To ask whether you’re happy?

[bellinique]

Hello
Sorry if this has been covered before but I have been debating this a lot recently, both with my DH and internally.
My question is: If you were stopped on the street and asked whether you are happy, would you say yes or no?
Obviously this is not very nuanced but I would be really interested in your gut reaction to this question.
I don’t want to add more and make it a leading question because I having differing opinions to my DH but your answers would be very helpful in resolving our debate.
Thanks in advance.

That said, I also believe that you’re only ever as happy as your unhappiest child so whether I stay happy depends on that a bit.

You should never rely on anyone else to make us happy. We can’t control other people’s behaviour, only how we react and respond to it x

Sorry to those posters with bad health or life limiting illness and I also agree about the unhappiest child theory.

I'm happy. Lovely DH, health DD and moving to a new house. Possible career change in the pipe line. Holiday soon. Not much to worry about.

I hope you find happiness in something soon OP

I am happy. I think working for myself from home is the biggest part of it (Being in control of my time rather than the monetary benefit).

I'm happy, and deeply appreciative of my life at the moment even though that life can be really stressful sometimes and we have lots of debt.
Also I have a husband who, whenever he senses I am not happy, would move heaven and earth to try and change that.
We have the approach of, if something isn't working for you then change it. It is worth noting however that so far in life we haven't been presented with anything we can't change, like illness or disability - I'm not so glib to imagine it is solely our approach to life that means we are happy, luck has a LOT to do with it.

Yes, I’m very happy (if occasionally also a bit stressed by juggling the demands of an intensive masters course and a 1 year old!)
I was actually very unhappy for most of my life, had a lot of shit happen and enduring mental illness as a result. Meeting my partner and having my daughter turned it around for me- I feel so so lucky to have my own loving family, it feels like nothing can ever be that bad so long as I have them.

I have to say that I don’t think I will ever truly be happy again to be honest. My brain injury and drug induced involuntary movement disorder has made it unlikely that my brain will work in the ssme way as before 😩😢

I’m sure I will be able to find some appreciation for the wonderful things in my life, but there have been occasions that I have hated the body that I have, and despised myself. If it wasn’t for my DC, I would think on occasions that I wouldn’t want to be here.

‘I’ve too much to stay alive, and not enough to die. I’m just sitting in the middle, waiting.’

Just realised that quote should read:

‘I have too much to die and not enough to stay alive...’

Yes, happy. I don't really enjoy my job atm and I do have really pissed off days, but I'm happy underneath it if that makes any sense?

Yes I am happy. I have DS, great family and friends, a flexi hours job which gives me a great work/life balance. I'm not well off but money isn't that important to me, I have enough money so that we don't struggle which is all that matters.

I'm single as well and I'm happier than I was in any of my relationships. Exh is an involved father so I get the "me time" I need when he has DS.

I am fundamentally happy but if you stopped me in the street I might not be at that moment.

I’d love another baby (not happening and I’m getting old). I miss my dad (he died 7 years ago but it’s sometimes still as raw as if it were yesterday). I feel trapped in job I don’t love (they’re paying for me to do a qualification). There’s too much month at the end of money ( but I’m more secure than ever).

But I’m happy.

No I am not happy. Life has got bad since DH retired. I feel we are travelling along parallel lines that never meet.
It should be the best time ever. No income worries and time to spend together but it's driving me mad.
He is constantly in touch with people [who are OUR joint friends] by text or WhatsApp but usually only tells me about some news a day or so after saying he has just remembered. He could tell me when the message comes in?
I have stopped communicating with him now. He doesn't listen to what I say or says he doesn't remember. We have endless rows about how I am supposed to know what he will remember and what he won't!!! It infuriates me.
We have been married for almost 30 years.

I'm happy although on paper it looks like l shouldn't be.
My dh has bipolar and while he can be stable for a good length he does have some serious set backs. This used to make me dreadfully unhappy.
I learnt l had to live my own life and that no one can make me happy or take my happiness away. I factor in the things l like into my life and consciously do not let them go even if dh is very bad.
I love company so l keep up with my friends, read lots and generally keep contented in myself. Luckily l love my job but will be retiring in a few years so hopefully will continue to be contented then.
I try to be grateful in my life, have great DC although they are grown and obviously have their own lives.

I really have trouble with the emphasis on happiness that's sprung up over the last ten years or so – like it's a birthright and the only thing to strive for.

Happiness is only one of hundreds of emotions I'm capable of – and all of them are valuable to me. I want a full life, where I get to experience all of what it's like to be a person in the world, not just smiling and being joyful.

It's Aristotle's hedonic / eudaimonic happiness thing, right?

There's a lot of of focus on hedonic and immediate happiness in society today, and I'm much more interested in being stretched and fulfilled over a long period of time.

Which I am. Moment to moment I might be 'smily happy' or I might be something else, but if I look at the whole journey I'm on, I'm amazed and humbled and enchanted by it.

Absolutely, yes.

I've said similar on a different thread but on paper my life has definitely got worse in recent years but this is the happiest I've ever been. It's not logical but I just have a contentedness that I didn't have when I was younger and there's a lot of things that I spent years worrying about that I no longer give a shit about.

