Cynical view of happiness.

[SteveII]

Key to happiness is contentment and contentment is a choice.

If someone punched me in the face I'd feel discontent. Not out of choice but a natural inherent physical reaction to pain and an emotional reaction to a physical assault that's common on most healthy humans.

Your immediate reaction to getting punched in the face would not have bearing on your overall happiness or contentment. Being in pain has nothing to do with it. Being bitter, holding a grudge, getting revenge, etc. would all affect your overall contentment and therefore happiness.

[paulpablo]

If someone punched me in the face I'd feel discontent. Not out of choice but a natural inherent physical reaction to pain and an emotional reaction to a physical assault that's common on most healthy humans.

Your immediate reaction to getting punched in the face would not have bearing on your overall happiness or contentment. Being in pain has nothing to do with it. Being bitter, holding a grudge, getting revenge, etc. would all affect your overall contentment and therefore happiness.

Being in pain can definitely affect my happiness.
That makes sense in a biological evolutionary way, physical pain is your body's way of saying I'm going to send this feeling of severe discomfort to you so that you don't do that again.
I'm not saying people in pain can't laugh or be happy but it has a definite affect on your happiness without doubt.
If being in pain caused no discomfort and was easily ignored to the point of easily feeling contentment and well being while being burned that would be dangerous for the human body.

Say if you were to do a poll of the the happiness of every person who was on the rack (old english torture device) I think all of them would be unhappy, pretty much purely because of the pain of being stretched til you hear your tendons snap, or maybe it's the muscle or bone that snaps first I can't remember.

[paulpablo]

The trough is when you don't have the perfect print or you fail in achieving it. It's also when you discover people haven't accomplished something they want to accomplish. And when you have some old jeans and shoes.
The peaks are achieving the perfect print, helping others achieve goals, buying new clothes.

If you had someone else or a machine constantly provide a perfect print and there was no challenge it and you were used to this all your life you would just become accustomed to automated unchallenging perfect print without much feeling of joy I imagine.

I imagine it's similar to the experience of being a hunter gatherer vs a constant fast food consumer.
If you constantly have fast food, it's not even a treat for you anymore, you just pay the money and it's there on demand and that's what you're used to then you will be annoyed when your fries are 4 minutes late.
Whereas a hunter will be ecstatic upon finally getting his kill even if it takes hours and they still have to prepare the kill later.
This isn't a scientific universally true example, I'm sure there are hunters who think I wish I didn't have to go through all this and there was a McDonalds around here. But I think the general premis is right, that people generally don't appreciate what they take for granted and happiness is peaks and troughs.
It could also be that you're viewing someone else's perceived trough while you're on a peak which makes you happy and appreciate what you have.

Well, maybe. I had a shitty last couple of days, yet there were moments of happiness that helped push through it. But, it is not like I was struggling to find those moments of happiness. They just happened during those shitty days.

What were the moments of happiness?

[SteveII]

Your immediate reaction to getting punched in the face would not have bearing on your overall happiness or contentment. Being in pain has nothing to do with it. Being bitter, holding a grudge, getting revenge, etc. would all affect your overall contentment and therefore happiness.

Being in pain can definitely affect my happiness.
That makes sense in a biological evolutionary way, physical pain is your body's way of saying I'm going to send this feeling of severe discomfort to you so that you don't do that again.
I'm not saying people in pain can't laugh or be happy but it has a definite affect on your happiness without doubt.
If being in pain caused no discomfort and was easily ignored to the point of easily feeling contentment and well being while being burned that would be dangerous for the human body.

Say if you were to do a poll of the the happiness of every person who was on the rack (old english torture device) I think all of them would be unhappy, pretty much purely because of the pain of being stretched til you hear your tendons snap, or maybe it's the muscle or bone that snaps first I can't remember.

You can be in constant pain (say from an ailment) and still choose to be content and therefore happy. So I still think pain (or lack thereof) is not a component to happiness, contentment is.

