Mental Health Is achieving happiness/inner peace possible

[demonapocalypse]

I don’t understand why I can’t be consistently happy, I know I can’t really pose this question without explaining my entire life story but I feel as if someone else was in my position they would be happy so why am I not? Any advice? I try looking at life through the most positive lens possible but sometimes it just isn’t enough regardless of how good my life is.

 

[iridescentblack]

I had a pretty rough go of it for a while, having not really grown up as a particularly privileged individual. My parents have never been poor during my lifetime, and have for the most part always strived to be better people, however that didn't mean that there weren't some bumps along the road.

I think when it comes to inner peace and enlightenment there is a fair bit of balance that needs to occur between the inside and the outside. They call these mastering the inner and outer struggles. I'm not sure if one necessarily has to do them in any particular order, but in my experience it worked out pretty well by mostly following the trend respectively. By working on myself and remaining positive as much as I could, I was able to transform the world around me (or at least in my most direct vicinity in wherever I go) to the point where I've gotten more compliments this year than all the other years of my life combined. Running into noble strangers can be a very empowering experience.

Most of all, the magic of what's inside of you comes from you and you alone. This is not to say that any one person is more special than the next. There are many spiritual paths and they all have winding turns and narrow bridges, dark sectors and bright meadows. The fact that anyone should become stagnant in moving forward along their spiritual journey, is usually an indication that some profound change is waiting to take place. Most of the rewards will come if not for the challenges that stand as barriers between the self and whatever ego seeks to rob you of to prevent that inner peace.

I pray that good times will come to you.

 

[n3ophy7e]

I don’t understand why I can’t be consistently happy, I know I can’t really pose this question without explaining my entire life story but I feel as if someone else was in my position they would be happy so why am I not? Any advice? I try looking at life through the most positive lens possible but sometimes it just isn’t enough regardless of how good my life is.

If anyone has the answer to this, can they please let me know as well??

Seriously though, in all honesty? No one is happy all the time. No one is consistently happy. Happiness comes and it goes. Even just being content, at peace, calm, good/not bad, those feelings come and go. Shit happens and even the happiest and most fortunate people still feel sad, angry, down, frustrated, anxious and negative at times. It sounds like you're doing the right things though, which is to try and look at life through a positive lens, to be grateful for what you have, to appreciate how good you've got it, and to make the most of the time you have. You can't really do any more than that!

 

[December Flower]

If you don't feel Weltschmerz, I think it is entirely possible.
Just looking at this world, you'd have to be mad to be happy

 

[iridescentblack]

If you don't feel Weltschmerz, I think it is entirely possible.
Just looking at this world, you'd have to be mad to be happy

I learned a new word today

 

[December Flower]

I learned a new word today

apologies :/ there was no English word for this feeling

 

[iridescentblack]

Yeah, I noticed that. I like it. I got to use it today too.

 

[n3ophy7e]

Yeah, I noticed that. I like it. I got to use it today too.

Cool!!

 

[sigmond]

Happiness is heavily dependent on biology and without a decent diet and adequate sunlight its unlikely a person will remain happy. Some people are blessed with a happy disposition but for others its more of a process or a byproduct of other actions; accomplishing goals can make people happy or perhaps eating, helping others, having sex, etc.

The best advice I can give is to exercise, eat healthy, avoid alcohol, practice gratitude, get out in the sun, be kind to others, don't take things personal or lose your sense of humor, avoid toxic/abusive people and the news, practice meditation + yoga, pick up a hobby, find a decent sex partner, and hopefully a career that puts you in the upper middle class.

 

[n3ophy7e]

Happiness is heavily dependent on biology and without a decent diet and adequate sunlight its unlikely a person will remain happy. Some people are blessed with a happy disposition but for others its more of a process or a byproduct of other actions; accomplishing goals can make people happy or perhaps eating, helping others, having sex, etc.

The best advice I can give is to exercise, eat healthy, avoid alcohol, practice gratitude, get out in the sun, be kind to others, don't take things personal or lose your sense of humor, avoid toxic/abusive people and the news, practice meditation + yoga, pick up a hobby, find a decent sex partner, and hopefully a career that puts you in the upper middle class.

Very well said. I agree.

 

[sigmond]

Very well said. I agree.

