Do you feel happy? Honestly? If so, what percentage of the time do you feel ‘happy’ compared to flat/mleh (measured arbitrarily of course)? And what makes you happy? What’s the secret formula (is it a secret?)… just wondering like…

Yup I feel happy, happy most of the time, occasionally get the old blip when work is rubbish or something like that. I’m generally happy 80-90% of the time. What’s the secret, exercise and quality time with friends and family, oh and holidays!

Different for everyone I think. All fairly relative as well.

Presently sat outside the pub with a cold pint and the papers, having ridden thirty miles. My beloved has got the tea on for when I get back.happy? You bet your ass! It’s not complicated 🙂

It’s a warm gun.

Happiness is all in the mind, I dunno if that makes it real or not, but I like it.

Happiness is all in the mind

It literally is, isn’t it? What brain chemical is it again? 😕

yeah, mostly.
sometimes i feel a bit rubbish due to having no job at the moment, but i’ve got sufficient money to last the rest of the year, a decent place to live, lots of free time to ride my bikes/do other fun stuff, i eat well, i have a lovely girlfriend who’s pretty much perfect for me, i’m in reasonably good health these days and i’m lucky to have some very good mates all over the world.
i know my life could be a lot worse. it used to be a lot worse. and for all this, i am thankful and happy.

GlitterGary – Member
It’s a warm gun.

POSTED 7 MINUTES

wasn’t it a young gun for you gary

Happiness is probably an illusion if you have to tell everyone how happy you are.

Stupidly happy if I’m honest. Placement is good, I like the place, and they seem to like me, got a place to live with a housemate who’s a good friend, and a partner I’m desperately in luv with. downs? she’s in Oxford most of the time which is a strain sometimes, but it’s worth it when she’s home at weekends. We eat well, running going well, warm.

Happy.

I’m happy. I don’t have much to moan about, I have a lovely wife, a house and all the stuff I want really. And I don’t need an important or high stress job to pay for it

But sometimes, just sometimes, I find an “inner peace” a sort of intense happiness or contentment that washes over me and lifts me onto an altogether different level. Like I’ve found the heaven I’ve been looking for. That sounds like hippy BS, I know, but it’s true.
I can’t really predict it, but I know when I’ll get the feeling, and a tiny bit of it keeps me going for months.
It’s odd things that give it to me: A view of English summer countryside from the top of a hill, a cool beer in a dusty Italian piazza, odd stuff like that, nothing big or posh or impressive…..

🙂

It’s a cliché, and one I never understood and even openly scorned, but I believe it helps to have ‘found oneself’.

Maybe some people were never lost in the first place, and therefore had nothing to find, but I really did ‘find myself’ last year after my longest and most serious bouts of depression, and having been diagnosed as Bipolar (what a relief that was…finally an explanation for my ‘shortcomings’) and getting the medication and therapy that went with it. I’m a content person now, which I think is probably the happiness you allude to.

happiness is a cigar called hamlet

2 beautiful healthy kids, a lovely wife and house we call our home. Thats all i need!!

serotonin + dopamine innit

i’m happiest when my mobile has no signal and i’m surrounded by friends with smiles on their faces, nieces using me as a climbing frame… that kinda thing.

Happiness is a skill that needs keeping an eye on. For me its; keep it simple, do things for others, love your wife and kids, ride your bike, dont read newspapers too much, dont buy too much crap, sleep well, eat well and dont live in a city.

If I’m not happy, I’m probably at work
or drunk

Of course it isn’t real – you are a brain in a vat.

Nope. Not at all happy 90% of the time because the world is run by maggots and they are infesting my life. 👿

I’m quite interested (and surprised) in the responses I see here. I always assumed men in general, were usually fairly unhappy creatures.

Are you actually happy or just briefly less pissed off than usual? I’ve never been anything other than the latter. Some things in my life have made me ‘happy’ for small periods of time but it’s not a happiness plateau, just a little peak in an otherwise miserable and fairly pointless existence.

Come on, it’s like that for everyone isn’t it?

Pretty happy most of the time, occasional blips as you’d expect when life kicks you in the balls, but I just go ride my bike to clear my head

My happy-o-meter is rapidly rising (oo-er) as I’ve just met someone rather special, she doesn’t ride bikes off road (does own a commuting bike) but that might be a good thing as I can still get my own time doing my own thing

I’m generally happy. I had a rough time over the last 18 months or so (both parents dying) and would often break down into tears over trivia. However, I reckon life in general is pretty good.

I also think most unhappiness stems from envy.

Generally unhappy I’d say.

Plenty to be happy about: young daughter loving wife, decent income, house etc.
Life isn’t bad and these things do give me moments of joy, particularly my wife and daughter, who give me a reason to live.

But generally I go through life at Happiness Level: Mleh.

Ultimately it’s all pointless innit and most dreams will be left unfulfilled.

This has always summed it up nicely for me:

The sun is the same
In a relative way
But you’re older

Shorter of breath
And one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter
Never seem to find the time

Plans that either come to naught
Or half a page of scribbled lines

Hanging on in quiet desperation
Is the English way

The time is gone
The song is over
Thought I’d something more to say

Edit: bear in mind I’m drunk. I may retract this melancholy in the cheery bright of the fair morning sun.

I’ve thought it best described as contentment with ups (happiness) and downs.

I’ve not been that happy for some time, but have just resigned, that should help a fair bit.

