How do we know if we are happy? And if we aren't, how can we know what's required in order to be so?

Answer 1

You know you are happy when the feeling brings a smile onto your face.

You aren't required to be always happy. You are allowed to be sad. If there is "happy" there is "sad," neither of the two will exist without the other. You cannot be happy forever and you cannot be sad forever. Mind you, just dont dwell on the sadness.. don't feed it! Being sad is like being in a sink hole.. I say, climb up and get out. How? Do happy things, think happy thoughts, and surround yourself with happy people. That ought to do it, I think? :-)

Answer 2

I think if you have to ask this question then you have probably never been happy. Happiness is a feeling of elation at something which happens to you, not necccesarily big things. Someone could say something to you which is totally out of character and which you find really touching, Someone could give you a small present because they were on a day out spotted something, thought of you and bought it for you so the feeling you get when they give it to you makes you happy. Then there are the major events in our lives birth and marriage, to hold your child for the first time is unbelievable, but even knowing you are pregnant in the first place can bring happiness. I truly hope you have expereinced some of these things or will in the future.

It is all about living each day to the full and being glad for everything even the small things in life.

Answer 3

I have been going nuts trying to answer that myself. Even as a child blowing into my birthday cake, I wished for good health and happiness. I know when I'm happy but then soon after it's removed by the fact I was sadly mistaken. But there are moments of happiness I get to keep. These are usually moments alone. Like feeding animals in my back yard or watching the rain, or the sun come up or go down. sitting by the water lookin at baby ducks or swans. You get the idea right?

Answer 4

I personally find the pursuit of happiness to be an exercise in futility. Happiness tends to be based on things that happen to us or is circumstantial and not always within our control. For example someone you adore may reject you causing heartbreak. Or conversely that person may return your feelings causing elation, which we would term as happiness. One may receive recognition and an increase in pay in the work place causing you to feel happy only for those feelings to wear away into the same old grind. I, rather, advocate choosing contentment in ones person and circumstance and letting emotion flow over you as tides come and go. However, be wise enough to know when circumstances within your control require change and have the fortitude to take action. This all requires a certain amount of discipline to put into practice and is not always easy.

Answer 5

'Happy' varies. It isn't a constant state. It also isn't one state, but several, and at varying times. It is related to places, people and things, connected with them, sometimes dependent on them, but impossible without one, other or all of them.
It's easier to think why someone is unhappy. Childhood trauma, some accident or other, some chemical imbalance. Some kind of wound. You can speak of an 'unhappy' person - constant, unvarying - like that, in the way you can't really about happiness, when you think about it.
Maybe being happy has a wound also - something given by accident or design by people, or places or things - and we can often carry that wound around with us - being happy - until, unfortunately, it heals.
What is required for happiness can only be judged by circumstance in relation to people, places and things - sorry to be a bore. There isn't a pill - like 'honesty', or 'integrity' or 'being yourself', as those things can be dreadfully painful and distressing to oneself.
I like the idea of being wounded by happiness and keeping the wound open for as long as possible.
I don't think many would share that view, though.

Answer 6

The first part of the question I find easy to answer. For when we are happy things around us look full of meanings, bright and beautiful, they talk to us: the crystal clear sunshine, the heavenly soft clouds, the gentle intoxicating breeze, the vast blue skies arching above all around endlessly, trees, the healthy and cheerful children their voices and shrills, people all around going about their daily business in the middle of all this our own being, how could we have stayed unhappy, we wonder. When everything around us looks and feels beautiful, we know that we are happy. We transmit happiness when we are happy, which then can be seen and felt by people around us who would tell us in their various ways. But to be genuinely happy is to be right as well, to feel right at the heart, to feel, think and believe that this moment will never pass, and even if does, it does not matter anymore, the memories will last forever; happiness is a state of mind that when it is on there is life everywhere.

In order to be happy one needs to stick to life. One needs to be life through all situations, through think and thin. And when we keep our heart a company in the moments of grief and sorrow, our heart would remember us in the moments of its joy and delight. If we are honest to life, and adhere to its courses, as if we are seeking its friendship, then life rewards us with happiness when the moment comes. But if we tend to be always on the look out for rich picking from the gardens of life, if we are always bent upon seeking comfort and inducing gratification, if we do not take pains to cultivate and look after the garden, then our moment of occasional happiness are often short lived, they are often marred by our apprehensions, thoughts of mistrust and worries; we never believe that we could be happy at the first place, and when we do that as being human beings we cannot avoid being at times, we try to convince ourselves that we really do not deserve it, or that it is just an opportunity lets make the best of it as all this would be gone in the next moment.

We also feel happiness when we overcome pain and sorrow through our courage and fortitude, but impurities in the mind often spoil the fruits of our hard labour. We need to learn to stay pure and elevated both in our thoughts and in our deeds in the moments of suffering and hardship, when we fight alongside patience and hope, only then our efforts bear fruit. As there is nothing more tragic in the world then getting out of one trouble and falling into another perpetually.

Answer 7

Happiness can only come from within. If you sit around waiting for someone else to make you happy, you will be waiting a very long time. Happiness can be equaled to peace and self-fulfillment. If you are doing those things with your life which fulfill you and bring joy to those around you, then you are truly happy.

Answer 8

Only YOU will know if YOU are happy. Different people have different expectation level of 'happiness'. Some are happy with what they have, while others are just not satisfied enough. If you are 'not happy', what is it that you are not happy with? Seek the answers to this question, and take on yourself to fulfill them. Only YOU yourself can build YOUR own happiness.

Answer 9

I think that happy is a state of mind weather you wake up in morning felling happy or sad,begin your day in a fashion that best suites what you want to feel for that day,

Answer 10

Nothing is actually required to feel happy, other than the true desire to feel happy.