For a lot of years I looked for happiness in a pill bottle and I never found it there. However, after I endured the hell that meds caused, I found peace and contentment.
I posed the question “Do People Choose To Be Happy?” on a community message board and I was so thrilled with the answers.
Here are a few that really stood out to me (with my favorite parts in bold):
subjectivitis posted thisHappiness isn’t a constant choice sometimes it’s effortless, like when I am with family or chocolate things. I would guess that anyone that thinks they don’t have to work at happiness is just plain miserable because that person must not realize how much control they have over their own feelings. To think my happiness depends on chance or outside influences sounds awful to me.
mrs_k posted this, 1 day agoI don’t think you can choose happiness, but I do think you can influence it. I think the real choice is whether you choose to take responsibility for your life’s direction or allow yourself to be a victim of your circumstances.
CO posted this, 1 day agoI don’t know if you can choose to be happy and then just magically be happy, but I think that you can choose to always try and see things in the best light possible and to try and keep your head up by doing so. I am a positive person. I have shitty days like everyone else, I have problems and issues and dilemnas in my life. But I try and just look at the bright side of everything. Why not? You can look at it any old way you want really and at least if you ‘choose’ to take the ‘happy’ route maybe you will enjoy yourself a little bit more along the way. So yes, I think you can choose to be happy, at least to some extent.
greenplanner posted this, 1 day agoI think you can have physical and chemical issues that can keep you from being able to be happy, but if that’s not an issue then I would describe happiness as a learnable skill. Some of us are predisposed to happiness and some of us have to teach ourselves how to be happy. I think our culture of consumerism teaches us to be dissatisified in order to make us think that we are constantly lacking… and in need of something outside ourselves for happiness.
As long as your basic needs are being met, you need nothing else to be happy.
Squeaker posted this, 1 day agoI wholeheartedly think that it can be a choice to be happy. I was a miserable person for decades. And one day I decided I didn’t like who I was. I didn’t like the drama in my life. I didn’t like being sad all the time. I soon figured out that my depression wasn’t necessarily the chemical imbalance that my mother told me it was. I was depressed because of situations and people I allowed myself to be around.
When I started to change the negatives in my life.. push them away… things got significantly better. While I still believe that depression can be a chemical imbalance, I don’t think it’s as prevalent as BigPharma makes it out to be.
Lex posted this, 23 hours agoAfter going through my world being turned upside down the last 4 months i can honestly say there were days where i chose to be happy. I wasn’t going to sit there and cry. Sometimes it can be a lot of work and i didn’t do it everyday.
I also started to be more open about answering the question ‘how are you?’ because even though i am happy right now, it doesn’t cover the extent of what i am feeling and I discovered that being open about that actually made it easier for me to be happy.
sakura posted this, 1 day agoAs others have said, depression is an exception to my answer (e.g., I’m not going to tell a depressed person it’s their fault for not “choosing” to be happy!!).
I’m a happy person. I don’t remember ever NOT being a happy person. I’m cynical and can be sarcastic, but I’m also a diehard optimist and believe that people are generally good (or want to be good) and that I’m lucky and grateful to be alive.
Now, I freely admit that some of my happiness is denial, which is unhealthy. I’m not comfortable with feeling or encountering anger/sadness and my first instinct is to defuse either one with optimism, humour, rationalization, or minimizing. I’m working to allow myself to feel negative emotions and let them pass, and I’m much better at it now.
I do believe happiness is a choice and a mindset, but like others have said, it comes easier to some of us than others. Your life doesn’t need to be going awesome for you to be happy. You don’t need to be rich or fit or married to your soulmate or covered in adoring puppies. Happiness is my default setting, and I’m always on the lookout for the silver lining.
As long as a pessimist isn’t clinically depressed, I think they would benefit from learning how to question and change their thought process. It’s amazing how quickly what you send out comes back to you: look for negativity and BOOM there it is! But look for positive things and that’s what you’ll see.
Do I sound like a self-help book yet? 
slappyintheface posted this, 1 day agoI want to be in a room with every single one of you to discuss this in person and I am sooooooooo glad that the answers have been the way that they are.
Personally I see happiness as the opposite of sadness, a fleeting emotion that can be brought on by circumstances. However, I choose to be content. Even with my horrific situations and the “shitstorm” that is my life, I am more content now than when I was out of my mind on meds and vodka (always looking for something to bring me just a glimmer of happiness, no matter how short lived it was).
I agree that there are people out there who are depressed, but I think that the vast majority of people can make adjustments to their thinking and end up changing their entire world.
I don’t know much about the subject – having spent far more time in my life feeling miserable than happy – but I’ve noticed that fully accepting the situation as is, was the first step for me in that direction.