I am very happy, I would say it’s because I have a lovely family, son still lives at home at 28, he has a good job, he has never given me any issues, love him to bits, my daughter 13 is doing well at school and we get on well most of the time, a lovely DH who loves his family and has the patience of a saint 😊 I have wonderful Mum and Dad who I see every day, enough money to get by but not rich, a hobby that I love which I also have some lovely friends but things change and my life will not always be perfect. It’s hard to be happy if you are constantly dealing with difficult situations, some people cope better than others. I hope one OP you will be happy

I am very happy.
I have clean air to breathe, a working body, children to love. I have shelter, friends, freedom.
Although Brexit is getting me down and my husband drives me mad, I find it impossible not to be happy.
What I find frustrating is my husband being depressed. I find it quite self indulgent that he focusses on his own moods and feelings all day. I think if he concentrated on making others happy he would be happier himself.
I know this is not a sympathetic understanding of depression but I am so tired of him trying to turn our happy family into a reflection of his negativity.
Yes. I am happy.

As I've hit my mid thirties I'm calm and content in a way I never was in my twenties and my moods are far more constant. I agree about the 'unhappiest child' theory, too, though. I think the DC are fortunate that they've inherited a sunny disposition so that their difficult moments tend to be fleeting.

to everyone who is struggling on this thread.

Yes, I'm happy / content most of the time.

Yes, I am happy and whilst that doesn't mean I have a perfect life with no struggles and nothing to complain about, my overwhelming feeling is of happiness.

In general I have a positive mental attitude too which helps with handling the shit that life dumps on my doorstep from time to time.

I really am.

And I think I know why; I’ve had a really difficult life, I’m only in my early thirties but it’s been a rough ride for a lot of the time with something major and horrible happening every couple years since my mid teens. The typical standard stuff I guess, self harm and miserable home environment as a teenager, losing a much loved parent to addiction, incredibly painful family estrangement from my sibling and niblings, a serious chronic pain condition that necessitates morphine every day... bankruptcy in my twenties, a couple of heartbreaks as we all deal with, just been generally a really hard road to claw my way down. Unsurprisingly wound up with clinical depression diagnosed in 2015 which is episodic.

Because of all those things I really REALLY appreciate when things are going well, I’m more resilient and get back up faster when things aren’t going well, I massively appreciate everything good in my life and I really cherish the times when I feel happy cos I know what it’s like to feel so down I didn’t want to exist.

I have an amazing partner, we’re about to close on our first property. I have a career I absolutely love that pays me well, I have enough money now not to have to worry about bills and to be able to save as well (I’ve gone from trying to exist on £8k per year to beyond quadrupling it thanks for my career and qualifications and it’ll continue to rise), I have amazing friends to spend time with who are so cool and interesting and loving, I feel regular near euphoria from music, I’m able to do work that brings some good to the world and for that I feel incredibly fortunate.

I pinch myself all the time for things that others take for granted. Yesterday I was feeling grateful I now have a reliable car to get me around 😂 and the day before I was feeling thankful to be in a country where not only do we have enough water to drink, we have so much we can even swim in it for leisure. I feel so grateful when I have a really enjoyable meal and every time I book a concert ticket without worrying about whether I can afford it. By no means am I remotely wealthy but it sure feels like it after years of hardship.

Depression and grief taught me a lot and I wouldn’t change having been through it for the world. I really would say I’m truly happy. I have almost everything I’ve ever wished for. To have a loving relationship and enjoyable stimulating job and an adequate income and hobbies and friendships and music all feel amazing. I can’t quite believe this is my life sometimes and how I got so lucky as to achieve it, it was hard hard work and I often thought I wouldn’t survive some of the pain I’ve experienced but I wish I could go back and tell my younger self it’d all pay off in the end cos I’m living the life of my dreams now. Which to many people is just a normal average life.

Hope the above didn’t sound braggy it wasn’t meant to. I just feel so happy thinking about how lucky I am. If you’d have asked me a year ago I’d have said no, I hate myself and don’t deserve to exist and although I don’t quite want to be dead I don’t think I deserve to continue living either. Honestly had so many times lasting so long where I’ve just wanted to curl up and cease to be. But when those times come there are things you can do to get through it faster, ways to speed up the healing and work towards a better life. One thing I’ve learned for sure is that nobody is going to come and hand happiness to you on a plate. You have to aggressively protect and fight for it. You have to put yourself at the top of your priority list sometimes and actively work towards being in a better place. I see so many people so beaten down they either can’t take those steps or don’t even realise they’re supposed to because they’ve never developed resilience, which is so sad to see. I tend to see difficult experiences as opportunities in some way, what can I learn from this for the future? Watching my lovely mum slowly kill her self with alcohol taught me that you can’t control another person’s actions and not to kill your self trying to save someone when it’s out of your hands. It also taught me loads about addiction and empathy and I turned that into a career and managed to lift myself out of poverty. It still hurts and it always will but something being painful doesn’t mean there’s nothing you can take from it to keep developing and better yourself.

No, just plodding along. I've had some major life events/changes in the past 2 years which would explain it but I'm not sure I've ever been happy to be honest.