Once in a while, I will have one of those MOMENTS OF CLARITY during which I can easily put aside life’s little annoyances and realize that I am very lucky to have what I have, everything will be fine, etc.
That lasts maybe a day, and then I’m… well, I’m not miserable, it’s just that annoyances start to pile up again and I’m back to feeling mostly blah.
Is there a secret to flipping this around and keeping a good mood as the default?
…I guess this could’ve just as easily been posted to MPSIMS
I don’t have bad moods.
There are many stressful times such as with injuries or other health problems. Pain can be intense. I just moved myself and that can be difficult. I worked from 6AM to 1AM for about 10 days. People die and that can really be stressful. However, it is simply not necessary to have a bad mood or attitude. Your attitude is something you control. I consider stressful times to be somewhat like the 747 pilot challenged with an engine failure or control device not responding. You as pilot of your life need to meet that challenge using the knowledge base you have as an adult.
That’s just how I feel. I realize there are folks with chemical imbalances and so forth blah blah blah. I have my problems, but that is not one of them.
Learn to be grateful, it’ll change your life. More importantly, discover improbable gifts, those things and times in your life that seemed horrible at the time but which taught you a valuable life lesson or opened doors for you.
Something that has helped me is something someone else said. I don’t remember where or who I heard from and heck maybe it was from here.
It was: “Happiness is not the default emotion.”
It helped me realize that just because I wasn’t having a bad day did not mean I should be Mr. Happy Fantastic the Awesome. (Although that is what the ladies call me in the sack.)
I think “meh” is the default emotion. Some days are good and some are bad but most are just meh. So if you want to be happy do something that makes you happy.
Um, yeah. Happy people don’t need to write shit down in a “gratitude log” to trick themselves into being happy.
“blah” or “meh” really isn’t a “bad mood”. It’s the absense of a good mood. And it’s not necessarily a bad thing unless you feel ambivalent all the time about everything.
Working until 1am 10 days in a row by itself won’t necessarily make me miserable. By the same token, not having any work to do for a month can be extremely stressful. A lot of it depends on the context. If it’s a high profile project you are putting together and you have a good team and good leadership, it could be a good sort of stress. OTOH, going to work at what you think is your dream job and basically sitting in a room by yourself for weeks on end with little to no outside communication can make you feel like you just made the worst decision in the world and fucked up your entire professional life.
A lot of it also has to do with the sort of people you surround yourself with IMHO. Are the people you associate with supportive and helpful or are they selfish assholes?
I don’t seek happiness, and I don’t expect it. If and when I experience it, it’s great - but I know it won’t last.
I do seek and cherish contentment. It’s long been my goal, and is what I value above all. It can be had passively (unlike happiness) and once achieved seems to last a long, long time.
I think contentment can be had without the temporary moments of clarity mentioned by the OP - it seems to sit in the background and is not the outcome of a rational thinking process, rather I think it arises from a sense of passive acceptance.
While I am going through some personal hardships that have had me feeling much more down than usual for the last 6 months, generally I am in a good mood 90% of the time. I smile and laugh a lot and feel content and serene, most days. All those little things just don’t get to me like they seem to get to many people; probably because I don’t pay attention to what’s going on around me very well.
We don’t always agree on stuff, but I heartily endorse this.
There’s this annoying idea in our culture that one must be happy at all times, and if they aren’t, well, they are just being ingrateful bastards.
Happiness is good and it’s not a bad thing to want. But you can make yourself miserable trying to feel something that you can’t, for whatever reason. And while thinking about the poor kids in Africa can make you grateful for what you have, it can’t really make you feel happy. And why should it? If you’re a deeply compassionate person, thinking about people who are worse off than you should make you sad, not happy. Right?
A person can certainly have thought processes that foster certain emotions. Emotions can’t be helped, but thoughts can be corrected or at least avoided. For instance, I get sad whenever I compare myself to other people. Consciously stopping myself before I do this keeps me from feeling sad.
But the problem with the “think about the people who are worse off than you” argument is that EVERYONE has someone who is “worse off”. If you get stabbed in the thigh, is knowing that you could have gotten stabbed in the groin going to make the pain go away?
I do try to have some perspective whenever I’m going through stuff. But when I’m feeling really bad, I just let myself feel that way in as functional of a way as possible. As long as I don’t spread hurt and misery to others, I give myself permission to feel or not-feel whatever.
I’m one of the happiest people I know, but that doesn’t always mean my mood is great. I have moments of crankiness, being overtired, dropping shit and swearing aloud, etc. Underneath the momentary irritation, however, is a place where I feel lucky, blessed, determined, and at peace.
I count my blessings every single day. Most of these are thoughts of my kids, my home, jobs I can enjoy, food on my table, etc. I don’t have to think of oppressed people or starving children in order to feel blessed and lucky.
I don’t think I have a perfect flawless life by any means…but I’m happy for it every day. (I think getting divorced helped my outlook a lot.)
Then we are in complete agreement. Sure, there are people starving in Africa or whatever, but fuck them. Your experiences are relevent to your world as you perceive it. If you win the Silver Medal in the Olympics, do you say “well, at least I’m better than 99.999% of the athletes out there”? No. You’re pissed off for coming in fucking second!
Ever done a depression checklist, friend? Your problem may be neurochemical. I myself struggle with depression and I know exactly what it does to a man.
Maybe your perspective needs a little tweaking. Have you read The Art of Happiness by Dr. Howard Cutler and HH the XIV Dalai Lama? I highly recommend it.
I’m in a good mood almost always. I’m at a loss to explain exactly why, though. Part of it is that I absolutely love my job, and love the people I work with. Also I have engaging hobbies and activities that are both challenging and rewarding. I don’t spend any time being angry or upset about things I have no control over or can do nothing to remedy. I don’t get angry with rude people and idiots because, frankly, I am so much better than that.
If you would like to read a helpful book on the subject, I recommend Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert.
Me and depression are on a first-name basis, but I also have what I call Survivor’s Joy. Since escaping my childhood any day is better, no matter what it brings. Because I’m no longer helpless.
And really, I’m curious. If things are bad I wonder, “Just how bad CAN it get? Can I cope? Will this open up whole new worlds I wouldn’t have been aware of before?”
For some reason, the worse things get the happier I get. “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” When you’ve lost everything and no longer have anything to try to negotiate for, you can pretty much go in any direction you want to. You can move to Bali or Belize. You can go crazy or go country. You can cut off all your hair or cut all ties and disappear for awhile.
The possibilities are endless. However you choose to deal with what life presents becomes just another strand you braid into the overall pattern. And good days are the colors in it that seem to shine.
I recall reading about this. Apparently, children have a default state of being happy because it has some evolutionary benefits. But for the same reason, adults are neutral or slightly concerned because of the uncertainty of the world.
I’d guess perpetual optimists tended to be removed from the gene pool around the cold season, when food became scarce and more conservative types fared better.
I have heard that your mood is something you’re born with, more or less. Say one person is in a car crash and becomes a paraplegic, and another person wins the lottery. To begin with, the first person will be intensely unhappy and the second one will be intensely happy, but before long they will both level out to where they were before.
No cites or anything, but it does seem to correlate with people I’ve known. Very rarely, maybe never, have changes in life’s fortune led to any kind of personality change in people I’ve known. The cheerful ones are cheerful, and if their house burns down they can take it on the chin, while the gloomy ones are gloomy, and if they have great jobs and wonderful relationships they still find time to be gloomy about the fact that it will all end soon.
