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What Makes You Happy?

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Bi-Polar Bear
 
  1  
Reply Mon 17 Apr, 2006 11:10 am
wake up next to water, get stoned, ride my bike, go to the gym, sex with squinney, good meal, more smoke, out on the boat, drift off to sleep holding squinney.

I don't require much. I'm a simple bear.
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nimh
 
  1  
Reply Mon 17 Apr, 2006 02:26 pm
Sounds like a great bear-life <nods>. Yeah, thatd do it for me too!

Hey Reyn, happy birthday! Congrats for making it this far and there'll be many good things still to come!
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urs53
 
  1  
Reply Mon 17 Apr, 2006 02:32 pm
Re: What Makes You Happy?
Eva wrote:

Urs and sakhi -- Great outlooks! What things have you found to do that bring you joy, urs? And how do you manage not to have to explain it to others?


Things that bring me joy are being by myself, rollerblading all alone, tai chi, reading crime novels with lots of blood, meeting the girls for a cup of coffee after work, not worrying about what others think... Not explaining turned out to be a lot easier than I thought. I just smile nicely and say "Well, you know I am different" ;-)
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shewolfnm
 
  1  
Reply Mon 17 Apr, 2006 02:38 pm
Re: What Makes You Happy?
Eva wrote:


Shewolf -- It's a good thing to have dreams and goals. I love yours. You spent a long time thinking about what you wrote, didn't you. But what I want to know is not so much what your dreams for the future are, but what things you have done and are doing that bring you joy. From your posts, it's obvious that spending time with Jillian does it for you on many levels. What other things besides reading make you happy?


things that I am doing that make me happy-
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/2004AustinBabies/ ( jillians play group, I started my self)

Gardening. Growing things from seed.
I love that feeling of accomplishment when I start to get little buds in my dirt.
Potting those seedlings , is another thing that I can just get lost in.

But,even above spending time with jillian, or having my hands in dirt, I love to walk through creeks, small patches of forrest, or some other supposedly un touched piece of land.

I love to walk in a small stream barefoot and pick through the rocks, plants and debris that is on the bottom of the stream.

I love to walk in the forrest looking at plants, trees, even bird poop, to see what I can learn. I love to try to piece nature together.
Example- bird poop. I love to see what is in it. Is it the seeds from those pretty yellow flowers over there? Or this big oak tree I am standing under? Is it from that huge bird behind me, or some small barn finch I have yet to see?

Fallen trees. What is living in them? Are there any ivys growing on them yet? What about underneath? Snakes? Spiders?



I love to get lost in that train of thought while outside, above most other activities combined.
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Reyn
 
  1  
Reply Mon 17 Apr, 2006 02:45 pm
nimh wrote:
Hey Reyn, happy birthday! Congrats for making it this far and there'll be many good things still to come!

Thanks, nimh, I sure hope so. After all, there's got to be more to life than working for 31-odd years - giving the best years to an employer. :wink:
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sozobe
 
  1  
Reply Mon 17 Apr, 2006 04:03 pm
(Of course, after I write all of that, had a meltdowny afternoon -- sozlet tends to have a delayed reaction to having a ton of attention + activity. Plus Easter candy probably didn't help.)

I remember reading something lately that having goals is itself a way to achieve happiness. As in, not just meeting the goals; in fact, while that obviously creates happiness, it tends to be fleeting, depending on what goal has been met. But the process itself, the attempts to meet the goal, makes people happy. This fits in with the "flow" theory of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi that I have always liked.
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Eva
 
  1  
Reply Mon 17 Apr, 2006 04:34 pm
No, no, no, Soz! This is my thread, and I will not have you derailing it with this talk of goal-setting!

Go to your room! Go directly to your room! No stopping by the dryer to fold clothes or picking up along the way, either. You hear me?!

I wanna walk in the woods with Shewolf. I've never found it half as entertaining as she makes it sound. (I'll bring the OFF.)

