kurtster wrote: 
Alas... seems to be a problem we've brought on ourselves. I suppose it's like chasing a carrot on a string. In wanting it, it escapes us.

 hippiechick wrote: 
Don't plan ahead? Don't learn from mistakes of the past? Just accept whatever comes and be happy?

 OlderThanDirt wrote: 
The present moment, which is the only real thing that exists, the rest is just story.

 kurtster wrote: 
These are all ego based, not real happiness. External events, such as rewards, provide only temporary fulfillment of the ego and not real inner peace and happiness

 hippiechick wrote: 
of?

 Umberdog wrote: 
I get that, an unlearned natural reponse or expression of happiness.  Just hadn't given it any recent thought in this cluttered and complicated time we live in.

 kurtster wrote: 
When the mind is unconcerned about gain or loss and the garden is suddenly beautifully colored and smells nice.

 islander wrote: 
Hmmm. Interesting hypothesis. There was a long stretch of my life where I wallowed in jealousy, resentment, and lots of other pointless negativities. And then one day in the spring of 1989, completely sober, it occurred to me that it didn't have to be that way. I had a roof over my head. I was able to fulfill my obligations and take care of myself. There simply was no reason not to be happy even though I was alone and expected to be for the foreseeable future.

I was leaning against my car, outside my apartment, having just finished doing laundry, in a light, warm spring rain. It didn't even seem like an epiphany at the time. It just seemed like common sense.

 Umberdog wrote: 

Yes on the latter, hmmmm on the former.

I was thinking more in terms of recognizing achievement, success or rewards for learned behaviours and self fulfillment.  Hard to recognize these things without having faced challenges and overcoming failures along the way.  Success is most often built upon failure, but I think that has already been said many times earlier by many others.

But innocence is a most interesting concept.  Care to share more on that one ?

 BlueHeronDruid wrote: 
It's all the good you bring to everyone else. Goes around / comes around and all. 

 islander wrote: 
I was drug-free in the spring of 1989, I'll have you know.

Also, in spite of loss, a serious health crisis, various calamities, stress and certain levels of clinical depression, I'm just about the happiest person I know.

 BlueHeronDruid wrote: 
It's been about as successful as the war on (some) drugs you tried in the spring of 1989...

 kurtster wrote: 
Acceptance

 buzz wrote: 
In a perfect world that would be true, but I make a point of not letting my past define me, and I am happiest when I am living in the present.

WHAT?!?! There's a war on the state of mind I decided to adopt in the spring of 1989? Why, I oughtta

 kurtster wrote: 
I would have to say, innocence.

... and possibly warm apple pie.

 hippiechick wrote: 
What is the or a primary source of happiness ?

 islander wrote: 
You are correct; however, external forces are not what determines our happiness, nor does our pas or our future. You can choose to be happy at any moment in your life, no matter what your external circumstances are. Happiness is internal. 

 hippiechick wrote: 

A small country has fewer people. 
Though there are machines that can work ten to a hundred times faster than man, they are not needed. 
The people take death seriously and do not travel far. 
Though they have boats and carriages, no one uses them. 
Though they have armor and weapons, no one displays them. 
Men return to the knotting of rope in place of writing. 
Their food is plain and good, their clothes fine but simple, their homes secure; 
They are happy in their ways. 
Though they live within sight of their neighbors, 
And crowing cocks and barking dogs are heard across the way, 
Yet they leave each other in peace while they grow old and die.

~ Lao Tzu. 

 

 hippiechick wrote: 
Nothing in your past has shaped the person you are today?