我笑、我哭。我活著。

[silentpalms]

I think I'm one of the few people left in the world that actually likes Green Day. Yea, they're sellouts and hypocrites and whatever else you want to call them, and their music isn't exactly the pinnacle of artisticness... but I still like hearing it. I suppose I'm one of those people who's willing to detach creations from their creators and look

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[silentpalms]

Heh, yea... the title of the entry, actually, is "I laugh, I cry. I live." I didn't really express the full idea very well [I tend to be bad about trying to express things in concise enough terms to get a point across, and this often leads to things like the entry above, that sounds rather lop-sided, rather unintentionally]. I think the point of that sentence that you pulled out was really - that if you're going to be pouring lots of energy into something, it really needs to be something you actually want for yourself, instead of, say, you want the car because you want people to know you have lots of money when you're driving it around. I understand that not everything is always happy and perfect, and that you can't really appreciate happiness if you don't experience sadness, anger, frustration, etc, as well.

Ie: don't climb the corporate ladder/buy expensive junk because that's what you "need" to do. And don't force-hold onto a relationship that isn't going to work, just because you feel like you "need" to have someone. But, duh, you do need to do something to live, which might involve a job that involves hair-pulling at times. And not everyone in your life is going to be someone that you're absolutely in love with. But there's a fine line, there, and I think the key that comes in is knowing what is a necessary, acceptable frustration [mother-in-law, boss], and what are things that you actually have control over, and that you do need to make decisions about [spouse, career as a whole].

[troglodyteking]

There is a bit in my favorite short story, The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas where the narrator says that "Happiness is based on a just discrimination of what is necessary, what is neither necessary nor destructive, and what is destructive." That always struck me as a nice way to express it, although it is not terribly useful if one is not good at determining what the appropriate measures are and what falls into what categories.