Happiness is not a fish that you can catch
I am writing this with one particular friend in mind. My intention is not necessarily to help, I mean, I want to help but I know that I can only really give you my support and offer my time to listen if you need it.
What is happiness? How could one define happiness? Happiness is a very shady subject as far as measurement is concerned. There really is no way to measure happiness, in fact there really is no conclusive proof that happiness even exists. Therefore I must first try to define what I think happiness is, so that there is no confusion. I can then begin to explain the title. How then, does one begin to define happiness? I asked myself. My answer is that happiness is probably an emotion we associate with many different factors and these factors include but are not limited to: accomplishment, aspirations, goals, dreams, self-esteem, and state of mind, friendships, financial status, job status, social status, relationships and love. However, this is even further convoluted when one adds under state of mind: depression, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, addictive behavior, physiological brain disorders, and so on. The point that is most crucial here is that there are so many external factors that influence how we perceive happiness, there are so many factors that influence how we view ourselves and all of them play a major role in our self-esteem. This makes the concept a very hard one to understand or control and measure.
Why then is it that one morning we wake up and just decide we are not happy and we hate ourselves for it, hate our lives, hate who we are as a person and essentially just want to die. Why is it that we look at our self in the mirror and see someone who is grotesque and ugly staring back at us? Is this something we can control? Is it innate, is it mental and can we improve it through certain ways of thinking? I am inclined to say it is possible to control, keeping in mind that I have no empirical basis at all to support this theory; it is just a theory after all. However, I can speak about it from my own personal experiences, although I do not represent everyone.
If we always feel like we have failed at life because of the little things that may go wrong I would say we are more susceptible to some depression. In fact I would go out on a limb to suggest that any factor that has to do with reaching goals, social status in life, finding an educational path and a career are highly stressful situations which can cause people to feel overwhelmed leading to eventual phases of depression. This is quite normal and experienced by anyone who is human inside. Is it times like these we feel like we do not want to continue anymore? Probably! After all we have no reason to continue fighting because we feel like we’ve been handed a brain and a body that is just a vehicle to failure. It’s in times like this that I have to remind myself of this little analogy I like to use for friends and for myself: “When you’re playing catch there’s always the occasional throw in which you might drop the ball. How then do you deal with that? Well the answer is simple: you walk over to where the ball landed, you pick it up and start playing again. Life is like a much bigger version of catch, sometimes we drop the ball. That ball may go a few inches away from our feet, and other times, it may end up in the third row. All you can do about it is retrieve it and start over.” If this is not a true representation of how life works then life has me fooled.
In my opinion this has to do with how we perceive the world around us and thereby gives us choices to make. Everything in life in my opinion comes down to a choice. We can not always control what happens to us, or what’s going to happen to us, however, we can chose how we are going to take it. In other words, we can smile about it, or we can frown about it and drink, do drugs, hurt ourselves, attempt to kill ourselves whatever will make us feel better. Personally, I chose to go pick the ball up and start over and sure I fall really hard sometimes, as do many other people. After all we are human and you may think you have no reason to continue fighting, but if you only think of yourself as a vehicle to failure then you will not find any confidence and strength to want to keep fighting. I have been in that place. You are in your early twenties you haven’t got any idea what you want to be, your friends are all going back to school, you don’t know what you will become or where in life you will end up and it is really scary. You go into school because of pressure from parents and you sure as hell do not want to spend your life washing dishes or delivering mail so you end up in school not wanting to be in the classes you are, you feel trapped for the first year or two. You just have to remember you are not suffering through it alone, all across the world plenty of other students in the same vote as you are feeling the same emotions. I know students in their forties still in school not sure what they will become, I think this could be me and I realize HELL NO. All the more reason to suffer through the boring shit and get a degree so I can work towards professional school and then get into the real world and if you participate and speak to professors and be active at school it opens doors for your future and for things to fall into place. They always do.
I state a line I borrowed from an album a very good album, very depressing album would you figure. Happiness is a fish that you can not catch because it’s not really something that you can just hang bait on a line for and reel in every time something bites. What I am saying is if you attach happiness to a line, well, what happens if that line breaks? Happiness isn’t caught it’s created by yourself, by the choices you make, by the goals you set, by achieving those goals and my not letting life throw you down.
