Happiness is a choice.

Yeah...I've tried very hard having this mindset ...really hard ...I've even said this too ..but you know what ? It's bullshit when you have depression and you are so far diwn that black hole you don't know how you will climb out of it again ...and again ...all the while having to fake being ok so you don't have to explain yourself time and time again to those who don't understand...but all they can do is keep asking the same questions ...over and over again ...you just decide it's easier to act happy but feel like you're drowning inside than to explain it again ....so yeah i choose to fake being happy to avoid those who don't understand depression from my own perspective.

What a load of codswallop! Go hand this out to anyone bereaved, like the Uvalde parents. Give it to someone who is suicidal. It’s not helpful at all. In fact it’s harmful because it puts the blame on the person suffering when they grieve a loss, and are not happy clappy. It’s insulting and dangerous.

Then everyone would choose it.
If depressed our brains are broken and we are not building sadness ,we are missing dopamine and serotonin.
Even meds have a hard time balancing it all out.
Committed to sadness ?not correct! we do anything to feel happy , but our brains don't let us.
Committed to misery? Not correct ...we are not always miserable and often retreat so not to make others miserable.
I am happy often so yes, I know what happy is.

I think that humankind needs to realise we need to let ourselves FEEL.
FEEL it all : the saddness , the excitement, the anger , the fear, the joy.....ALL of it .


We rationalise , compartmentalise, overthink , push away, and sometimes end up relying on a cocktail of drugs to end up denying processing what we feel , till we are only existing.

Life is pain .
But life is also all of the others. Deny one feeling, and you deny the others as well.

We need to cry , laugh, shout, lament, whisper and scream.

Acceptance of the negative is the first step to processing it, then acclimating it .
Life has sorrows, hurt and pain, but to deny ourselves times of happiness and joy becuase of it, is like denying the day because of the night .

We need both.

Sometimes we have an imbalance, and it seems all darkness, but i do agree it should never stop us from searching for the light .

Sometimes we fail , but sometimes we succeed .

Sometimes we have to lose, to hurt to burn through the darkness to get to the light .....and its a lot of hard work and a lot of time .

Life is a wheel , it turns .
We are not meant to stay in one state forever.

you can choose to TRY to be Happy
but is is uncool for folks to say that to the unhappy. It BLAMES them. "it's your fault you are not happy"

outside conditions and persons act on us in ways that can crush happiness.
those who think we can just decide to be happy are most often those
far from suffering

Happiness is all in moments. People think we're supposed to aim to live this "happy life" & find happiness but it's really not something you find. You have to create it & enjoy what moments of it you have. Because everything has it's moments. Sadness, anger, everything & we have to feel all of that. There's no such thing as complete happiness & dying with a smile. We work every day for it 🤷 & it's hard

I'm just trying to find peace. Not happiness. I'll take whatever feelings I get along the way & find calm in the storm

I will speak from my own experience. Lies only go that far. At the first reminder of my "past" scars, the pain comes back alive and I am reminded that I was fooling myself. And that pain makes me feel alive in some kind of cruel way. I tried to ignore it. I tried to bury it back into that shadowy corner of my mind. And one day it just exploded in my mind. Because of the pressure of holding back and running away from that pain.. the suffering trippled. So I found a new way:
1. Give yourself the time you need to grieve. You must face it. Breathe through the pain in full gulps. Find safe ways to channel the sadness and frustration away. For me being in nature and focusing on a hobby or a totally new thing helped me liberate myself partially.
2. Keep breathing, you get used to it and it becomes easier.
3. The scar will remain, but eventually, because you got used to carry the burden, at some point you don't feel the weight.. or you do, but you don't suffer the same way.. the pain subsides to something else.
4. Resilience - you make a conscious choice of a step forward to a direction of your choice.

