inkdark moon wrote:

I talked to Violet yesterday to wish her a happy birthday. She is depressed.

She has everything she wanted, the guy, the new place, the job, the creative life...but still she is depressed. Everyone I know is depressed.

How does this happen?

 

What does it mean to be happy? Does anyone even know anymore? I don't think blissful oblivious elation (ie when you're first in love or something similar) is actually happiness. That's like a high. Like a drug.

I think happiness should not be dependent on someone else, or something else.

It should ne a state unto yourself.

 

Is happiness waking up everyday looking forward to the day and what it might bring? Happiness must not be : health, love, friendship - because if that were the case then there wouldn't be so many "depressed" people out there; so many people already already have these things.

I was going to comment in response, but then my comment turned into a novel, and I decided to re-think my response and write it up here instead.

I can say with absolute certainty that I am happy with my life now.

I mean, in a moment-to-moment sense, I am frustrated with the exam process I have to complete for my career, and I'm busy and tired, but in an overall sense,. I'm happy.

But, the thing is, it's the things that are causing all of that busy-ness that make me happy. I have, by grace or luck, stumbled into a career that I enjoy. And the whole exam thing means that every day, when I get up, I know I will spend anywhere from 4 to 8 hours that day, studying, learning new things and intellectually challenging myself. And studying it all on my own makes it way more rewarding than college ever was.

The biggest misery in my life is to be bored. I hate it. Everything around me can be falling to pieces, but If I am setting goals and occationally achieving them, I'm happy. If I'm learning new things, and having to stretch my brain to do it, I'm happy.

So I guess what I'm saying is that my own happiness is both an internal thing *and* the result of my interacting with the world. My happiness comes from knowing I can rise to a challenge. My goals and my challenges are different from everyone elses, and the things that are important to me aren't important to others... But I have found the things that I am passionate about, and the *path* I am taking to get there makes me happy. I've succeeded in the realm of my career to find a job that challenges me intelectually.

And I have been lucky in my love life to find a guy who loves me so much, he gently holds me to my *own* standards instead of his. Seriously, that's love. He wants me to meet my own goals and grow in the direction I chose. It's a daily struggle for me, but I try to do the same for him.

As for why there are so many depressed people... I think the modern world, for all of the supposed choices we have in every part of our lives, is actually very disempowering. We are all constantly overstimulated with exhausting trivia, and by the time we start looking inwards at what we want and need, we're too tired, and our heads are too full of marketing and other people's opinions.

I'm not saying I'm above it. I'm there just as much as anyone, asking myself, "Is this what I want? What my parents want? What my friends think is best for me? What is "socially acceptable"? What I have been conditioned to believe someone of my social/financial/whatever station should do?"

I think one lucky thing that happened to me was studying TaeKwon Do as a teenager. Right in the middle of those very formative years, I had a chance to learn a little about setting and achieving goals as I moved up the ranks. As I advanced, I was given more and more responsability, and, cliched as it sounds, I really did learn the satisfaction that comes from a job well done. I learned how good it felt to push myself so far beyond the limits I thought I had.

I know I have more thoughts on the subject, but I'll leave it here for now.