EDIT: Being content about torture is unreasonable. Therefore no happiness.

[robvalue]

I really don't agree you can choose to be content.

Why would anyone choose not to be? I wish I could feel content. It's pretty rare that I do.

[paulpablo]

Being in pain can definitely affect my happiness.
That makes sense in a biological evolutionary way, physical pain is your body's way of saying I'm going to send this feeling of severe discomfort to you so that you don't do that again.
I'm not saying people in pain can't laugh or be happy but it has a definite affect on your happiness without doubt.
If being in pain caused no discomfort and was easily ignored to the point of easily feeling contentment and well being while being burned that would be dangerous for the human body.

Say if you were to do a poll of the the happiness of every person who was on the rack (old english torture device) I think all of them would be unhappy, pretty much purely because of the pain of being stretched til you hear your tendons snap, or maybe it's the muscle or bone that snaps first I can't remember.

You can be in constant pain (say from an ailment) and still choose to be content and therefore happy. So I still think pain (or lack thereof) is not a component to happiness, contentment is.

I previously said I'm not arguing that all pain completely overrides happiness.

I'm arguing that outside stimulus, including pain, CAN override a persons choice of being content, happy, state of well being.

So to say "Your immediate reaction to getting punched in the face would not have bearing on your overall happiness or contentment. Being in pain has nothing to do with it."

Regarding the "Pain is nothing to do with it" part, I think is wrong.  I think pain is an outside stimulus that CAN have everything to do with a persons happiness.

I've taken ecstasy before, and from my experience it's quite difficult to choose to be sad while the drug is taking its effect on the dopamine and serotonin levels of the brain.  I imagine if you win the lottery while having an orgasm, while on this drug, it would be nearly impossible to choose to be feeling a bit down (unless other outside stimulus was in effect)

At the other end of the spectrum I imagine it's difficult, maybe even impossible, to choose to feel content while having your flesh burned.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__5WX9s8W9g
Unless you're British. ( I saw this on one of Rob Values posts and needed an excuse to post this one up again)

[paulpablo]

Being in pain can definitely affect my happiness.
That makes sense in a biological evolutionary way, physical pain is your body's way of saying I'm going to send this feeling of severe discomfort to you so that you don't do that again.
I'm not saying people in pain can't laugh or be happy but it has a definite affect on your happiness without doubt.
If being in pain caused no discomfort and was easily ignored to the point of easily feeling contentment and well being while being burned that would be dangerous for the human body.

Say if you were to do a poll of the the happiness of every person who was on the rack (old english torture device) I think all of them would be unhappy, pretty much purely because of the pain of being stretched til you hear your tendons snap, or maybe it's the muscle or bone that snaps first I can't remember.

You can be in constant pain (say from an ailment) and still choose to be content and therefore happy. So I still think pain (or lack thereof) is not a component to happiness, contentment is.

EDIT: Being content about torture is unreasonable. Therefore no happiness.

It's unreasonable to be content about torture because of the amount of pain you will be in.

[SteveII]

I really don't agree you can choose to be content.

Why would anyone choose not to be? I wish I could feel content. It's pretty rare that I do.

Is it that your desires are beyond your ability to achieve? If so, adjusting your desires to achievable levels should result in contentment. In addition if you are not content with the choices you are making (you know you could/should do ____ better), that would be a barrier to happiness.

[robvalue]

I'm suicidally depressed. If you're going to tell me I should just choose not to be, then I think you need to do some more research.

You can work towards the states of mind you mention, but you can't flip them like a switch. Sometimes you can't flip them at all.

[SteveII]

I'm suicidally depressed. If you're going to tell me I should just choose not to be, then I think you need to do some more research.

You can work towards the states of mind you mention, but you can't flip them like a switch. Sometimes you can't flip them at all.

I would not say such a thing. Depression is an entirely different matter and a therapist should help you work through those issues. All my comments were geared toward people without special circumstances like that (so my opinion hasn't changed).