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on happiness
Sep. 28th, 2006 10:39 amI ask every person I know, if I know them well enough, if they consider themselves happy. well they usually say "oh, I don't know. yeah, I guess, pretty happy, not great, but yeah," or something similarly noncommittal. people are all over the place with noncommittal answers that don't really mean anything.
so sometimes I get them to give me a percentage, if 100 is the best and happiest and most functional they could possibly be. this works better, they stop and think for a moment, mentally measure their lives, and give me a hard, solid, heavy number.
and do you know what? i'm quite often floored by how low the number is. I mean, in general, i'm floored by the average person's answer. if I had to give an average of all the people i've asked recently, well it'd be around 55%. on average, people feel they're functioning at 55% efficiency happinesswise. it shocks me. I wonder now if they're thinking of how happy they could possibly be, or how happy they've been, or just how happy they're not..
so, me, when I ask myself.. well I can't answer my own question. I mean... well I think of myself as quite sad. I feel like i'm quite sad a lot of the time. like i'm dissatisfied and at odds with the world and just, you know, every thought a shitty stanza in an angsty adolescent's poem of pure blackness.
but then so much of the time I feel so happy! much happier than I ever see anyone else feel. and when I say see anyone else feel, and you're thinking "well how do you know, you god-wannabe, what if they're just not expressing it," well I imagine that if they're not explosively compelled to express it, like they feel they just have no choice but to shout "i'm happy!" then they're not happy enough, not as happy as I. see, I often feel so happy that I just have to shout "i'm happy!" when having coffee with a friend, or "good morning, morning!" upon stepping out the front door, or "I love you green man!" when the little crosswalkie man goes green, or "yay! it's breakfast!" when i'm hungry.
okay, now that I think about it, maybe i'm not happier than anyone else and just have impulse control issues.
nah. i'm happy.
yay!
so sometimes I get them to give me a percentage, if 100 is the best and happiest and most functional they could possibly be. this works better, they stop and think for a moment, mentally measure their lives, and give me a hard, solid, heavy number.
and do you know what? i'm quite often floored by how low the number is. I mean, in general, i'm floored by the average person's answer. if I had to give an average of all the people i've asked recently, well it'd be around 55%. on average, people feel they're functioning at 55% efficiency happinesswise. it shocks me. I wonder now if they're thinking of how happy they could possibly be, or how happy they've been, or just how happy they're not..
so, me, when I ask myself.. well I can't answer my own question. I mean... well I think of myself as quite sad. I feel like i'm quite sad a lot of the time. like i'm dissatisfied and at odds with the world and just, you know, every thought a shitty stanza in an angsty adolescent's poem of pure blackness.
but then so much of the time I feel so happy! much happier than I ever see anyone else feel. and when I say see anyone else feel, and you're thinking "well how do you know, you god-wannabe, what if they're just not expressing it," well I imagine that if they're not explosively compelled to express it, like they feel they just have no choice but to shout "i'm happy!" then they're not happy enough, not as happy as I. see, I often feel so happy that I just have to shout "i'm happy!" when having coffee with a friend, or "good morning, morning!" upon stepping out the front door, or "I love you green man!" when the little crosswalkie man goes green, or "yay! it's breakfast!" when i'm hungry.
okay, now that I think about it, maybe i'm not happier than anyone else and just have impulse control issues.
nah. i'm happy.
yay!