Thanks. I’m trying to work on my delivery. I’ve noticed my posts can sound overly authoritative or robotic.

There’s some people, myself included, who seem destined to be unhappy. For me it’s a combination of poor upbringing, bad habits and decisions, lack of support, extensive trauma, a bad attitude and clinical depression. I try my best to be enthusiastic about things which is essential to happiness. I believe Eckart Tolle suggests anything you do without acceptance, enjoyment, and enthusiasm will spread pain. (Might be a Buddhist principle)

Either way that’s where I’m trying to start - presence and enthusiasm!

 

[finitelifeform]

From my experience in life so far I have learned you have to truly be who you are. And to do that you have to find out what that means to you. You have to be willing to learn, grow and evolve. Letting go of what has held you back, prevented you from realizing your potential. You have to be open to experience which takes courage if life has been hard because it means you want to shell up and hide away. But hiding away doesnt resolve the issues. Then I find you do whatever is easiest, whatever avoids what lurks at the core of these issues. And now you are potentially running a program, being a somebody that isnt actually you. And for how long? A week? A month? A year? 2? 5? 10? A lifetime? Now you are exposed to potentially carrying more baggage that you will inevitably pick up. Why? Because you are opening yourself to that which you dont want and that which you would have never accepted nor sought to seek out if whatever problems you experienced didnt help. You are running a program you never would have ran. But just because these issues in life did happen doesnt mean you have to keep repeating the same potentially toxic cycles. You CAN change things.

How many people in life get to the point where its too hard to stop and choose from the many possible paths they could walk down and instead choose to stay in their comfort zone and thus continue to ensure the same life they live which they actually want to change doesnt change? I can bet lots of people! I am guilty of this. It must the biggest thorn in every human beings foot.

You need to be honest with yourself. You need to listen to yourself. You need to learn to love yourself and treat yourself like the instrinsically valuable being that you are. Again this is hard if your life has been hard and perhaps resorting to the default mode of perceiving yourself involves self deprecating behaviour. You have to work out what life means to you, what your purpose is, what your meaning is. You need to see the traps you have placed in front of you and accept the fact that traps these are and we can do this to ourselves when life gets us down. We can and often will turn in on ourselves.

Life is one big learning experience but isnt it strange we all stop learning? We believe learning is only done in school. When we leave school there is nothing else to learn. When we are "adults" we have made it and there is surely nothing else we need to know or seek out. We live in a world that promotes adulthood as the final destination and yet, how many actually reach this place on a deep meaningful level and not simply due to biological age? We all grow old but how many grow wise so their age reflects a life lived? Arent we being manipulated and robbed of our potential? I think we are. I think our western culture teaches us to stop asking questions. We have no role models anymore. We are lost. We are told to stop challenging issues unless they are considered socially acceptable and relevant and unless we get immediate gratification upon challenging whatever it is. We are conditioned to remain insecure and helpless constantly bombarded with sh*t that doesnt help us. We are primed to remain average, to assume the reality we see around us is the only reality.

This makes us feel small and trapped.
So, is it our conditioning that makes us like this? Is it the many external forces present in our modern societies? Or is it us? I think its a bit of both. And why I think it is both our fault and societies fault is because by removing ourselves from the equation removes our responsibility. This means not only are we blaming everything and everyone but ourselves but now we have no responsibility we are also powerless.

It doesnt matter what happens in life, we are responsible for what WE can do to change it. Even in the worst times we still can do something even if that change is subtle and as small as a shift in our perceptions. As a global community is also our responsibility to put things right.

But we must actually do this! We must be and deliver the change we want to see. We must first look within and then seek to expand out to others. This has always been what life has been about since humanity began. It is in our genes and baked into our very essence to want to fufill our potential. Otherwise, would we be here now exchanging our thoughts on a forum using space-age tech living in advanced civilizations?

Its easy to forget all this. Life is hard. It always has been and it always will be. But we must return to where we first came from and where everything was possible in order to rebuild and reimagine ourselves and most importantly, reconnect.

Where is that we came from? Right here. Right now. This is it. This is all there will be and all there ever was. What we are returning to is ourselves.

 

[VerbalTruist]

Yep. What works for me is practiced Buddhism. Daily action, following the whole shebang... It has made me significantly happier. Inner peace? Feeling like I'm getting there.