However, this is life, you have to persevere and carry on when it throws you a curve ball. What I do not do is allow bad times to get in the way of taking small steps towards accomplishing my goals in life. I do not allow one bad situation to escalate into stopping me from dreaming about a future even if I’m not certain of what that future is. I refuse to let it bring down my self-esteem interrupting my friendships and relationships. There is more to life than financial status and the job you ultimately end up taking on. If you have really high goals then what’s getting in your way from reaching them? Why make excuses about how I don’t like this teacher or this boss and how they are preventing me from doing what I want? Believe me when I say I’ve been there, I’ve done that and in all honesty the only person holding you back form reaching your dreams in life, from not doing things is yourself and yeah it’s easy to blame yourself for that You dropped the ball, well, yeah, guess what, it happens. So pick it up and try harder to catch it this time. You make the choices that “you” make. You set your life in perspective and You lead it the way “you” chose. My original point has sidetracked a bit but it does relate to happiness. If you are not happy with your social status because you are always worried about the money you have or will have. If you are always worried about having enough money with the job you could potentially get after you finish your degree. If you are always worried about trying to please everyone all of the time, and if you make the choice to just give up at life then yeah, you will be fucking depressed. Life is really fucking depressing sometimes, that’s just the way it is. However, you can chose to let it beat you down, you can chose to let it affect you and feel unhappy or you can charge it head on like a gladiator and you can say well I’m destined to be here anyway, I might as well take some fuckers down with me and make the best out of what I have. That is an earthbound body with a soul, heart, conscience, and emotions that are a complete bitch to control. Why then can’t you find some happiness in yourself? Perhaps it is uncontrollable after all, and maybe just maybe it is a physiological disorder that has yet to be discovered within our brain chemistry. Who knows!
My inspiration:
I confess
Everyone is overweight
And I'm obsessed
Talking is just masturbating
Without the mess
Addiction leaves you sad today & unimpressed
I can't remember all the names because
Everyone you meet today
Is just so fucking vain
Bored again by happiness
All those friends I've (die) lost in there
I'm upset
Happiness is not a fish
That you can catch
Imagination can't resist
This laziness
That pins you down, get on your knees
Everyone you meet today
Is feeling useless & ashamed
What is happiness? How could one define happiness? Happiness is a very shady subject as far as measurement is concerned. There really is no way to measure happiness, in fact there really is no conclusive proof that happiness even exists. Therefore I must first try to define what I think happiness is, so that there is no confusion. I can then begin to explain the title. How then, does one begin to define happiness? I asked myself. My answer is that happiness is probably an emotion we associate with many different factors and these factors include but are not limited to: accomplishment, aspirations, goals, dreams, self-esteem, and state of mind, friendships, financial status, job status, social status, relationships and love. However, this is even further convoluted when one adds under state of mind: depression, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, addictive behavior, physiological brain disorders, and so on. The point that is most crucial here is that there are so many external factors that influence how we perceive happiness, there are so many factors that influence how we view ourselves and all of them play a major role in our self-esteem. This makes the concept a very hard one to understand or control and measure.
Why then is it that one morning we wake up and just decide we are not happy and we hate ourselves for it, hate our lives, hate who we are as a person and essentially just want to die. Why is it that we look at our self in the mirror and see someone who is grotesque and ugly staring back at us? Is this something we can control? Is it innate, is it mental and can we improve it through certain ways of thinking? I am inclined to say it is possible to control, keeping in mind that I have no empirical basis at all to support this theory; it is just a theory after all. However, I can speak about it from my own personal experiences, although I do not represent everyone.
If we always feel like we have failed at life because of the little things that may go wrong I would say we are more susceptible to some depression. In fact I would go out on a limb to suggest that any factor that has to do with reaching goals, social status in life, finding an educational path and a career are highly stressful situations which can cause people to feel overwhelmed leading to eventual phases of depression. This is quite normal and experienced by anyone who is human inside. Is it times like these we feel like we do not want to continue anymore? Probably! After all we have no reason to continue fighting because we feel like we’ve been handed a brain and a body that is just a vehicle to failure. It’s in times like this that I have to remind myself of this little analogy I like to use for friends and for myself: “When you’re playing catch there’s always the occasional throw in which you might drop the ball. How then do you deal with that? Well the answer is simple: you walk over to where the ball landed, you pick it up and start playing again. Life is like a much bigger version of catch, sometimes we drop the ball. That ball may go a few inches away from our feet, and other times, it may end up in the third row. All you can do about it is retrieve it and start over.” If this is not a true representation of how life works then life has me fooled.
