What are the essential needs for feeling good and happy in your opinion? The things without which you can't be a whole and free human being?

What are the smaller aspects of those in your everyday life?
Also, if there is any good information, advice, interesting ideas-> Shoot

Some means of escape from the real world

To be happy one must have a goal and strive for it.
I'm in track; one goal of mine is to beat my friends. I also want to get under 4:40 for the 1600m event [a mile].

My other goal is to get a lot better at Japanese.

Striving for a goal you know you'll reach feels amazing.


umm what else...
food, girls, sports, winning

Do you mean in order to create the healthiest environment for learning?

i guess this is one of those questions that philosophers have been debating for centuries...

but the hardest questions sometimes have the simplest answers too...

to live a happy life, you need a healthy brain that is capable of feeling happiness. That's all there is to it.

probably, you also need to not be tortured, or anything like that. I've never been tortured, so i don't know. Perhaps if you were really good at meditation some forms of torture even wouldn't be torture...?

Apart from that, everything else is down to you. You can be happy in any situation, i think. it's just a matter of learning how...

mark95427 Wrote:To be happy one must have a goal and strive for it.
I'm in track; one goal of mine is to beat my friends. I also want to get under 4:40 for the 1600m event [a mile].

My other goal is to get a lot better at Japanese.

Striving for a goal you know you'll reach feels amazing.?

>>>totally agree

Actually, I think setting goals and seeking ways of escaping from the real world only adds to suffering.

If you want happiness, you have to follow in the footsteps of those who really are happy.

Ain't that a goal?

bodhisamaya Wrote:Actually, I think setting goals and seeking ways of escaping from the real world only adds to suffering.

If you want happiness, you have to follow in the footsteps of those who really are happy.

When a goal becomes the main focus of your life, you feel like your life's not being wasted.

And when you accomplish your goal, you just keep wanting more.

That's how it is for running... i'm in the top 10 on my track team and I feel like my life is amazing. I know what to work for, and how to achieve my aspirations [in running] due to my past experience in track. I'm already an incredible runner, but I keep improving.

I'm not really at that point with Japanese but you know, I can't wait to get there.

So, the work itself isn't completely satisfying... it's the accomplishment that makes you "happy".

To sum it up: the point of life is to acquire skills that make you feel proud of yourself.
Be it cooking [which I love]; speaking foreign languages; video games; raising kids; etc..

The greatest need, I think, is to be 100% at ease with who you are inside and out.

You could have the most incredible job, house, lifestyle, friends, wife/husband, looks, whatever, but if you aren't entirely comfortable with being yourself you will never be happy.

Then of course there is food, clothing, shelter etc.

1. get to know yourself
2. don't be idle

that is all.

SendaiDan Wrote:The greatest need, I think, is to be 100% at ease with who you are inside and out.

You could have the most incredible job, house, lifestyle, friends, wife/husband, looks, whatever, but if you aren't entirely comfortable with being yourself you will never be happy.

Then of course there is food, clothing, shelter etc.

"You" are what you make of yourself.

This quote has multiple meanings.
1)You are what you think you are--you have to know who you are.
2)Work your ass off because you have to think about your future. [what my parents tell me ;o]

Know who and what you are, and know what you're doing.

I'm reading "Man's search for meaning" from Viktor Frankl (a concentration camp survivor, that also happened to be a psychiatrist). A few paragraphs are interesting:

Quote:[...]three possible sources for meaning: in work (doing something significant), in love (caring for another person), and in courage during difficult times

Quote:For success, like happiness, it cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other that oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it.

IceCream Wrote:probably, you also need to not be tortured, or anything like that. I've never been tortured, so i don't know. Perhaps if you were really good at meditation some forms of torture even wouldn't be torture...?

Apart from that, everything else is down to you. You can be happy in any situation, i think. it's just a matter of learning how...

I don't know if it's possible to be happy in any situation, but have you seen "Life is beautiful" by Roberto Benigni? It's a story of how a dad uses his imagination for his kid not to see the horrible things that are happening around them, for they are both in a concentration camp.

Also, I recently heard about the (this time real) Burma Soldier that was thrown in jail for years, tortured and put in an isolation cell for a month. He said, during those times, meditation helped him a lot.

For people interested in meaning, I was going to recommend a book, but once again, it hasn't been translated in English yet (most uncool). German speakers, this one is for you: Vom Sinn der Sinne, by Erwin Straus (French edition also available).

jubei Wrote:Also, I recently heard about the Burma Soldier that was thrown in jail for years, tortured and put in an isolation cell for a month. He said, during those times, meditation helped him a lot.

I have read many stories about monks who had very blissful experiences in prison. For those who spent years meditating in caves in the Himalayan mountains, it is actually quite a convenient situation with basic survival needs being met by the guards.

For me, happiness is a matter of attitude. Smile towards the world and the world will smile back to you. Don't ask yourself to much how to achieve bliss and bliss will come by itself. In other words: "Find by not searching." (That sounds a lot like Zen, doesn't it? ;-)

deign Wrote:Do you mean in order to create the healthiest environment for learning?

