Is Happiness a mere state of mind? Can we remain totally unaffected by environment and other people around us?

Question

How can we be happy when a lot of people around us are so unhappy?

Answer 1

Absolutely,

It is a great question by the way.

We can live happily 24/7, it is the matter of our brains, all it takes is to stimulate it, hormones would do. There are people who are just used to be happy all the time, it's just a habit for some. Our feelings are a matter of chemicals, just like love, and happiness is one of them.

It is possible to have faith during hard times and it is possible to rejoice while a great suffering is taking place around, the proof of that is Auschwitz, if you have read "Night" by Elie Wiesel, there were people who retained faith and were happy even in the unbearable conditions.

Of course, we may not be happy while our survival is at stake, then happiness is one of those things that must be removed to ensure our survival.

Answer 2

Helen Keller:
Happiness cannot come from without. It must come from within. It is not what we see and touch or that which others do for us which makes us happy; it is that which we think and feel and do, first for the other fellow and then for ourselves.

Albert Schweitzer:
I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.

Henry David Thoreau:
That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest.

Mark Twain:
Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination.

Martha Washington:
The greatest part of our happiness depends on our dispositions, not our circumstances.

Peyton Conway March:
There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life -- happiness, freedom, and peace of mind -- are always attained by giving them to someone else.

Ramona L. Anderson:
People spend a lifetime searching for happiness; looking for peace. They chase idle dreams, addictions, religions, even other people, hoping to fill the emptiness that plagues them. The irony is the only place they ever needed to search was within.

Theodor Fontane:
Happiness, it seems to me, consists of two things: first, in being where you belong, and second -- and best -- in comfortably going through everyday life, that is, having had a good night's sleep and not being hurt by new shoes.

Thomas Jefferson:
The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.


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Answer 3

Yes, and no.

I think it's a little bit of both environment and state of mind. Everybody is affected differently by things in life though, so the only person I can truly speak for is myself.

Basically, I had a crappy life and was depressed, and now my life is still kinda crappy, but I'm happy. My environment changed, but so did my state of mind.

Happiness is a state of mind, but you need at least some small grain of positivity in your environment (or at least in your past) to be happy.

Nobody can be unaffected by environment.

Oh, and I don't mind being around negative people, I just hope to be a positive influence on them.

Answer 4

If you haven't already done so, read Viktor Frankl, the Austrian founder of logotherapy. As a Jew, he was sent to concentration camp and survived horrible conditions by applying his own early development of his concept and technique. His basis was that while you cannot always control the external circumstances that bear in on you, what you are in control of (your zone of freedom) is attitude, what happens in the gap between stimulus and response. Right after the war, he wrote his major work, first talking about his experiences, and then discussing the theoretical and practical implications in terms of his concept. This book, MAN'S SEARCH FOR MEANING, is very short, and is worth readin and re-reading. We are of course affected by ur environment and the other people around us, but how we are affected involves a state of mind and is an area where there are choices.

Answer 5

Unless you are an automaton and basically have no feelings you cannot help but be affected by the environment and the suffering of others. But either way, there is a "happiness gene" and if you don't have it there are medications that can help. Also, whenever a negative thought overwhelms you take action of some kind. Move. Produce. Create. Don't wallow. Alleviate the "problem" to the best of your ability.

Answer 6

Sure! We all (for better or worse) live our lives within our own mind. We choose whether to be affected by that which goes on around us. So achieving and maintaining happiness is largely a matter of mental discipline. In the Book of Mary, a Gnostic text, Jesus says to "Take the best part for yourself." This is excellent advice on how to integrate that which gives us happiness and exclude the rest.

Answer 7

i do no longer think of happiness is a decision. you may still delude himself into being "happy" besides the fact that that's not something better than self-imposed facade. i think of contentedness is a decision, one which is made while a guy or woman surrenders to the mushy, in line with possibility giving up a probably unobtainable hobby for a snug life. As an analogy, a "settled" marriage. the two human beings could be mushy, content fabric, yet in no way extremely happy. Happiness is somewhat no longer hassle-free to acquire, especially because of fact that's counteractive to the human innovations's each so often logical yet constantly detrimental/traumatic workings. i do no longer likely comprehend if that's what you're finding for, yet there ya flow.

Answer 8

We can be happy when the people around us are unhappy By remembering that they are the ones choosing to perceive the situation as something to be unhappy about. We do not need to enter into their negativity with them. We can simply be supportive and loving and realize that this is their lesson that the universe has provided for them to learn from.

love and blessings Don

Answer 9

Happiness is a concept. Given that all mankind works out of the same thought box, self realization regarding a dynamic condition called ' happiness ' is opinion at best. The good thing is, a mind has one opinion and is always correct for that self. Happiness has no singular, fixed, collection of do this, and don't do that's. Appreciation of self and total freedom to know that condition, is latent in all humans. Our permission given to self is all we need to know that condition called happiness..

Answer 10

Yes And Yes. Apathy can play a large part in being happy. If you dont care what is going on around you, you will probably be pretty happy. As for me, I used to be pretty un-happy and when I stopped caring about most things, I am much happier. I do try to concern myself with what is going on around the world, but for the most part, I generally dont get concerned.