Why are you not happy?

[Daniel1970]

Originally Posted by userguide

This is interesting: almost all westen hapiness recipes come down to getting free from societal constructs they deem destructive and unfair. Like "guilt", "shame" and so on.

Well, I can understand why. Unfettered guilt and shame, and unwarranted guilt and shame, can certainly wreak havoc on your life and well-being, and peace of mind. It certainly does for me.

However, a little guilt or shame can be useful. It might tell you or clue you in that you've done something wrong that you need to make amends for, or not do again. I think every emotion has some function developed over thousands and thousands of years of biology, and those need to be paid attention to and not ignored.

It's just when it gets out of hand and unwarranted, or really oppressive or debilitating, that one would need to look at it a little closer, and untangle whatever is driving it. I would just ask, is it useful?

D.

[Daniel1970]

I listened to a great talk on YouTube by Denzel Washington on success, which I won't post here because it has some religious overtones to it. But one thing he stressed was setting goals.

A light just went on in my head today. Man, I used to set goals all the time. Annual goals, especially, and I'd push myself to keep to them.

I'm going to write up a list of goals for the rest of this year and really stick to it. Denzel suggests not only setting annual goals, etc., but DAILY goals towards those larger goals.

So I'm going to write a manageable list of annual goals, and then I'll write my daily goals towards each of those in my "mental health journal" (yes, I have one, lol, I need to write s--- down) early each day.

I think a lot of my anxiety is feeling I'm just churning in the surf, spinning my wheels, and not going anywhere in any directed way anymore. A coworker gave me an inspirational talk about not giving up on myself, and I think she stuck in my head a bit too.

Daniel

[sarahsweets]

I should start a journal. I always have these lofty ideas to start one, buy it and forget about it. I know it would be good for me but I always screw it up.

[Daniel1970]

Originally Posted by sarahsweets

I should start a journal. I always have these lofty ideas to start one, buy it and forget about it. I know it would be good for me but I always screw it up.

Well that's some negative self-talk if I ever heard it! lol

[userguide]

Originally Posted by acdc01

That's interesting. I'm surprised about that. Do you think you'll implode someday?

I don't really know whether I am "happy". I'm definitely not unhappy. How can one tell the difference between being "happy" and not just "not unhappy"?

I think the oncept of happiness is foreign to my internal dctionary. If it's not for the ppl blabbering about it I couldn't care about it at all.

Perhaps, on mechanical level, the low amount of neurochemical I enjoy didn't let me feel it the way ppl do.

I won't implode