Happiness - Truth or fiction?

Many times throughout the day at my job I get told "Thank you" and "Have a nice day". Its a great thing knowing that i helped someone so much that they wish this upon me. I mean I have heard the opposite end but no where near as much as the positive end of the stick lol. Yet I look at those comments and I think. Why not have a "Nice Day"? What stops some of us as human beings from enjoying simple little thoughts and well wishes. Is happiness that difficult to obtain? Is it simply a word thrown around to label what our brains feel during a pleasurable moment?

A simple Definition of Happiness is a state of well-being and contentment or a pleasurable or satisfying experience. But see here is the issue what tells us what is Well-Being who is to tell us when we are well? Doctors I assume but we need to try to define our own well-being to ourselves. To someone like PLATO he said True happiness or achieving this happiness is “by means of virtue.”

Virtue - doing good things because YOU want to. Now ain't that a kick in the teeth. For us to have happiness we have to do things that we want for others that makes us happy. This really doesn't work to well sometimes cause we could do good things for others and then they can turn that to us and makes us feel regret which leads to anger and hate. Hate=/=happiness last I checked.

 

It seems difficult to pinpoint what exactly is the point in which we will or can get happiness. Analyzing Happiness is not that difficult. You have a cookie you are happy, you have sex you are happy, you receive a compliment you are happy. But those are instant and not lasting. You eat the cookie its gone, you fall asleep after sex(sometimes), you hear the compliment and the next minute its gone. Within Science there has been studies done and it is believed that the happiest man int he world has been found and it was a Buddhist monk:

 

Neuroscientist Richard Davidson wired up the monk's skull with 256 sensors at the University of Wisconsin as part of research on hundreds of advanced practitioners of meditation.
The scans showed that when meditating on compassion, Ricard's brain produces a level of gamma waves - those linked to consciousness, attention, learning and memory - 'never reported before in the neuroscience literature', Davidson said.
The scans also showed excessive activity in his brain's left prefrontal cortex compared to its right counterpart, giving him an abnormally large capacity for happiness and a reduced propensity towards negativity, researchers believe.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2225634/Is-worlds-happiest-man-Brain-scans-reveal-French-monk-abnormally-large-capacity-joy-meditation.html#ixzz2Qp1Pc9oe

Through meditation and research we are able to see that happiness can be seen and actually measured. But who is to say this man is truly happy in our OWN terms?

 

I practiced Meditation for a short period of time I never could find a quite spot but hey I live in NY . That wasn't gonna happen anytime soon lol. But it seems there is a correlation between letting life flow through you and not letting it effect you. A Buddhist by design (according to the practice) seeks nothing and thus it comes to him naturally. Flow with the river and never against it you will not find what you want for you desire nothing but you will instead be approached with good things the river provides. This can be seen as true. When we seek love we may be let down , When we seek wealth we may find ourselves with no money, when we desire we open up a huge margin of disappointment that can turn around and make a flip switch on/off.

 

 

Some people want money but what they really need is piece of mind. Yes that money/cookie/sex will make you happy for now but in the long run once you tired yourself out you become very disjointed from the world sometimes leaving an emptiness that you will perceive is due to lack of money. By not wanting it so much you will run into it and have your instant happiness and then by not letting that thought /idea of instant gratification control you and letting things smoothly go you gradually will feel a better happiness. Be happy instead of rich/sexed, full- it will come and go - Happiness will last. That dollar bill in your pocket isn't gonna be the memory you look back on when your on your death bed it going to be how you felt when you actually smiled before and after that money.

 

This of course Is easy to analyze and do yet when you actually try to put this into action, it can become something of a task at hand that many aren't prepared to handle. I mean when you look at yourself can you honestly say that your happy or not? If you are then you have found a piece of mind that you need to hold on to - If not then you need to find that piece of mind - That enlightened area that allows you to not only see but venture deeper into the world of happiness that we as human being try to explore alone with others and capture. Never seek but yet let it flow. A damning conundrum for if you don't seek it how will you know it is out there or that it will ever find you - But again Doubt draws near. Put it out and draw in life draw in happiness

 

Again its all relative as my focus and facts may not apply well to your own. i am no specialist nor am I a expert. But i am a human being and I have been through a lot - Have I found happiness - In a small way yes but not like our French monk lol. But I do have a sense that one day I will capture it but for not I try not to think of it. Let it flow

 

Till next write...