More like creating the healthiest environment for living happily (ever after)

Or then again, living IS learning!
In this sense it really would be creating the healthiest environment for learning!

dizmox Wrote:Some means of escape from the real world

Escape from the real world is imo actually a human made substitute for man's real life search for fantasy, mystical experiences/phenomenons and the unknown.
In my opinion humans have a need to explore interesting 'stuff'.

And the idea that it is merely a 'substitute' makes things interesting. It reveals that a human has a desire to see novel situations what he/she has not yet seen, which contributes to progress and evolvement.

In turn this shows us that being Idle in real life is no good. Progress is needed.

Or now that I think about it more, they might be not just 'substitutes' but a part of man's search for X.

mark95427 Wrote:To be happy one must have a goal and strive for it.
I'm in track; one goal of mine is to beat my friends. I also want to get under 4:40 for the 1600m event [a mile].

My other goal is to get a lot better at Japanese.

Striving for a goal you know you'll reach feels amazing.


umm what else...
food, girls, sports, winning

Having a goal is good, very good! But you might (say there's even a high probability that you will) become too obsessed with the goal, as opposed to the experience itself. Balance is needed?

So you mean to say: you have to find good rivals?
Or is maybe a person with more skills, as a role model, a more useful friend than a rival?
Or perhaps both are important?

How about a goal that you don't know yet whether you'll reach it? Won't it feele even better ?

By girls do you mean a long lasting relationship or a one-night one, or just the fact that they exist in your life?

If I had to pick one thing, I guess it would be acceptance. Regretting the past, worrying about the future and cursing the present does nothing but create anxiety. If you can come to terms with your past, leave the future until it gets here, and begin to appreciate the present, you can find happiness even if your situation isn't ideal.

The word "ideal" is interesting as well. It's easy to become absorbed in your thoughts and beliefs, even if they're toxic or self-defeating. "I'm ugly," "People don't like me," "I need a better job." If you can learn to separate yourself from your thoughts and simply observe them and take a critical stance with your beliefs, you might begin to realise that a lot of them are complete BS and are actually pretty counter-productive.

IceCream Wrote:to live a happy life, you need a healthy brain that is capable of feeling happiness. That's all there is to it.

The brain receives and organizes impulses, right? For the brain to feel happy it takes lots of really complicated impulses which are caused by even more complex situations?

IceCream Wrote:Apart from that, everything else is down to you. You can be happy in any situation, i think. it's just a matter of learning how...

Well I don't think that in 'any' situation.
For example, if you saw your best friends (who hadn't even done anything which would justify the violence being used on them) being violently brute forced by several policemen in front of your eyes, which I have witnessed.

Or in case you're tortured, you're tortured.
But there is always a degree, and extent to which you're tortured. Life has small tortures. When a kid can't get his candy, he will definitely feel a mild torture.

Sorry for the example, but the only way I could see a person being happy in a violent situation would be if that person were to do use chemical substances (maybe shooting heroin?) that would allow that person to be temporarily happy in just about every situation. And I'm still not convinced that there are such powerful substances.

mark95427 Wrote:

bodhisamaya Wrote:Actually, I think setting goals and seeking ways of escaping from the real world only adds to suffering.

If you want happiness, you have to follow in the footsteps of those who really are happy.

When a goal becomes the main focus of your life, you feel like your life's not being wasted.

And when you accomplish your goal, you just keep wanting more.

I don't think he means you can't have goals and be happy, but if all you're doing is striving to be something in the future, you're not really living - and being happy - in the present, are you?

Javizy Wrote:

mark95427 Wrote:

bodhisamaya Wrote:Actually, I think setting goals and seeking ways of escaping from the real world only adds to suffering.

If you want happiness, you have to follow in the footsteps of those who really are happy.

When a goal becomes the main focus of your life, you feel like your life's not being wasted.

And when you accomplish your goal, you just keep wanting more.

I don't think he means you can't have goals and be happy, but if all you're doing is striving to be something in the future, you're not really living - and being happy - in the present, are you?

Both goals, and goallessness are important imo.

The 'ideal' way for me would be: A couple of years of concentrating on goals and progress, and a couple of years of being in the present and enjoying everything in life.

^ repeatedly in turns.

jettyke Wrote:Well I don't think that in 'any' situation.
For example, if you saw your best friends (who hadn't even done anything which would justify the violence being used on them) being violently brute forced by several policemen in front of your eyes, which I have witnessed.

That's horrible...
But... and correct me if i'm wrong... I've made the observation that people who think a lot about happiness and bliss are usually the ones who are already blissed. But they are just not able to notice it. Isn't this whole "who am I", "what is my duty in life", "How can i cope with my destiny" etc. - talking and thinking, isn't this a kind of luxury good for us western/northern people who are basically blissed with peace, prosperity and health?