# Are you happy in the moment, or in hindsight? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 30, 2017, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-happy-in-the-moment-or-in-hindsight/787710 "2017-05-30T09:52:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2017, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-happy-in-the-moment-or-in-hindsight/787710/21 "2017-05-31T20:20:52Z")
Spent most of the day the other day just making up NPCs and locations for what may eventually be a new Pathfinder (D&D 3.75) setting for me. Every now and then the “I should be out doing something” or “I should be doing something productive” guilt would hit me. I’d look around, look at what I was doing and go “Nah, I’m really happy doing this right now. This is fun.” So really, that’s the take-away folks. When you’re doing something you enjoy, even if that is as simple as reading or sitting on the porch enjoying the day; Stop. Put away the guilt, let the stress flow out and just say “this is a good moment” and then stay in it. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2017, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-happy-in-the-moment-or-in-hindsight/787710/22 "2017-05-31T21:50:12Z")
It’s letting go of the guilt that’s challenging. Productivity has increasingly become the measure of man. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2017, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-happy-in-the-moment-or-in-hindsight/787710/23 "2017-06-01T06:13:58Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > So really, that’s the take-away folks. When you’re doing something you enjoy, even if that is as simple as reading or sitting on the porch enjoying the day; Stop. Put away the guilt, let the stress flow out and just say “this is a good moment” and then stay in it. Is that really the take away, though? I’m thinking more about what **Chicken Fingers** said: > [@Chicken\_Fingers](#): > > I’m always happy in the moment. Little things delight me, and there’s usually something absurd to laugh about. So I have the opposite happen, where I look back and see how incredibly miserable situations were and how unhappy I was overall. I’m the same way. I’ve had periods of my life where things, on a fundamental level, were pretty miserable. During those times, I’ve certainly had plenty of those happy moments. But they’re fleeting, and it doesn’t seem like they really matter all that much. If there is a take away for me, it’s probably more this: > [@Esturionette](#): > > For me this is one of those cases of “how literature changed your life”. There is a part of “The Handmaid’s Tale” when the protagonist looks back on her life ‘before’ thinking (I’m paraphrasing) ‘we thought we were unhappy then but we didn’t know we were happy’. That passage comes back to me at random times, such as when I think my job is the worst in the world or that my marriage is not entirely perfect. It puts things into perspective more than a simple “it could always be worse”. Maybe it’s about recognizing what kinds of situations that I remember as happy, even if I didn’t feel that way at the time. Then, if I find myself in a similar situation, I can tell myself: “Quit your complaining. You’ll look back on this as a happy time later.” ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2017, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-happy-in-the-moment-or-in-hindsight/787710/24 "2017-06-01T10:04:18Z")
This is why I play guitar. It is something that gets me “into the moment” more reliably than most anything. By doing that, I am more familiar with what it means to be happy in the moment. Often, when I am doing other activities, I am more likely to recognize that feeling inside them. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2017, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-happy-in-the-moment-or-in-hindsight/787710/25 "2017-06-01T15:40:14Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Spent most of the day the other day just making up NPCs and locations for what may eventually be a new Pathfinder (D&D 3.75) setting for me. > > Every now and then the “I should be out doing something” or “I should be doing something productive” guilt would hit me. I’d look around, look at what I was doing and go “Nah, I’m really happy doing this right now. This is fun.” > > So really, that’s the take-away folks. When you’re doing something you enjoy, even if that is as simple as reading or sitting on the porch enjoying the day; Stop. Put away the guilt, let the stress flow out and just say “this is a good moment” and then stay in it. I think John Lennon once said, “Time enjoyed wasted was not wasted.” ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2017, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-happy-in-the-moment-or-in-hindsight/787710/26 "2017-06-01T17:06:13Z")
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > I’m the same way. I’ve had periods of my life where things, on a fundamental level, were pretty miserable. During those times, I’ve certainly had plenty of those happy moments. But they’re fleeting, and it doesn’t seem like they really matter all that much. Happiness is weird like that. I’ve suffered from chronic depression most of my life. In 2014, I had a miscarriage, and my marriage and employment prospects took a nose dive. I was in a bizarre state of depression where I had almost no emotional reaction to anything and didn’t care about anyone. It was almost pleasant. I consider this to be one of the worst years of my life. One year later, my husband graduated and we moved back to our home state. I went through a crippling, suicidal depression, and then had an emergency gall-bladder surgery where I almost died, and then had a bunch of seizures where I couldn’t drive for six months, I ended my relationship with my mother, and was put on a terrible anticonvulsant medication that made me sleep and hate myself. In the middle of all of that, I remember turning to my husband and saying, ''I’m so glad 2014 is over with." It’s so freaking weird, but it all seemed temporary and like everything was fundamentally okay. I would describe that year, and this one, as one of the happiest we’ve had. The most obvious and critical difference is that after we moved back home, we had a social and family network, something we did not have living out of state. We also both have jobs we like. It is amazing how those two things could make such a difference in our perceived sense of happiness, regardless of what was going on moment to moment. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-happy-in-the-moment-or-in-hindsight/787710.md?page=1)