening revelation I was wasting my time halfway through the second year of my three year Journalism BA (a career path unsurprisingly #1 on this list of worthless degrees).

Consider:
-my partner was more or less forced to go to college after high school, instead of going to get a job like she wanted, by her parents.
-a work colleague did a degree in teaching but has worked in the same job and me on and off (maternity leave twice) for the last decade.
-my friend over in Canada did some kind of degree (business studies?) and is now doing a pre-employment baking arts course.
-another of our forumites did something or other for his BA and then computer science for his Masters? I don't remember anything except those huge Java books you had, man, sorry.

This thread on DigitalSpy summarized it:

"I think it's a bit unfair to expect an 18 year old to have a clear idea about what they want to do for the rest of their life. I know plenty of people who took their particular degree because they couldn't think of anything better to do at the time."

The result is people falling out of university without a fucking clue and working a succession of terrible jobs through their twenties, possibly while trying to pay off their BA in Art History or Theatre Lighting or Lady Gaga's Underwear 2009-2011 or whatever.

That leads to said people eventually finding some semblance of a decent job, often completely unrelated to whatever it was they studied, and finally having had the experiences, three years later than those who went straight into the workforce, to actually know what they want. Except, they're now about 30, and have a lot more things tying them down to prevent them actually going out to realize that dream (the aforementioned colleague would love to do adult education but has children which prevents her until the youngest reaches school age).

And, on the flipside, all these goons who've got their 2:2 in Horse Psychology or Wok Acoustics Analysis or Advanced Bhangra Dancing are so numerous that you now basically need to do a degree, however bullshit, because employers can afford to be that picky because there's so damn many of you desperate for whatever entry level manure shovelling/call centring/charity mugging job they've got.

[Al]

I was in the same situation as Daitengu, as my mother died and I didn't really excel at anything in life. No one ever pushed me to be succesful, not even my parents or siblings.

My views changed when I discovered this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche

never regretted it since. Sending my good will to Nietzsche.