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Grapefruit
Freak in the forest
Registered: 05/09/08
Posts: 5,744
Last seen: 3 years, 3 months
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Is happiness really the most important goal in your life?
#9154860 - 10/29/08 03:59 PM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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For some they would like to be happy. For me i feel epicness/experience of life is more important. Where are the self help books on how to make your life more epic? Is it not more imporatant that you finish feeling that you have really experienced the richest experiences life has to offer you.
People say we will be reincarnated or that this life is not the final life, but they do not know. Is it not more important we die feeling that we have acheived, that we have adventured, that we have struggled and toiled and that we have experienced as much as possible, than that we die happy?
In my opinion this is what death anxiety is for, it is for spurring us into action in order to experience before it is too late.
-------------------- Little left in the way of energy; or the way of love, yet happy to entertain myself playing mental games with the rest of you freaks until the rivers run backwards. "Chat your fraff Chat your fraff Just chat your fraff Chat your fraff"
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mr_kite
The Watcher
Registered: 09/16/02
Posts: 2,577
Loc: shambhala
Last seen: 11 years, 8 months
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Re: Is happiness really the most important goal in your life? [Re: Grapefruit]
#9154912 - 10/29/08 04:10 PM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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"For me i feel epicness/experience of life is more important."
If you feel something is important, will doing it not make you happy? ie Happiness and values are very very closely linked.
-------------------- let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love
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Chronic7
Registered: 05/08/04
Posts: 13,679
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Re: Is happiness really the most important goal in your life? [Re: Grapefruit]
#9154921 - 10/29/08 04:13 PM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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For me the most incredible experience is bliss, happyness, love its natural to want it
I believe we are driven inescapabably to what makes us happy, every single being loves to be at peace & feel full of bliss, we all are driven by what we think we love
Even saying that you want to experience as much as possible, why?
To make you happy!
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Grapefruit
Freak in the forest
Registered: 05/09/08
Posts: 5,744
Last seen: 3 years, 3 months
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Re: Is happiness really the most important goal in your life? [Re: Chronic7]
#9155060 - 10/29/08 04:40 PM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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I have not always been happy in my experiences and i value my experiences with painful emotions just as much as the ones without, i don't regret a single bit of my life. I don't want it to go without hiccups and bumps. The challenges are what makes the experience. Without them i would feel bored. Infact i hope i never attain true happiness. So no my experience is not neccessarily what points me to happiness.
IMO life should be a rollercoaster. It is important to Construct this rollercoater to be as breathtaking and terrifying as possible.
-------------------- Little left in the way of energy; or the way of love, yet happy to entertain myself playing mental games with the rest of you freaks until the rivers run backwards. "Chat your fraff Chat your fraff Just chat your fraff Chat your fraff"
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aDoS
freedom lover
Registered: 06/18/05
Posts: 7,590
Loc: land of the free
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Re: Is happiness really the most important goal in your life? [Re: Grapefruit]
#9155101 - 10/29/08 04:48 PM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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Happiness and having having fun is my entire motivation for living. If I knew I was never going to be happy or have fun again I would probably shoot myself in the head.
pleasure is great
-------------------- "If we could sniff or swallow something that would, for five or six hours each day, abolish our solitude as individuals, atone us with our fellows in a glowing exaltation of affection and make life in all its aspects seem not only worth living, but divinely beautiful and significant, and if this heavenly, world-transfiguring drug were of such a kind that we could wake up next morning with a clear head and an undamaged constitution - then, it seems to me, all our problems (and not merely the one small problem of discovering a novel pleasure) would be wholly solved and earth would become paradise." - Aldous Huxley GIVE ME OPIATES OR GIVE ME DEATH
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Grapefruit
Freak in the forest
Registered: 05/09/08
Posts: 5,744
Last seen: 3 years, 3 months
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Re: Is happiness really the most important goal in your life? [Re: aDoS]
#9155114 - 10/29/08 04:51 PM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
aDoS said: If I knew I was never going to be happy or have fun again I would probably shoot myself in the head.
pleasure is great
But does this apply visa versa? It does for me.
-------------------- Little left in the way of energy; or the way of love, yet happy to entertain myself playing mental games with the rest of you freaks until the rivers run backwards. "Chat your fraff Chat your fraff Just chat your fraff Chat your fraff"
Edited by Grapefruit (10/29/08 04:52 PM)
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aDoS
freedom lover
Registered: 06/18/05
Posts: 7,590
Loc: land of the free
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Re: Is happiness really the most important goal in your life? [Re: Grapefruit]
#9155150 - 10/29/08 04:56 PM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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I am probably just dumb, but I don't know what you mean about vice versa. What would be the other side, not wanting to be happy in life? I just don't see how anyone would want that.
