Happen-ness vs Happiness
"Don't happen to live. Live to happen!"
---
There are 6 billion people on Earth. And it's a fair bet that they all want happiness.
You want happiness. I want happiness.
Can I help you achieve happiness? Can you help me?
The problem, of course, is that we don't define "happiness" in the same way. This is why it's often hard for people -- even among friends and family -- to help one another achieve happiness.
Perhaps a better, more practical concept is "happen-ness." The verb "to happen" means "to come into being."
To help someone become happier, then would mean to help that person become who he/she truly is.
Focusing on "happen-ness" as opposed to "happiness" would also drive people to pay attention to the moment: nothing happens in the past or in the future. If anything happens at all, it happens right here, right now.
In other words, at every single moment in your life, you have a chance to be happy. You can be happy one hundred times in the course of a week, if you make sure something "happens" that makes you feel good, that makes someone else feel good, or that brings you closer to your goal.
In the end, happen-ness is a specific form of happiness, whereas happiness is a vague form of happen-ness. Focusing on what is specific is usually better.
This reminds me of what the comedian Lily Tomlin once said: "I always wanted to be somebody. I guess I should have been more specific."
---
There are 6 billion people on Earth. And it's a fair bet that they all want happiness.
You want happiness. I want happiness.
Can I help you achieve happiness? Can you help me?
The problem, of course, is that we don't define "happiness" in the same way. This is why it's often hard for people -- even among friends and family -- to help one another achieve happiness.
Perhaps a better, more practical concept is "happen-ness." The verb "to happen" means "to come into being."
To help someone become happier, then would mean to help that person become who he/she truly is.
Focusing on "happen-ness" as opposed to "happiness" would also drive people to pay attention to the moment: nothing happens in the past or in the future. If anything happens at all, it happens right here, right now.
In other words, at every single moment in your life, you have a chance to be happy. You can be happy one hundred times in the course of a week, if you make sure something "happens" that makes you feel good, that makes someone else feel good, or that brings you closer to your goal.
In the end, happen-ness is a specific form of happiness, whereas happiness is a vague form of happen-ness. Focusing on what is specific is usually better.
This reminds me of what the comedian Lily Tomlin once said: "I always wanted to be somebody. I guess I should have been more specific."
posted by Super Peter at 11:24 AM
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