The river must pass straight through you, for you to realize you're the ocean. And the more rivers join, the more strength you build. By overcoming. By your will to be enduring and better. The will to heal because you have more important things to accomplish and .. living straight through this, at your own pace... is the only thing that will truly liberate you and make you feel some kind of long-lasting, stable contentment, which is better than a second of happiness. This kind of balance is what I think we are seeking... the strength to maintain your contentment through thick and thin. I believe every human has the capacity to adapt and evolve at will. Give yourself time and do it one breath at a time :)

You can do things to work towards being able to cope or finding contentment with your life; counseling, prescription médication if necessary. But happiness doesn’t even mean the same thing to everyone, it doesn’t look the same. If what you’re advising works for you, that’s good, and congratulations.

But in the world of actual mental illnesses, it’s a bit more complicated. 🥺

Clinical depression is not a choice...therefore happiness is not s choice. It’s in the genes or epigenes.

Yup I get that. I dealt with depression for 10 years, traumas, anxiety, you name it.
The only time things changed was when I did something about it, learned to take care of myself, make choices that would make me happy.

The last 6 months have been especially hard, but everytime I felt very low I'd call someone, take a walk, run, lift weights. Didn't always work straight away but good habits create happiness also. I wouldn't listen to sad music and think bad things.

Chemically for a small percentage of people it isn't a choice but that's rare. That and some can't afford therapy (hell even I can't really).

This is coming from someone who has gone through 38 of his 39 years in some situations not many would come out of in one piece mentally or physically but I survived, and I don’t know how I finally learned my subtle are of not giving a flying shit but finally figured it out.

Not caring about what other people think of me or what I stand for.
If I cared that much I would try so hard to be someone Im not or a “yes man” just to fit in with the flock or………..I couldn’t be fucked getting out of bed in the morning.

I’ve had haters in my life, why? Because I stood up for something I believed in, someone I believed in or standing my ground.
One or two of those haters tried to take me down and failed. Better luck next time 🤣😂😂.

And that’s the attitude of someone not giving a fuck, and I am who I am without any need to impress or please anyone against my will.

I second this, happiness is a choice. I can see it daily in subtle moments, where i chose i will continue thinking of what happened yesterday or focus at where i am at in each moment.
I present myself with the choice when i feel the bad vibes from the guy in the super market and then know i have picked that up and shake it off. The moment where i feel bitter just because sunset saddens me, i can see it. I tell myself "it's the moment, it's just for now, it'll pass".
But i wasn't able to experience deeper happiness until i let myself feel all the sadness of the world that it wanted to feel.

Isn't that simple really, not if depression or some mental illness is part of you, you won't see things so clearly but you can try to have a better life regardless, seeking help if needed, with help.. Meds if nessesarily, to feel better but even if it helps it's not a warranty to be "happy".

Depression isn't the same as "sadness" .

Isn't a "commitment" it's not something you decide you know.

I agree and I'm praying so hard everyday that you're right. 🤣
I've been doing this for years and I think I'm at a breaking point right now in my life.

Fake it till you make it as they say but what if you don't make it.

I guess I'll have to find a way to be happy with the outcome no matter what.

I get what you’re saying about choosing a certain path - happiness. The more you choose it, the more you commit to it, the more it becomes who you are.

On the other extreme, if one chooses to be sad , or find sadness and misery in every aspect of their lives, the get swallowed in this pattern of thinking nothing is going right… that nothing is worth being happy about.

BUT life does not happen as the end result of these 2 choices. There should be considerations for people’s emotional makeup, mental health, devastating life circumstances that are difficult to recover from.

Happiness (or sadness) might be seen by people as a choice. But it is not made by the flick of switch. It doesn’t come that easy.

I like the way the threads are being dealt on this post.
Best wishes to all.

I agree to an extent and that we have the ability to choose actions, which will promote happiness or at least more opportunities for happiness. Not a big fan of that whole gaslighting yourself into warping your perception of reality to the point that piss is rain though. It ends up creating this labyrinth of unhealthy coping mechanisms that take people further away from happiness.

I think it should be rephrased as happens is a habit.

This is a wonderfully true analogy

this position is often taken by those with privilege

Its the Ayn Rand syndrome. you don't even have to have read it.. it is clear you learn from those who did

I have become so good at lying to myself that I honestly don't know which feeling is real... Strange times

I would rather call it a choice to persue and focus on happiness ^^

You’re not wrong…

Sometimes.,,