-------------------- "If we could sniff or swallow something that would, for five or six hours each day, abolish our solitude as individuals, atone us with our fellows in a glowing exaltation of affection and make life in all its aspects seem not only worth living, but divinely beautiful and significant, and if this heavenly, world-transfiguring drug were of such a kind that we could wake up next morning with a clear head and an undamaged constitution - then, it seems to me, all our problems (and not merely the one small problem of discovering a novel pleasure) would be wholly solved and earth would become paradise." - Aldous Huxley GIVE ME OPIATES OR GIVE ME DEATH
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Chronic7
Registered: 05/08/04
Posts: 13,679
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Re: Is happiness really the most important goal in your life? [Re: aDoS]
#9155181 - 10/29/08 05:01 PM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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Im all for embracing the pains aswell as the pleasures of life & not being addicted to & chasing pleasure, but i also believe we all seek unbroken happyness, its what keeps us going, othwerwise like aDoS said we'd all top ourselves
Suicide is because you see no possible way of ever being happy again, therfore happyness is what keeps us alive
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mr_kite
The Watcher
Registered: 09/16/02
Posts: 2,577
Loc: shambhala
Last seen: 11 years, 8 months
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Re: Is happiness really the most important goal in your life? [Re: Chronic7]
#9155205 - 10/29/08 05:05 PM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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Happiness is maybe the wrong word, But an appreciation of being alive is what I aim for. Which more often than not results in happiness.
-------------------- let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love
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deCypher
Registered: 02/10/08
Posts: 56,232
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Re: Is happiness really the most important goal in your life? [Re: Grapefruit]
#9155224 - 10/29/08 05:08 PM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
Grapefruit said: For some they would like to be happy. For me i feel epicness/experience of life is more important. Where are the self help books on how to make your life more epic? Is it not more imporatant that you finish feeling that you have really experienced the richest experiences life has to offer you.
People say we will be reincarnated or that this life is not the final life, but they do not know. Is it not more important we die feeling that we have acheived, that we have adventured, that we have struggled and toiled and that we have experienced as much as possible, than that we die happy?
In my opinion this is what death anxiety is for, it is for spurring us into action in order to experience before it is too late.
Achievement is overrated compared to hedonistic bliss. Wireheading for the win.
-------------------- We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
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demiu5
humans, lol
Registered: 08/18/05
Posts: 43,948
Loc: the popcorn stadium
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Re: Is happiness really the most important goal in your life? [Re: aDoS]
#9155368 - 10/29/08 05:33 PM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
aDoS said: Happiness and having having fun is my entire motivation for living. If I knew I was never going to be happy or have fun again I would probably shoot myself in the head.
pleasure is great
i'd rather live and die happy than miserable
-------------------- channel your inner Larry David
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Grapefruit
Freak in the forest
Registered: 05/09/08
Posts: 5,744
Last seen: 3 years, 3 months
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Re: Is happiness really the most important goal in your life? [Re: aDoS]
#9155885 - 10/29/08 07:16 PM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
aDoS said: I am probably just dumb, but I don't know what you mean about vice versa. What would be the other side, not wanting to be happy in life? I just don't see how anyone would want that.
All i mean here is that without the trial and tribulations life would be dull if i were born without problems, i feel it would be dull.
Happiness was probably the wrong word.
-------------------- Little left in the way of energy; or the way of love, yet happy to entertain myself playing mental games with the rest of you freaks until the rivers run backwards. "Chat your fraff Chat your fraff Just chat your fraff Chat your fraff"
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Nexion
Seeker
Registered: 10/07/08
Posts: 648
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Re: Is happiness really the most important goal in your life? [Re: Grapefruit]
#9155895 - 10/29/08 07:18 PM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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Self-help books =
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Re: Is happiness really the most important goal in your life? [Re: Chronic7]
#9158612 - 10/30/08 10:20 AM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
Chronic777 said:
I believe we are driven inescapabably to what makes us happy, every single being loves to be at peace & feel full of bliss, we all are driven by what we think we love
IMO you are absolutely right. The fact that many are not happy is because of the unskillful ways they try to become happy. Even a serial killer thinks what he/she is doing will bring happiness.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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OrgoneConclusion
Blue Fish Group
Registered: 04/01/07
Posts: 45,441
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Re: Is happiness really the most important goal in your life? [Re: Icelander]
#9158644 - 10/30/08 10:35 AM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
The fact that many are not happy is because of the unskillful ways they try to become happy. Even a serial killer thinks what he/she is doing will bring happiness.
You can't truly rule that method out until you try.
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myriadeyes
man with a movie camera
Registered: 10/13/08
Posts: 358
Last seen: 9 years, 11 months
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Re: Is happiness really the most important goal in your life? [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
#9158745 - 10/30/08 11:01 AM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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if hurting people doesn't bring you happiness, I think it's safe to deduce that becoming a mass murderer wouldn't either.
-------------------- If you spare a little of your imagination . . .
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Diaboleros
Devil's spawn
Registered: 07/20/08
Posts: 1,856
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Re: Is happiness really the most important goal in your life? [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
#9158843 - 10/30/08 11:20 AM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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I used to think for a very long time the purpose of my life was being as happy as possible.
