Contentment is easier to find than happiness
That’s the neat part,
by not trying to compare themselves to anyone else
Happiness is located in the wife’s arms
I try to embrace my hobbies. Motorcycle rides, baking, trying new beers, gaming with friends, reading, etc. It can be hard finding the time to do it all, but I try my best.
It helps that I’ve already made peace with the fact I’m never gonna be rich enough to do anything truly incredible, like travel the world for 6 months, or retire :/.
By dying
Mostly, they don’t
I don’t chase a big paycheck. I live meagerly, and save, but live comfortably. As they say, “love what you do and you’ll never work a day in your life.”
Recognizing how my desires are never truly satisfied, and they cause me suffering. How they constantly shift and always want more. In other words I let go of my judgment and accept what I see. That doesn’t mean I don’t judge it at all or don’t change it. It just means I’m not attached to the desire to change things. It’s just a feeling, and I can act on it, but it’s a conscious decision rather than a habit.
Game the system by having an unhappy childhood so being an adult is so much better? I enjoy being a grownup so much. What are you unhappy with? Were you happy as a kid and if so, what made you happy? I didn’t like school, felt alienated and in general kids have no control over their own lives. So adulthood suits me much better.
You nailed it for some of us. What do you do with a guy who went balls to the wall well into his 30s to make up for it?
I’ve felt happiness a few times. I’m thinking it’s time to fight for it.
For me, it’s my dogs! I love walking and playing with them. I love seeing them happy. They didn’t choose to be my pets, but it really makes me feel good to know they are happy and they love me in their own way.
I find happiness getting lost in projects, projects being anything & everything from writing to designing to stuff around the house to whatever. Just something that gets me obsessed for at least a few days or weeks. I can’t predict when it will happen, it just has to be a sufficient problem for me to look at.
I also find happiness with some people, but that sort of happiness is unpredictable as well since people have their own lives going on and feelings can change over time. Getting too close to people though can just as easily make my life feel meaningless and make me depressed when things turn sour. I tend to crave affection and physical touch, so this is a hard one for me to just ignore this.
I find happiness getting lost in projects
I relate to this on a visceral level
Kind of surprised no one has mentioned it… But kids. Kids bring a lot of happiness.
It depends.
For a lot of adults, I would agree that they are a bright point in their lives. But it isn’t universal.
Yep, just like how every single other answer in this thread isn’t universal.
Kids can also completely ruin marriages. I know multiple people who have straight up told me “my marriage used to be great and then having kids ruined it.” Of course kids can also bring tons of happiness! But it’s not universal.
I guess that’s one perspective. Another one might be that their marriage wasn’t as great as they thought it was in the first place.
Kids are stressful, no argument there. But blaming kids because their marriage buckled under the added stress just feels like an easy excuse. I suspect there were deeper issues that those people weren’t particularly interested in exploring.
Yea that’s definitely possible. I completely agree. But some people just have like a stress cap, ya know? It can put you over. There are definitely multiple reasons why it could happen.
Yep, they’re stressful too – but it’s usually the good kind of stress (exhaustion) and not the bad one (uncertainty). Although that pivots once they hit their teens.
Ehh, they have knock-on uncertainties. Especially if you are financially hurting.
They bring happiness, and a lot of other things too.
Basically everyone I’ve talked to in my age range that has kids basically has Stockholm syndrome, but I guess there are also enough people that do intrinsically enjoy having kids.
i think that you have to make happiness and its ingredients depends on what makes you happy & healthy.
it ends up becoming a bit like brewing beer in that you keep testing different combinations and different methods with those ingredients to brew your beer and sometimes you get it right and sometimes you don’t; but the more you keep at it the more often you get it right than wrong.
at some point you start getting excited at the prospect of trying some new combination, method, or ingredient and i think that, if you reach that stage, it’ll become self fulfilling.
You don’t find happiness. It comes and goes. Imagine being happy all the time; it would just become normal. You need non happy times to appreciate the happy times.
As someone that is either very happy or very sad, I find happiness in my hobbies. I need my mind to be occupied to pass the time, but then there is the thought I’m just waiting to die and passing time.
Hobbies that make me happy are:
- Indoor bouldering (rock climbing) is the only thing I’ve found that lets me escape the constant train of thought and be in the moment. It’s a nerdy hobby as lots of problem solving mixed with strength training.
- Running
- Rubiks cube
- Lego
- Cross stitch
- Paint by numbers
- 3D printing
- learning
- many more but this is getting long.
As someone who is down a lot of the time and has ADHD but stopped the meds as the side affects were worse than living with ADHD; I’ve found that routine is a massive thing required to be content with life. Consistent bed time and wake time. I am not a morning person but after 18 months of waking at 07:30 or 06:00, depending on if I’m taking the train to work, that I now wake up a few minutes before my alarm quite often; I’m still tired and I hate it but it gets easier.
Spending time with other people is key too. I find if I’m down it’s usually cause I’ve been alone a lot (which I love) and that can be bad for me so I’ll go see friends even if I don’t want to just to engage.
Luckily I can spot when I’m spiralling. I have an urge to fire up Minecraft and live vicariously through Steve and shut out the world.