Then maybe I'll try tai chi with Urs. I can do that with a bad back, can't I? I used to love yoga, but I can't do it anymore. Old people can do tai chi, though. Right? So it should be gentle enough.

Can't relate to Bear's list, except for waking up next to water (tough in Oklahoma) and having a good meal. Hmm. That's making me hungry. Must be time for chocolate.
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sozobe
 
  1  
Reply Mon 17 Apr, 2006 05:01 pm
Laughing

Butbutbut...

in her first post, Eva wrote:
The point of her life, now, is to spend her time doing things that make her happy.


In other words, that's her goal, innit? ;-)

Really, the goal thing doesn't have to be practical, at all... it can be, "my goal is to walk in the woods like Shewolf does, and then try tai chi with Urs, and then..."

But there seems to be something about the process -- this thread, even! -- of planning to attain some goal, no matter what it may be, that is itself happiness-generating.
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ehBeth
 
  1  
Reply Mon 17 Apr, 2006 05:04 pm
I've always like piff's perennial resolution "have more picnics".

I took that on last year, and the results really were fabulous.

More picnics for this year!


<friends, family, dogs, good food, the outdoors, it's all just splendid>
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Eva
 
  1  
Reply Mon 17 Apr, 2006 05:11 pm
You're hopeless, Soz.

(Sigh.)

Here's a test. Just for tonight...don't plan dinner. Don't even think about it until someone gets hungry. Then go to the refrigerator and pull out whatever is easiest to fix. Preferably something you can eat cold, or at the most, microwave. Make no attempt to "balance" the meal or choose "healthy" foods. The aim here is to consume something...anything...as quickly as possible. Then pull out some board games and spend your usual kitchen time playing. I dare you.

Betcha can't do it.
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ehBeth
 
  1  
Reply Mon 17 Apr, 2006 05:16 pm
oops

here's what piff actually said

Piffka wrote:
My resolution is the same as it's been for a while, "have more fun." This year, I'm expanding that to "and throw more parties." SeattleFriend has suggested that I include picnics in there, too, which I think is a great idea.

I expect I'll do pretty well.




<why was the picnic part the only part of it I remembered?>
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sozobe
 
  1  
Reply Mon 17 Apr, 2006 05:16 pm
That's my everyday life! Laughing

My basic take:

Totally agreed about goals in terms of work, deadlines, stress, yucko.

Just noting that some kind of goals (including-- or especially! -- silly ones) can offer something, too. I read that somewhere recently (can look it up), nodded, and then thought of it when I was reading this.
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flushd
 
  1  
Reply Mon 17 Apr, 2006 05:38 pm
Happy Birthday Reyn!!

I'm happy being left alone. My time, my decisions.

I'm having a loose time schedule. I like that if I don't want to go to work two days down the road, I don't. I can go to the beach with a friend, or go to the country, or just sit home if I feel like it. I can take up hobbies and have the time to practise them. I'm very happy creating things; especially when there is little to work with.

Simple things give me the most pleasure. I never have been a goal-orientated person. I plan on spending this summer basking in the sun, living at a cabin I've chosen, swimming, hiking, exploring, having friends over when they can to eat laugh and chill.

I get a lot of joy in learning; especially new things that involve getting all dirty. Laughing Now I'm thinking: I have a list of 'to dos'. If I live to 120 I won't get to do em all!

Also, basic sanity. Knowing that if I get run over tomorrow; it ain't no big deal. The ones I love are gonna die, it's all passing....so why bother tripping out. I plan on continuing to put time into that sanity: time looking at the sky and reflecting, time in the tub and being massaged Very Happy This sense of something 'bigger' is new to me and makes me happier than I have ever been.

I would like to build a legacy. That is something missing in my life. Something to leave behind (besides love and all that)
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nimh
 
  1  
Reply Mon 17 Apr, 2006 05:49 pm
Eva wrote:
No, no, no, Soz! This is my thread, and I will not have you derailing it with this talk of goal-setting!

