h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Is it about knowing myself? Could it be that I am deluded from the satisfaction of pleasing others, subsequently pleasing myself and consequently feeling, 'happy'? Is happiness achieved by having the trappings, which mark out the successful individual? That is to say, without outlining the obvious list of say, car, house, surround sound goldfish bowl etc, oh and of course children, pets and no desire to do the lottery.

What does this happiness malarkey really feel like? Should I experience long bouts of unrestrained hysteria accompanied by a permanent Joker like grin? Should I hide any feelings of mirth beneath a bushel to avoid unnecessary embarrassment from those who might not be as ebullient as me?

The truth is that I don’t know if I am happy or not. I think the feeling, the sense or however it manifests, is rather like the Alps, in other words, peaks and valleys. A bit like love really. You would think that being in love (as Prince Charles famously said, ‘whatever that is’) would make you happy. It does, but it also inspires rejection, heat-break, jealously, adultery, murder…need I go on. So here is something that can provide happiness but will often end in tragedy and abject misery. Analogous perhaps with the gambler who is thousands of pounds ahead and for some fleeting moments is ‘happy’ only then to lose the lot on the next bet. Then in the way that the addict does ‘cold turkey’ is very unhappy until the next fix (of happiness).

Are we as a species now so corrupted that the basic concept of what happiness is and how to achieve it has been lost forever beneath the black cloud of adulthood. I observe that happiness is a natural bedfellow of innocence, the kind often associated with children and animals. Ignorance of the world at large and all the pitfalls and evil within it really is bliss and could be why Picasso was forever trying to rediscover ‘the child within’. It cannot be done, no one knows (although they try) how a child thinks and feels. That wonderful naivety is taken from us by life.

“I’m very happy to see you’, ‘I would be happy to help’, ‘happy new year’! ‘I’m happy if you’re happy’. We seem to be obsessed with happiness and yet not happy at all, not REALLY happy. I suspect that the Holy Grail was not Mary Magdalene after all (as Dan Brown would have it) but a somewhat more abstract commodity. In fact unattainable, intangible yet seductive enough for us all to search in vain for the rest of our lives.

Traveller in Time on his head
"I think you have found the right level.

By the time you are relaxed enough to wonder if you are happy I guess you are "

Hi, I've never replied to a posting before but your title of "How do I know when I'm happy" caught my eye! You'll have to excuse me if some of the spelling is a bit off, my key board is playing up at the mo!! It's quite old and some of the keys don't do what I want any more!!

I discovered how I know when I'm happy last Sunday, I found myself singing along with songs on the radio at the top of my voice, grinning like an idiot, knowing what I want to do now and being generally lovely to everyone, even if they cut me up in a supermarket queue, I wasn't bothered (much!), but I was still smiling at the end of it, something I haven't done in the last 18 months. I haven't been miserable exactly, don't get me wrong, but there was just something not quite right about how I was feeling, and last saturday an old friend of mine and I sat down with a bottle (or 2 or 3!) of red wine, had a really good chat, and a laugh, and he sort of gave me permission to do what I want with my life, to be who I am and just to allow myself to be happy! Not to be constrained by what other people think I should be, but what I want to be! I feel happier now than I have in a long time, and I think it just takes someone to give permission for you to be happy, that probably sounds really corny, but it's worked for me, I run my own business and I'm going to New Zealand for at least a month at the end of this year when I've saved up enough, all because someone wonderful told me that I could! (This sounds like a horoscope prediction, I'm SORRY!! !!) I don't have all the "trappings of a modern lifestyle", I don't have children (even though I'd love to have some one day) I don't have a boyfriend, and I don't fit the criteria of a modern up & coming "female executive", and I think that love is something that develops, not at first sight but after working out how the other person ticks (I sound so cynical for a 29 yr old!!), I don't think that life is just summat that happens to us, I believe that we can make life happen, at least to a certain extent, I certainly hope so anyway!! I hope you don't think I'm presumptuous, giving anyone else advice, I'm definitely not an agony aunt!! I just thought that I had to reply to you, as your posting clicked summat with me, please let me know how you get on,
Lonnwy x

P.s. I think I've managed to keep my keyboard under control for once! LOL

Oh,just one last thing before I finish my "bit/rant"..... I've never done the lottery in my life and don't see the point of it! xxxx

Every person will "feel" happy in their own way. Based on their child-hood, their environment, their experiences. For me? It's simple and indefineable. That light feeling that overtakes me when I know that someone I care about, or have helped in some way, are smiling or laughing.

I think it was Robert A Heinlein, in a sci-fi novel, that defined "love" as that condition in which the happiness of another is more important than your own. For me, simple contentment or happiness is pretty much like that. Happiness for me has never been about myself, but how I have perhaps affected the day and the life of another.

Dear Rev Nick, I think you have managed to sum up in a few short sentences what I was trying to say in my long winded way, thank you! I hope more people become happy by being who they really are and that they can make other people happy in the same way!! Also for anyone else, just be who you are, don't pretend to be someone that you are not, just be honest about what you think and feel, even if others don't always agree with you, be yourself and things will come right!! It might take a while (I'm sorry I'm being serious here!!) but it'll work out in the end!! After all as Ford Prefect says "C'mon, drink up, the world's about to end," .....if anyone believes that they're dafter than me!! xx

I think 'happy' as a concept/feel/emotion has been led astray somewhat, to the point that we're constantly told by adverts, and through peer pressure that we'll only be happy when... 'We've got a new car/clothes/latest PC game/games console' etc., etc., Or that we'll only be happy once we've got that 'ideal job', or promotion, or gone over wahtever level of pay... in reality I think most of us are happy most of the time... I'm just sitting here at the PC, having eaten dinner, I'm in a nice warm but not too warm house, I've money in my wallet, cigarettes in my pocket, theres nothing very urgent to do for the rest of the day... More like content perhaps, but maybe it is happy... Other times when we' maybe notice more* that we're 'happy', are in reality times of extreme jubilation or euphoria but I guess they're all forms of happyness too..