But since I'm into meditation and lucid dreaming, and have seen that I can experience happiness and all my desires any time I want, it no longer has any importance to me at all. Sure I need happiness to energize myself, but it comes from inside, its always available, the thing that keeps me away from it is my ego, my rational mind that tells myself that I can't be happy because certain desires have not been fulfiled. The best example I can give to proof my point is a stamp collector experiencing ultimate bliss when he has the most rare stamp! Happiness is a product of the ego, of the rational mind. Stamps dont make you happy, your mind does.
Let's assume that happiness is indeed the goal of our lives. If someone would invent a pill that makes you superhappy 24/7 and more happy each second, would you stop doing anything at all and just sit on your ass all day long?!
At this moment, I'm convinced the purpose of (my) life is to learn and help to create and change this world. And to get married with the girl of my dreams and have kids ^_^
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Re: Is happiness really the most important goal in your life? [Re: Diaboleros]
#9158905 - 10/30/08 11:38 AM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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At this moment, I'm convinced the purpose of (my) life is to learn and help to create and change this world. And to get married with the girl of my dreams and have kids ^_^
Only because this makes you happy. If it caused you depression you would think twice.
The goal of life is to be happy no matter how you like to make that sound.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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WhiskeyClone
Not here
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Loc: Longitudinal Center of Canada ...
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Re: Is happiness really the most important goal in your life? [Re: Grapefruit]
#9159128 - 10/30/08 12:41 PM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
Grapefruit said: Is happiness really the most important goal in your life?
Yeah
-------------------- Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it. ~ R.W. Emerson, "Self-Reliance"
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Grapefruit
Freak in the forest
Registered: 05/09/08
Posts: 5,744
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Re: Is happiness really the most important goal in your life? [Re: Icelander]
#9163274 - 10/31/08 08:11 AM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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I would say being happy is a secondary goal to the quality of my life experience. I'd rather live an interesting life unhappy than live a dull life happy.
-------------------- Little left in the way of energy; or the way of love, yet happy to entertain myself playing mental games with the rest of you freaks until the rivers run backwards. "Chat your fraff Chat your fraff Just chat your fraff Chat your fraff"
Edited by Grapefruit (10/31/08 08:19 AM)
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Chronic7
Registered: 05/08/04
Posts: 13,679
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Re: Is happiness really the most important goal in your life? [Re: Grapefruit]
#9163370 - 10/31/08 08:47 AM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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Even when you say you'd rather have an interesting life unhappy then a dull one happy, is because that will ultimatley make you happy, you cant escape it!
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Re: Is happiness really the most important goal in your life? [Re: Grapefruit]
#9163488 - 10/31/08 09:24 AM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
Grapefruit said: I would say being happy is a secondary goal to the quality of my life experience. I'd rather live an interesting life unhappy than live a dull life happy.
Now how could your life both be dull and happy? This of course makes no sense. You must be equating happiness with something like security.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Diaboleros
Devil's spawn
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Re: Is happiness really the most important goal in your life? [Re: Icelander]
#9164706 - 10/31/08 01:59 PM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
Icelander said: At this moment, I'm convinced the purpose of (my) life is to learn and help to create and change this world. And to get married with the girl of my dreams and have kids ^_^
Only because this makes you happy. If it caused you depression you would think twice.
The goal of life is to be happy no matter how you like to make that sound.
I completely agree, but you can take your thinking one step further. What you say is the truth, but it is only half of the truth imo.
The goal of life is to be happy yes. But this goal is not the primary goal, this goal to be happy, is what a supporting goal for the primary goal(s). By achieving our main goals, we gain happiness. Its called the reward pathways in the brains if you want a scientific explanation. Happiness is not a goal, its a reward. And this reward is what drives us to achieve our goals.
Just like you get a reward for eating, eating makes people happy, but eating is not the goal of life! Dont live to eat, but eat to live..
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
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Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Re: Is happiness really the most important goal in your life? [Re: Diaboleros]
#9164819 - 10/31/08 02:28 PM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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Yeah, I agree.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Plasmid
Absent
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Re: Is happiness really the most important goal in your life? [Re: Icelander]
#9165698 - 10/31/08 06:23 PM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
Icelander said: IMO you are absolutely right. The fact that many are not happy is because of the unskillful ways they try to become happy.
I agree with what you'd quoted, that we are motivated to try to achieve happiness. However, I also believe that this necessitates keeping constant happiness just out of our reach. We can be happy, but not always. We are fine-tuned to always a little short of being happy. I don't think you could find anyone who is always happy.
I think that the best example of this self-calibration, which keeps happiness always just out of reach (that carrot dangling in front of us which we only can nibble at), is development of drug tolerance. I mean, opiates produce wonderful sensations. No wonder people try to seek out opiates, but why do we become tolerant to them? Because our emotions are tuned to prevent us from always being happy.
Seeking happiness is a strong motivation and we're evolved in a manner that prevents us from being happy all the time.
My primary goal is happiness. I just wish I were more selfish, but I guess being a bit conscientious and selfless keeps me a little happy too, or at least prevents me from being totally unhappy.
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