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I was 13, nerdy, loved to draw, grew up rural. My Grandma lived close to a big city. Went to visit her in the Summer and then went to an Japanese culture fest in said city. I was overwhelmed by the experience. Bought two super sweet Neon Genesis Evangelion artbooks.
These two hours, alone during a summer night with two artbooks at a tiny, rural train stop surrounded by trees and absolutely nobody else around were pure bliss. A weird feeling of peaceful, 'liminal' joy that I can't properly explain.
Different happiness than love, etc.
Can you guess how many results you get if you Google the phrase "how to be happy"? Over 3 billion! This enormous number may surprise you at first, but the truth is that happiness is a goal that many aspire to achieve in life — even if they have trouble pinpointing what it actually means.
After all, the definition can vary from one person to another. For some, it’s globetrotting the world and discovering hidden destinations that bring the beauty of this planet into a new light. For others, it’s digging in the dirt of their garden and slowly watching plants grow. Whatever your idea of happiness is, it’s a true driving force that helps people connect with one another and cope with the twists and turns of life.
To explore this conundrum, we reached out to Joshua Klapow, Ph.D., a psychologist and creator of Mental Drive. He started this well-being initiative to help people lead healthier, more fulfilled, and successful lives by giving them access to psychological tools they can use daily. "Happiness has deep neurochemical roots and is a biological process as much as it is a feeling," he told Bored Panda.
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"When we are happy, dopamine and natural endorphins are released. We literally are chemically altered in a way that feels good. That process is tied to events in our lives and so the search to engage in activities that make us feel the neurochemical euphoria is a mission for many of us," he explained. "Happiness is a biological signal that is very primitive and very core to our assessment that we are safe and secure in the world."
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While happiness has become a pursuit for many, some people have formed twisted perspectives of it. We often hear phrases like "put on a happy face" or "choose to be happy", even when we encounter adversities and feel angry, sad, or frustrated. People who deny these feelings and pretend to lead a joyful life also ignore a part of what it means to be human. But according to a study published in Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, the more value and focus you put on happiness, the less happy you are. Or, in other words, obsessive pursuit of happiness may be the very barrier that prevents people from achieving it.
"People who value happiness to an extreme degree are less likely to attain happiness in both the short term and the long term,” psychologist Felicia Zerwas told Forbes. "One reason that scientists think that valuing happiness might backfire is because it might lead people to feel more disappointed at times when happiness is most within reach."
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in junior high school, I was one of the most disliked people at school, I was persecuted by students and the teacher. These experiences caused me a kind of fear of other people and the conviction that I am the worst abomination. But at this party I was treated like an ordinary person, it was the nicest thing I experienced.
Really, nothing nicer happened to me.
Alternatively, accepting your emotions as they are in the current moment gives you a better chance of reaching this blissful emotional state. Thankfully, you don’t have to glide through life pretending to be cheerful all the time or disown your negative feelings. Remember that you can always find light, even in the darkest hours.
Psychologist Klapow agrees with this line of thinking. He pointed out that happiness is possible in micro-moments of our life. "So even in the worst of situations, we may find a minute, an hour, a fleeting experience of happiness. In fact, in bad times, our ability to search for meaning, to find meaning, and literally to find the silver lining, and the good that lies within the bad, can give us the emotional fuel to stick with and work through bad times. Happiness is a soothing emotion that helps reduce the pain of a bad situation. As such, it helps us get through the worst of times."
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2nd: when I sold a copy of my novel to someone that wasn't family or friends 👍
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But sometimes, it’s just hard to find happiness in the world. From fake news and gloomy headlines to the slew of negativity that reaches us every day, staying positive seems like a difficult task. Of course, it’s important to arm ourselves with knowledge to become well-informed and rounded citizens. But adding a dash of uplifting stories to the content we consume can significantly brighten our mood and offer a refreshing change of pace.
"We live in a world where we are surrounded by incoming information," Klapow told us. "From the people we directly engage with, to our social media connections, to the television, radio, streaming, video, and the like content that is at our fingertips. We are in a position literally to surround ourselves with content that we have curated to influence our mood."
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The psychologist explained that while we need to understand the world and events around us, it’s equally crucial to balance the emotional content of the information we take in. "This is not the same as living in an unrealistic reality that we have conjured up, but rather to look at the inputs of information and interactions and treat them like a balanced diet," he added.
"We need a variety of emotional input and one component is happy, and optimistic information. It gives us balance and perspective on the world and it is critical for our mental health and wellbeing."
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