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[danger03]

We may have an inalienable right to pursue it, but to me happiness is a really arbitrary thing.  There is so much suffering in the world at any given moment that we really all should 'a quitus make/ with a bare bodkin.'  But for right now, that is, in these few minutes before I head for bed, I am happy for some reason.  I really shouldn't be.

Comments

[forcemajeure]

I think happiness, by its nature, has to be arbitrary. After all, if we waited for everything to be right in our lives -- or, worse still, the world -- we'd never have any. (There are, of course, people who live that way -- by definition, unhappily.) And if everything everywhere were just peachy, would we even know happiness when we experienced it? Or would we find silly little things about which to complain in order that we might experience happiness when we stopped? Oh, wait, we do that already. Or at least I do. Sometimes.

[cobalt999]

I only think happiness is arbitrary to a degree. Just because we have basic living needs fulfilled doesn't mean we have no license to be unhappy, versus those who are unhappy out of, say, third-world unemployment. Happiness isn't just a function of a full stomach and an adequate home. The wealthiest of the first world encounter alienation, interpersonal stress, and unsatisfying work conditions, and other universal sources of discontent, just as those at the barest minimum of acceptable living elsewhere do. Wealth and political stability improve happiness in a country, but only to a degree, because in the end it's still a grouping of social animals with nearly identical psychological needs, no matter if they drive a Volvo to Starbucks or walk a mile for water

[forcemajeure]

Oh yeah, I agree with that. I just think that people often make themselves perpetually unhappy by insisting that everything be right before they allow themselves happiness. People who ask how can you be happy so long as there are dirty dishes in the sink or people starving to death in North Korea