Amanda recently posted..Tabloid Awesomeness
Then you are on the right track …. strive to be content and the moments of happiness will follow.
I shoulda put my avatar back up.. ohwell.. hehe :p
Amanda… I was miserable from 12-25, so I totally get that.. and one day I woke up and was like, this sucks… that’s when I started making little changes.. I’m talking LITTLE… like, I threw out all of my socks and bought one type so I could simplify things in my control… decluttering my house helped a bunch… then I worked on friends and family that weren’t doing me any good. That was HARD.. but oh so worth it. 6 years later, I can say that I have been genuinely happy for at least 3 years.. things just keep getting better.. it took work, but I’m so thankful that I am pushing towards my biggest goal — to be happy-go-lucky. That might take another decade.. hehe
Kristal recently posted..Just one more thing…
Kristal – Oh my goodness – you have so figured it out!!! So many companies (especially Big Pharma) want us to think that we are helpless to change our lives, when we aren’t. We really aren’t.
very interesting – i believe happiness is a state of mind… we all have problems but that should not cloud our sense of sunshine.. little joys scattered around us.. unattended by us …
sushmita recently posted..Happy birthday my little one….
I happen to think with a good deal of desire and drive to change, honest self reflection of patterns in a persons behaviors, (who you are and who you surround yourself with) a persons attitudes can be shifted over time and little by little unhappiness can become the opposite, contentment, joy or even happiness.
jen recently posted..party hats and other silly things we do!
I agree 100%. Sometimes we have to make the tough choices in order to do what is best for us …. simple changes can make big differences.
I’ve heard it both ways. Personally, while I’ve had huge tragedy in my life, I was blessed with a VERY inappropriate sense of humor and eventually find something in every situation that at least sounds funny in the re-telling. I’ve found that if I try to make other people laugh, I laugh as well. And also, I never eat beets. Happy is easier than unhappy.
You inappropriate? NEVER!
I don’t eat beets either ….and
I LOVE YOU!
that is all
@Lori Hewett pretty much has the same answer as me. With all of the shit I have been through with my husband and his horrendous health issues, if I couldn’t find a way to laugh, I’d have had several nervous breakdowns by now. Sometimes people look at me funny and think I’m being insensitive, but making inappropriate jokes is what gets me through. If I can make someone else laugh at the same time, all the better.
However, I do eat beets. Quite often. They’re delicious. Especially pickled.
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There is not one thing in this article and comments that I could ever argue.
I heard the ring of truth to it all.
My two cents?
I live every day of life with gratitude.
That I can wake with the sun, meet people, greet life.
Such a gift.
The rain comes. Who doesn’t get wet?
Then the sun shines on my face.
The breeze comes, blowing against my skin.
I can feel it, blessed.
My son calls me and says “Hey, Momma, how are you?”
My cat feels sooo soft under my touch.
My man hugs me tight, kisses me, soft lips….
When things get complicated, depressing, upside down,
I have a few brisk things that I say to myself,
Keeps me right, puts living in perspective.
One question, however, leads me in this direction.
Are you busy living, or are you busy dying?
The major lesson in my life jelled into this one question in my 20′s…
This question arises on watching how my maternal and paternal grandmothers
lived out the last 15 to 20 years of their long lives.
Neither had wealth, or any background that would have given one an advantage over the other.
Similar solid Scottish ancestry.
Different faucets in the diamond of life.
One would complain to my mother about how crappy she felt.
I still remember that soft litany of personal lament from my earliest visits.
She didn’t know what she was going to do.
She felt so ill. So was he. We were screwed…
What can you do for us?
Do you want a cup of tea?(Boiled on a woodstove. I loved it with sugar.)
Her couches had the plastic on it from when they were shipped several years before, lol.
SSShush. We’re talking.
Children were to be seen and not heard.
Her husband dealt with Parkinson’s disease, but was functional for several years, and mentally sound for most of the course of her life.
She was old but mobile, her major impairment being a missing kneecap from a fall in her early 60′s.
My other grandma had been widowed before I was born, Her husband died suddenly after a life spent in the mining industry, shortly after retirement .
Mowing the lawn, and waiting for his favorite soap opera to come on.
Sudden heart attack.
I believe she personally suffered 3 heart attacks, had high blood pressure,
skin cancers…etc…was on endless, sometime conflicting meds ,
nitro patches,cared for by several family and medical/homecare staff.
She was a living pharmaceutical miracle.
I do not recall ever heard her be any more than matter of fact about her condition, if it must have been known.
Instead, she wanted to hear what we were doing.
She laughed with us, loved us, lived through us .
She had Kool-Aid and antique couches.
She ended up living longer.
That was beautiful. Thank you so much for visiting my site and I hope to hear from you again.