H : How To attain Happiness

[LightSun]

H : How To attain Happiness

“Happiness is not the mere possession of money; it is the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.

(1) This happens to be (finding) one's gift, (2) discovering about any illusion holding us back and ultimately find (3) a balance of doing what you are capable off. The entire time you will be juggling life and in danger of being swept to the vortex of falsehoods which is not the true self.

I believe we have a special gift. I believe if we followed it we would be more complete, and whole as well as more fully healed in all our areas of life. I feel that we get too many messages that conflict with our inner self that is in need of discovering. False desire then comes into play. It is a false desire of expectations put on us.

Somehow, we have to realize this inner voice and be true to it. Thus, we become fulfilled, happy, and content. I believe each of us has a gift. Doing this gift, one achieves a sense of happiness as well as utter timelessness. Finding one's gift will allow the spirit the freedom to soar.

This is what life this life is. Find your gift and thus you find yourself. I happen to have a penchant for writing as well as an oratory skill when giving speeches. Doing your gift benefitting the world upon which we live on called earth. Reaching a heightened state of consciousness called flow.

For each of us are interrelated with every other life form. Combining our gifts can also produce the added benefit of a byproduct called synergy or the synergism of which the sum is greater than the parts. This experience is as rapture, which is beyond heavenly words to describe.

Only for one moment do we feel like we have experienced a little slice of heaven on earth. It is confounding as it is in effect beyond description. Too many times we may ignore the inner universe, searching for peace, as well happiness when these lay within us.

If one are miserable inside, then all the money, & riches, all the members of the opposite sex (or whichever sex one is attracted to, fame, material possessions, food, and travel will not soothe the soul, most certainly not for long. It is a search for inner peace that is a mantra of an INF/ENF. This inner universe is so crucial.

This is why one needs to develop self-esteem and a healthy self-concept to truly know and acknowledge the beauty of the world. For an ISP/ESP, it may be different. This is why for greatest harmony to occur; both inner and outer realities need be balanced. Listen to this inner voice. I call it the universal consciousness.

It is there. It can help one perceive and pursue activity where one can enter into a state of "Flow." This is to discover one's inner gift. What one was made to do and to become? A person is not in a state of flow; one may resort to "distractions" & "Illusions" to fill a black hole in the human spirit!

These people do these things, in an out of balance passion Sex, food, drugs, alcohol, a work addict, an approval addict, a love addict, shopping, video games, & anything out of balance! These people would do these activities constantly in order to feel good, for the moment, and get through life. It brings no true lasting satisfaction!

Generally there is no learning or growth in these activities. We as a human species seem to have a built in mechanism to "actualize “our self. That is to be the best that we can be at whatever our "gift" is, or special talent. The trick is to find that "hidden seed", that special uniqueness about our self.

The next hurdle is get past lesser distractions that can impede our growth. These distractions are anything in life that occupies a lot of our time but is not an activity where one achieves "a state of FLOW". A state of flow is felt as "timelessness", and is a bit of "heaven" on earth.New things scare people.

This is why the young are more revolutionary. They see things don’t work and think they have all the plans to change things for the better, even resorting to violence. After all they can feel invulnerable, strong, and virtually impervious.

Plus they happen not being enmeshed by illusionary qualities as wealth, a house, multiple possessions, a spouse and family, responsibilities as bills, so forth.
As a person grows stronger one finds oneself chained by invisible chains like the materialism in the world.

They then also become the guarding force in their stone castles protecting the very things that possess them. Change is always difficult because we are comfortable doing things a certain way. We can resist change even if it is good for us in the long run.

Romana wrote, "...is this to be done? How do we know that our image of our self is accurate and not illusory, or biased by pride, guilt or wishful thinking?"

This is an excellent question. We can never truly know Romana. One of the things I like about you is that we both seem to want to better ourselves, & know truth. It is a never ending journey. It seems we are born blind. Then we seek to establish an identity. Part of growth is if in fact not to tear that ego apart, at least be open to change. Be open-minded.

It is not always easy. We are creatures of habit. If we learned distortions as a child they are hard to eradicate. Part of my growth is cognitive awareness of negative emotions. I suppose to get more specific in line with your question; I look at non-triggerable person. If I see a person talk or write with negative language and labels I know that (1) person is triggered (almost possessed) by emotion & (2) that negative emotion contains distortions of thought.

There are elements of truth in a person who is triggered but they are camouflaged with lies, self lies, rationalizations and denial. This to me is the truest element of finding one's being. Always use love and reason even when you are not met with these qualities. If triggered, (1) take full responsibility for your illogical thoughts & speech and try not to (2) not to act "under the influence" of irrationality, which is almost being under the influence of a drug.

So to be able & look into the mirror of truth and have a true reflection one must contain the element of not being triggered. As long as we have this element of being triggered by negative emotion, we will always have an element of untruth. All we can do is the best we can.Added to chaos is can we trust our own thoughts.

Many things we have learned are wrong and it takes a lifetime to disentangle oneself from these lies, distortions even of stereotypes and prejudices and misconceptions we have picked up over a life times. Our core beliefs are myths that we believe in, artificially prescribed norms of expected behavior. Will the sky fall down if we don't do what we are culturally expected to do? No.” LightSun

 

[violet_crown]

[MENTION=7680]lightsun[/MENTION], what is the deal with the letters in your thread titles?