But but but ... if there's been anyone here phrasing the question in goal-oriented ways its you!

Eva wrote:
If you could spend your time doing just those things that make you happy, what would you do? And...are you making plans to do those things?

Eva wrote:
Shewolf -- It's a good thing to have dreams and goals. I love yours. [..] But what I want to know is not so much what your dreams for the future are, but what things you have done and are doing that bring you joy.

(emphasis added)
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dlowan
 
  1  
Reply Mon 17 Apr, 2006 06:08 pm
I can see what makes Nimh happy!
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nimh
 
  1  
Reply Mon 17 Apr, 2006 06:13 pm
Uhmm... from over there? Shocked

<folds hands over himself>

..

Oh, you mean being anal. Yeah, there's that. No, that doesnt make me very happy..
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sozobe
 
  1  
Reply Mon 17 Apr, 2006 06:15 pm
(Sortof related to Jes' "Pope!" question, that reminds me of how a former bf and I picked up "happy" from a Seinfeld episode to indicate um er "is that a banana in your pocket or are you happy to see me?" happiness...)

(I responded to nimh before but then realized I misread, sorry.)

Right, nimh. By the way, my main point there is, hey, responding to this thread and making plans to do things that make you happy can itself make you happy! (Picnics! I concur.)

Nice post, flushd.
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dlowan
 
  1  
Reply Mon 17 Apr, 2006 06:23 pm
nimh wrote:
Uhmm... from over there? Shocked

<folds hands over himself>

..

Oh, you mean being anal. Yeah, there's that. No, that doesnt make me very happy..


Well, I wasn't really gonna describe it as anal...more as beaglish and indefatigable.

You get no pleasure from your tireless pursuit of a point?

I find that unexpected...but perhaps you experience it as more a compulsion than a joy...ie you experience tension if you DON'T do it?


But I am prolly out of line here.
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nimh
 
  1  
Reply Mon 17 Apr, 2006 07:03 pm
dlowan wrote:
Well, I wasn't really gonna describe it as anal...more as beaglish and indefatigable.

You get no pleasure from your tireless pursuit of a point?

No.

dlowan wrote:
I find that unexpected...but perhaps you experience it as more a compulsion than a joy...ie you experience tension if you DON'T do it?

No, actually I experience tension if I DO do it ... yet, I can not help it.

(Well, actually I can - I've been training, believe it or not, in shrugging past stuff. I'm mostly keeping out of contentious political threads, for example, and I've started just leaving threads and not coming back, or coming back only later, if a potential to-and-fro emerges).

So yes, definitely more of a compulsion, no joy at all, in fact ... unless I end up digging up some bunch of actually interesting new facts and tie it together in something that ends up independently interesting, then I get some (momentary) satisfaction out of it - but thats definitely an against-the-odds kinda thing.

dlowan wrote:
But I am prolly out of line here.

Well, its OT (so apologies to the other posters), but I dont mind - it sure is something that bothers me about myself. (One more thing that...)
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Eva
 
  1  
Reply Mon 17 Apr, 2006 07:10 pm
I don't think so, Deb. I think a lot of us feel compelled to do things. I freely admit being that way at times.

I understand what nimh and soz are saying, but there is a difference in my mind between making plans to enjoy myself and making goals to accomplish something "important" or "necessary."

Up 'til now in my life, it has been very important to me to have accomplishments. Career...check. Good marriage...check. Motherhood...check. Home ownership...check. Community involvement...check. Charitable work...check. The list goes on and on. Okay, so I've done that. So what's next? Do I just keep on trying to accomplish things, hoping to find meaning or joy along the way? Where does it end? When have I accomplished enough? And what do I do then?

Maybe these are questions that don't really resonate for younger adults. It wouldn't have seemed very important to me in my 30s. But in talking to others in their 50s and 60s, I'm finding many of us are now thinking along these lines.
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