Are fulfilling lives filled with nothing but happiness?

Question

I always have a little tinge of sadness...of melancholy and seriousness in the mix....

sure I can let it all go and loose it if I want........but it seems to be a little grounding........

can you relate?

Answer 1

Contentment....You have to be aware thus the feelings on melancholy...There world is truely a sad place sometimes...Happiness comes about of knowing yourself , being true to yourself.....Lastly I think there is a feeling of powerlessness that is also responsible for this tinge od sadness....

Answer 2

Do you really think you could "let it all go" if you wanted? How can anyone live without ALL the emotions? I have a sense of nostalgia--close to melancholy--at sunset. Just a feeling with no associations. At times, serious & sad about the world in general, all the grief people are suffering. I've been fulfilled by insight gained from personal tragedy. I can't even imagine a life with NOTHING but happiness. How could one truly have feelings about anything if they were always joyous? Everything is part of the "mix," my dear. Embrace it all! I think it is called--LIVING.

Answer 3

i would think part of the fulfillment comes in the learning to identify the other feelings besides just happiness, and learning what triggers them. then logically, how to help diminish them when you wish.
it's not all guns and roses all of the time. like the window to the outside world which shows us sun, rain, and snow at different times, the window to the soul may allow you to view melancholy, sadness, a great many things you'd rather not view, but which are part of you. and me.

fulfilling to me equals loving and being loved, doing what i believe is right and not doing things i believe are wrong, making enough of a difference in the places i want to to feel i've succeeded, and experiencing all that i can in the short time i'm here. i have experienced more happiness and more sadness in the last year than i ever felt possible, but 'en toto', it's been a most fulfilling year, providing much living and enjoyment and much hope for the future. may yours be the same.

Answer 4

I think our lives and past lives are filled with good and bad, right and wrong, happiness and sadness, but never perfect happiness. But I think that once we fulfil our life for God and we go to heaven we obtain complete understanding on the life we have lived to have us understand that despite not being perfectly happy in life that we were ultimately happy as a soul from fulfilling what we have lived for God. I think I am an old soul like many do and I can relate. I think its something about having many lives with both hardship and joy that makes life bitter sweet and grounding.

Answer 5

How can you understand and appreciate the times of happiness, without the sad times to mark them against? I guess it depends on how you define "fulfilling". To me, it's not about having happy days or sad days, but what you get out of them, and what you do with them, that determines whether they are fulfilling. I too, tend to be tinged with melancholy, as you put it, but where does it come from? On the days that are tinged with sadness, are you thinking about someone who has passed on, and what they meant to you (fulfilling), or are you thinking about opportunities not taken, and potentials unrealised (unfulfilling)? (as examples) If the melancholy is holding you back from becoming who you are meant to be, then it is unfulfilling, if not, there is a place for sadness and seriousness in a fulfilling life, it means you took a risk somewhere along the line, took a chance on fulfillment, even if things didn't work out in a way that would make you "happy". Laughter, gaity, and good times are a good thing, they make our burdens lighter, but there is a place to settle down and get serious as well, to reflect on lessons learned, to think about, and work toward a happier future, to set the stage for future fulfillment.... Laughter, gaity, and good times contribute to a feeling of "happiness", but they are not the same thing as "happiness". If you can look over your lifetime, the good and the bad times, and feel an overall sense of satisfaction about the way you have lived these times, not only the times of celebration, but times when you had to rely on your inner strength, had to summon bravery, had to face adversity, if you can look over all of it, and feel a sense of satisfaction, and peace in the way you handled it all, and feel a sense of "full-ness" in the complete picture, then I would say that you are leading a full-filling life.

Answer 6

Humans yearn for the experience of "full aliveness" rather than happiness - a giving of everything to the world. Melancholy and seriousness are a part of being eternally alive.

Answer 7

Likely as not some of the people addicted to giving advice on Yahoo QA Philosophy are filled with nothing but happiness, though it seems doubtful.

There's something wrong with the picture, something missing.

But there's probably a lot less unhappines than a person would suspect, also.

I've never known anyone who was filled with constant happiness. Probably all of them could relate to what you've said.

On the other hand, I've never known any Yahoo QA addicts, so there might be a cadre of folk out there just bursting with happiness while knowing what others ought to do with their lives.

A joyous cadre of smiling Mary Worths

Answer 8

I relate. For me a fulfilling life incorporates empathy with the less fulfilling lives that have gone before us, and persist around us - and therefor some sense of grief. But it therefor also includes celebration of whatever joy we have - and a purpose in doing what one can to spread that joy, and diminish the sad situations around us. So for fulfillment we get into struggles, which are not always happy ones, but always give us a sense of self-worth, and occasional achievement, to enrich our lives. And that, for me, is happiness.

Answer 9

In my opinion, fulfilling lives are filled with challenges. In a sense, they are filled with happiness, because one must decide to be happy when going through challenges. One must decide to be happy through change and even through loss. Because life is full of challenges and changes.

Using online definitions (to be quick), the word that continually jumps out at my when I look up "happiness" is "enjoying". If you learn to enjoy life through the ups and downs, then you can truly say that your life is filled with hapiness, even though there will be many, many downs to go with the ups. Enjoy the roller coaster ride!

Happiness is more a perspective than a state of being.

Answer 10

In our daily lives... we seek to be happy. We're on a constant quest for happiness, so if a life is filled with nothing but happiness, then yes.. i guess it would be a fulfilling life. assuming that when you say fufilling life you mean that we're happy with the way our life turned out however this doesn't mean that you have to be happy all the time to have a fufilling life. It's probably better to have the whole range of emotions experienced in life, but the basic answer to your question is... if you are happy with how your life turned out.