In my opinion this has to do with how we perceive the world around us and thereby gives us choices to make. Everything in life in my opinion comes down to a choice. We can not always control what happens to us, or what’s going to happen to us, however, we can chose how we are going to take it. In other words, we can smile about it, or we can frown about it and drink, do drugs, hurt ourselves, attempt to kill ourselves whatever will make us feel better. Personally, I chose to go pick the ball up and start over and sure I fall really hard sometimes, as do many other people. After all we are human and you may think you have no reason to continue fighting, but if you only think of yourself as a vehicle to failure then you will not find any confidence and strength to want to keep fighting. I have been in that place. You are in your early twenties you haven’t got any idea what you want to be, your friends are all going back to school, you don’t know what you will become or where in life you will end up and it is really scary. You go into school because of pressure from parents and you sure as hell do not want to spend your life washing dishes or delivering mail so you end up in school not wanting to be in the classes you are, you feel trapped for the first year or two. You just have to remember you are not suffering through it alone, all across the world plenty of other students in the same vote as you are feeling the same emotions. I know students in their forties still in school not sure what they will become, I think this could be me and I realize HELL NO. All the more reason to suffer through the boring shit and get a degree so I can work towards professional school and then get into the real world and if you participate and speak to professors and be active at school it opens doors for your future and for things to fall into place. They always do.
I state a line I borrowed from an album a very good album, very depressing album would you figure. Happiness is a fish that you can not catch because it’s not really something that you can just hang bait on a line for and reel in every time something bites. What I am saying is if you attach happiness to a line, well, what happens if that line breaks? Happiness isn’t caught it’s created by yourself, by the choices you make, by the goals you set, by achieving those goals and my not letting life throw you down.
However, this is life, you have to persevere and carry on when it throws you a curve ball. What I do not do is allow bad times to get in the way of taking small steps towards accomplishing my goals in life. I do not allow one bad situation to escalate into stopping me from dreaming about a future even if I’m not certain of what that future is. I refuse to let it bring down my self-esteem interrupting my friendships and relationships. There is more to life than financial status and the job you ultimately end up taking on. If you have really high goals then what’s getting in your way from reaching them? Why make excuses about how I don’t like this teacher or this boss and how they are preventing me from doing what I want? Believe me when I say I’ve been there, I’ve done that and in all honesty the only person holding you back form reaching your dreams in life, from not doing things is yourself and yeah it’s easy to blame yourself for that You dropped the ball, well, yeah, guess what, it happens. So pick it up and try harder to catch it this time. You make the choices that “you” make. You set your life in perspective and You lead it the way “you” chose. My original point has sidetracked a bit but it does relate to happiness. If you are not happy with your social status because you are always worried about the money you have or will have. If you are always worried about having enough money with the job you could potentially get after you finish your degree. If you are always worried about trying to please everyone all of the time, and if you make the choice to just give up at life then yeah, you will be fucking depressed. Life is really fucking depressing sometimes, that’s just the way it is. However, you can chose to let it beat you down, you can chose to let it affect you and feel unhappy or you can charge it head on like a gladiator and you can say well I’m destined to be here anyway, I might as well take some fuckers down with me and make the best out of what I have. That is an earthbound body with a soul, heart, conscience, and emotions that are a complete bitch to control. Why then can’t you find some happiness in yourself? Perhaps it is uncontrollable after all, and maybe just maybe it is a physiological disorder that has yet to be discovered within our brain chemistry. Who knows!
My inspiration:
I confess
Everyone is overweight
And I'm obsessed
Talking is just masturbating
Without the mess
Addiction leaves you sad today & unimpressed
I can't remember all the names because
Everyone you meet today
Is just so fucking vain
Bored again by happiness
All those friends I've (die) lost in there
I'm upset
Happiness is not a fish
That you can catch
Imagination can't resist
This laziness
That pins you down, get on your knees
Everyone you meet today
Is feeling useless & ashamed