I’m with Samuri on this subject.But I am a glass half empty miserable mal-content…….it’s what makes me happy.

I have definitely got happier as I have got older – my early twenties were a bitter misery fest, but now, on the whole, I’d say I am pretty happy. I think maybe because I am accepting of the fact that life can be really terrible, people can be horrid, but I know I can deal with it and on the whole, most people are kind hearted folks who like to help each other out. And no matter how terrible things get, little things like a cuppa in the morning, or a beautiful sky, or that smell of autumn, or a secret bit of singletrack will always be there to focus your thoughts for a short time.

Or maybe I just started riding bikes 😉

I also think most unhappiness stems from envy.

I agree Druid – that and not feeling in control of your own life.

Get those two things sorted and then it’s just a case of chin-up against the bad stuff that happens and seeing every obstacle as a challenge.

When i look back at my happiest periods, I didn’t realise i was that happy at the time. This Is something I’m learning to change.

considering myself and ratswithwings had planned a day’s riding in the Peak today, when i opened the curtains an hour ago to a clear blue sky and absolutely no wind at all i was engulfed with happiness…

Happiness..

Erm, well.. I’m an optimist right, so happiness comes naturally. I’m pretty sure this thing called happiness is only brief in anyone’s world. It comes, it goes. There however must be a level of contentment, despite the circumstances you may live in at any one time, there must be a base level of contentment. Upon that then there are endorphin moments that induce a state of happiness, this sits on top of the feeling of contentment thereby raising enlightened awareness and feeling.
I therefore tend to feel happy at least 70% of the time, I doubt I’ve ever felt 100% happy which goes against the optimistic nature of Moi, but I’m of the opinion if you can hit somewhere around 70-80% happy, then my you are a very lucky person indeed.
I can’t subscribe to any one particular “thing” making you feel happy. I’ more inclined to see it as an uplift easing mood to a hightened state of awareness, therefore a good bike ride just adds to the contentedness of the soul, lifting it just enough to excite and bring in other elements of our world where upon you notice the “good” things that make you feel happy. Similarly or conversely bad things take you down a few notches too.

Happiness for me is when all the “noise” from life is filtered out and I’m just lost in the moment of what I’m doing. It doesn’t even matter what it is. It could be riding my bike, driving with the top down on the car on a sunny day, pottering in the garden, moshing with my kids to AC/DC, a snuggle with the missus…Even works makes me happy if I can put my blinkers on and concentrate on the task in hand.

What makes me unhappy it when there are too many things whizzing around my head all vying for attention. Oh, and a lack of fresh air makes me a right misery guts.
[EDIT – yes, I believe happiness is real]

Happiness for me is when all the “noise” from life is filtered out and I’m just lost in the moment of what I’m doing. It doesn’t even matter what it is. It could be riding my bike, driving with the top down on the car on a sunny day, pottering in the garden, moshing with my kids to AC/DC, a snuggle with the missus…Even works makes me happy if I can put my blinkers on and concentrate on the task in hand.

I don’t have kids or a convertible but I know exactly what you mean 😀

{EDIT: but those moments are fleeting so grab them while you can}

If I’m feeling unhappy I listen to Carly Simon…

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQZmCJUSC6g[/video]

Are Monks happy?
I’m now talking about those that take a vow of silence, nay celibacy, those that devote their lives to a faith, that choose to ignore the 21st century and live a subsistence existence?
Do they experience happiness in the same way we do?
If they choose the life they lead, which invariably they do, it’s often at a point in years later than teenagers, so at some point they have lived a life outside of their new chosen path. Thereby they choose to dismiss and ignore feelings of happiness from a vast array of outside sources and influences way beyond their control and choose to distance themselves from these more “westernised or easternised” ideas as a society we live in.
Once they adapt to their new found life, does their term or meaning of happiness change? Do they now become less influenced by others whereby they seek a form of acceptance and gather or garner feelings of new found happiness? Are their feelings of happiness similar to ours? Do they seek an acceptance from another to feel happy, or are they looking deeper within themselves as an acceptance of their own body and spirit? These are rhetorical questions, but with so much of our own “happiness” feelings being influenced by others in our lives, it’s a question I’ve often pondered on.

Catching myself feeling happy (for many the same reasons as above, especially “moshing with my kids to AC/DC”) makes me happy.

I hope you know that feeling when you just catch yourself with a big smile on your face.

Last happened to me on Sunday watching a ladies rowing race in the Teignmouth Estuary. We’d had a couple of wonderful days with the kids, the weather was kind and it was just a great scene in a lovely setting. Watching the competitors congratulate each other while their friend, family and complete strangers watched or play on the beach by the finishing line.

I was a monk for 4 years(our indian family tradition). Its very hard work mentally to start with. As a novice most of the time its graft(handy if you are randy) an idle mind is the devils workshop etc, but later as things settle the moments of true freedom are sublime. I got married but the basic values are applicable in family life.

I have definitely got happier as I have got older – my early twenties were a bitter misery fest, but now, on the whole, I’d say I am pretty happy. I think maybe because I am accepting of the fact that life can be really terrible, people can be horrid, but I know I can deal with it and on the whole, most people are kind hearted folks who like to help each other out. And no matter how terrible things get, little things like a cuppa in the morning, or a beautiful sky, or that smell of autumn, or a secret bit of singletrack will always be there to focus your thoughts for a short time.

This.