 

[highlander]

I like it! A little wordy but very good.

 

[Coriolis]

Why bother trying to attain happiness? Seems if we try instead to develop our abilities, to contribute to the world around us, and to help others as we go along, happiness will take care of itself.

 

[onemoretime]

There is nothing to achieve

 

[Tiltyred]

Attain happiness = avoid unhappiness

Amazing how well this works.

 

[fripping]

[MENTION=7680]lightsun[/MENTION], what is the deal with the letters in your thread titles?

don't you know what H stands for? it should read like this: "Heroin: How To attain Happiness"

 

[LightSun]

Hello; Wind-up Rex i do possess ADD: so it's somewhat of my personal organization.

 

[LightSun]

Coriolis wrote," Why bother trying to attain happiness? Seems if we try instead to develop our abilities, to contribute to the world around us, and to help others as we go along, happiness will take care of itself."

"It is agreed.
I say it goes hand in hand of all I've (1) said in regards Flow. This is to find a gift uniquely yours and act. (2) Coriolis if it became happenstance-then why don't the populace indeed fpllow down unto a road called actualizing and fullfillment with your gift? This also does address Tiltyred, "Attain happiness = avoid unhappiness."

(3) In part illusionaty qualities in our world. (4) Part of my theory is to awaken." LightSun

 

[LightSun]

I like it! A little wordy but very good.

Thank you highlander from my inner self plus heart (INFP-rremember).

 

[Coriolis]

Coriolis wrote," Why bother trying to attain happiness? Seems if we try instead to develop our abilities, to contribute to the world around us, and to help others as we go along, happiness will take care of itself."

Coriolis if it became happenstance-then why don't the populace indeed fpllow down unto a road called actualizing and fullfillment with your gift?

Because developing their abilities takes work and sustained effort. Contributing to the world around them takes commitment and follow-through. And helping others requires thinking of someone beyond themselves. (Of course, if they would at least think of themselves constructively, this would already be an improvement.)

Many people seem to prefer instant gratification, minimizing effort, and momentary good feelings.

 

[Santosha]

Why bother trying to attain happiness? Seems if we try instead to develop our abilities, to contribute to the world around us, and to help others as we go along, happiness will take care of itself.

How so? Also, (I've been wanting to ask an INTJ this for a while).. why the emphasis on contributing to the world? Wouldn't happiness be easier to find through acceptance of what exists? Or maybe I'm thinking contentment is more sustainable....

 

[Coriolis]

How else would one try to attain happiness? By just sitting there and wishing oneself happy? That seems about as effective as wishing oneself physically fit, or smart, or capable. One becomes these things by taking action to bring them about. The connection is less direct for happiness, but it seems related to fulfillment and self-expression, which require one actually do something.

To me, acceptance is not much better than stagnation, at least if one is accepting something that is negative or problematic. Acceptance means one has given up on trying to improve it. You might argue that some things cannot be improved. I would counter that more things can be improved more significantly than most people credit; they just aren't willing to put out the effort to do so. Acceptance is often preached by those who benefit from an undesirable status quo. I for one am never happy to accept something that can and should be improved. In fact, it is often in correcting such situations that I feel most fulfilled and by extension most happy.

This gets close to your question about contribution. The textbook answer, at least for INTJs, would be to look how our functions work. Ni shows us how much better things could be; Te shows us how to get there; and Fi perhaps gives us motivation to do something about it. Using our ideas to influence the world around us is a significant part of our identity.

More broadly, though, each of us has skills, talents, abilities, passions. What should we do about that? Leave them undeveloped, and just scrape through life doing the bare minimum? Develop them, and keep them to ourselves? Better, but still limited. Yes, we can paint a thousand paintings and hide them in the attic, to be discovered only after our death. We are likely to gain more, though, by sharing some of them with others, which is their gain as well. In this sense, developing one's creativity and expressing or exercising it beyond the sphere of the self is one's contribution.

 

[LightSun]

Hello Wind Up Rex it's an old format of mine. It did help with organizing. In the future I'll edit this.

 

[five sounds]

Happiness is found by giving yourself to the Creator's purpose for you. Nothing else is satisfying.

 

[Lark]

Bertand Russell wrote a book called The Conquest of Happiness, its probably the better book on the topic out of all the many, many books I've read, I also tend to disregard a lot of the more recent happiness science musing and stuff.

 

[Typh0n]

I think what leads to happiness is different for everyone.

 

[Cellmold]

If happiness was an attainment there would be a method.

 

[Mole]

Attain happiness = avoid unhappiness

Amazing how well this works.

It is amazing how well it works. Perhaps it is because we are attuned to respond to unhappiness, so it is easier to see than happiness. So in a way unhappiness is a pointer to happiness, and all we have to do is follow the pointer to where it is pointing.

 

[Wunjo]

I am taking happiness as a process of equilibrium here, because from my point of view, there can be no permanent happiness for everything must and is going to be balanced with its counter-opposite. I think that, you can only achieve equilibrium in your life by taking direct responsibility for your actions, life and psychological well-being. I can not say this is an easy path to choose, but eventually, it leads to maturity, growth and a personal sense of balance.