Happiness is a disorder

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here we are, the proposal to classify happiness as a psychiatric disorder. Afterall, it meets all of the criteria (is a deviance from the norm, can reduce performance, etc.)
http://www.jstor.org/pss/27717161

I'm very inclined to think this is some sort of a joke.


On the other hand.....while I wouldn't define happiness as a disorder, I am astonished by the fact that billions of people seem quite happy. When pondering the entirety of the human condition, I will never understand how anyone can be happy. Some instances of happiness might be chalked to self-deceit, self-denial and perhaps some evolutionarily-instilled mechanism which keeps the self-preservation instinct intact. "Depressive Realism" seems like a very valid concept to me as a person who has known a few irrational periods of lesser UNHAPPINESS in my life.

But many very happy people seem hyper-aware of how horrible reality and the human condition is and they are ones I REALLY don't get.

Sunny existentialism just seems like a totally empty and unfulfilling worldview to me.

I know Depressive Realism very well. I can't believe someone else mentioned it besides me! God is this Universe connected! Beautiful.

Happiness really doesn't bring down your performance like depression does. I'm not super happy all the time. I'm content and motivated to live my life to the full. Some things can make me very happy but then I become my normal neutral mood again.
Unhappy people don't make good company. Happy people do.

Perhaps happiness can be cured through a volunteer trip to Africa?

I guess I might need to go on meds in the future.

I doubt that. I just became aquainted with the term a few weeks ago after another poster mentioned it. I mean I feel I view things (at least where my own life is concerned) more realistically when i'm depressed, but I never had a name for
it until now.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but I don't think this has anything to do with some "universal connection" of the kind Deepak Chopra proposes with his hijacking of quantum physics.

That proposal was published in 1992.

Sunny existentialism. Love it!! !

But anyway, happiness has been studied pretty extensively by a guy named Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. (Did I spell that name from memory? No I did not. I had to go to my bookshelf to look at the dust cover of his book and see how it is spelled. I can't memorize what is to me a long string of random letters. And I'm ok with that.) In his many books about happiness, he came up with the concept of "flow". This is what happens when a person's abilities more or less match the task they are attempting to do. They are neither overwhelmed nor bored. And they are happy. What he is essentially saying is that happiness is not contingent on either the state of the world or the state of your life. It is actually contingent on what you do. If you are in way over your head and the demands outstrip the skills , you will be unhappy (complicated social situations, on this board). If the demands match the skills, you will be happy (engaging in special interests, on this board).

He was trying to figure out how some people can be happy in what are undeniably horrible situations, such as refugee camps. What he found was the people who were happy were the ones who were able to find something to do- even in that horrible situation- that matched their skills and then they did it. It might be finding ways to distract scared children, it might be scouring the area for sticks to use as firewood. But it is always something.


Happiness isn't a permanent state for anyone. But it is one that can be visited from time to time. But part of that is setting out to do things that match one's skills so that flow can be felt. Flow feels good. But if you set the bar too high and forbid yourself to feel it unless you achieve perfect mastery, you won't feel it and be happy. And if you forbid yourself to feel it because it feels immoral to be happy when Kim Jong Il is imprisoning innocent people and coral reefs are dying, you won't be happy.

I know it sounds like I'm saying "happiness is a choice". It isn't. There is brain chemistry involved too. (There must be, or antidepressents would never work on anyone). You can't choose how you feel. But you can choose what you do. May I suggest an experiment of not focusing on what you think or feel, but try to empty your mind and concentrate only on what you are doing. There is a form of zen meditation (which I often do) which involves focusing on what you are doing. You let thoughts and feelings float through your head but you don't try to catch them or examine them. You just let them float on by and pull your focus back to what you are doing. Worth a try. Works for me.

The Tao of Happiness. It doesn't sound that odd to me. Like anything constrained by time instead of distance (like our lives), there is no destination... only the journey.


M.

I must have a horrible disorder, because I'm getting happier and happier, every day.

Learning that particular zen meditative practice of focusing on what you are doing has been very helpful. I have to remind myself of it from time to time.

I'm one of those ones who is both happy and aware how messed up the world is. I don't know exactly why that is, but my best guess is two things. One, just the fact that my mood doesn't have to be affected by bad things. The two can be separated. The other, just because there are all kinds of problems in the world doesn't mean there aren't meaningful things in the world. I have found that all patterns I notice lead back to one thing (sorry can't be more specific) and it's from that that I end up getting the strength to stay reasonably happy even while aware of the unpleasantness in life.

I don't know that it's any more illogical than being depressed when things are going reasonably well. Which I have also experienced. Mood can be as internally caused as externally, or internally maintained long after the cause is gone. And I am just glad I am no longer incapacitated by depression. It's very hard to do anything about the problems in the world when you are well-nigh immobilized. (Not that I didn't try. But I can get a lot more done without being dragged down by the sense that everything's hopeless so why bother.)

i often think about one of my favorite writers who said that happiness is overrated and that the best things (art and science) came out of pain. when one is giving a big push. he is also against western civilization ideal of a fit bodies and obsession with health and happiness.

my happiness is not affected by whether it is perceived by anyone as a disorder.
if all the world was angry at why i am happy, well... i am happy with that.