FunkySkunky

I have come to realize exactly what makes me unhappy most of the time. It's so simple that I can't believe I overlooked it for so long.

My thought basically consisted of the realization that I, like most people, place events in my life on a spectrum of good and bad. For illustrative purposes, say you find 5 dollars on the ground; this is a good event that most people would place on the low end of the spectrum (say a "goodness rating" of 1 or 2 out of a possible 5). This general scheme for rating these events is flawed, and this is why: To think about events on this "spectrum" requires that each event (most of the time) may be surpassed in goodness by another event that we perceive as "better". But if we were not to think about events as "good, better and best" we could think of events as just one of two things: good and bad. This would eliminate our desire to experience "better" things and we would simply be content with any "good" thing, no matter how small or how large its impact.

This concept works conversely with "bad" events. If we were to think about all bad events as just bad events, then some days, some weeks, some years could be unbearable. This is why most people repeat the phrase "it could be worse" when something bad happens.

It is true that most of the time it could be worse and it helps to rest the mind when you can be thankful that the event was only moderately displeasing. But it's always nice to experience something good and not have to yearn for something better. Ultimately, when I am unhappy, it is because I don't utilize the philosophy I have mentioned here. Anyone else feel this way? Any thoughts?

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Durden

That is very true, and I admit I've been guilty of labeling the pile up of small bad things as overwhelming a bit too often. Lately I've been trying a new more positive mentality that's similar.

For example yesterday was a great day because even though my mp3 player broke, I was stuck at school for 8 hours writing midterms that were so draining and stressful, and my ex-girlfriend was being a huge jerk...I met up with two of my friends at the local bar, went out and smoked later from one of their home made bongs, and just hung out playing pool and video games we used to play as a kid. That end of the nights "positive rating" or whatever you want to call it overshadows all the bullshit of the day.

It's all about perspective. We respond emotionally and even physically to our mind and perception of things. Like the sociologist Cooley said, how we feel is determined by how we actively filter and perceive our interactions with people and objects in our environments.

I know I'm high when I'm talking sociology...

FunkySkunky

Haha Indeed you have quoted one of the greats and you've effectively summed up my three paragraph post in just one sentence. Well done haha I was much too high to convey my point with such precision...

Anyway, that night sounds like a perfect example. All of those stresses that just seem to keep piling up... sometimes I think about how overwhelming it is and literally laugh out loud because if I don't I fear I'll never laugh again haha. I love it when something small like a nice night out with good friends, doing seemingly everyday things can put it all right back into perspective for you. Thanks for sharing Durden... and if your name is a reference to Fight Club, then someone has been breaking the first two rules of Fight Club... hahaha

o_t00high_o

I get what you're saying. I'll often do similar things. Like say I get pulled over and get a ticket, I'll just say "Well, least they didn't find the weed in my pocket."

smonjiff121

This is a quote from my favourite book of all time, "The Count of Monte Cristo".At the end of the book, the count says:

"There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, noting more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness."

That line always resounded in my mind, and I like to keep that in mind when I'm going through anything tough: the good times that I will have afterwards will be made much better by what I am going through now.
It's like, if you spend all of your life high, then marijuana becomes..... meh. But if you keep the experience as something to look forward to, then it will always be great.

However, back to the original post. I think that only two states of "good" and "bad" is a great idea, but there are always shades of grey.

blondie0420

I think it's natural to organize and rank certain events/things in our life as "good, better, best" or "bad, worse, worst."

I mean, suppose your $400 car payment is due next week and you're flat broke and not expecting to get another paycheck for two weeks. If you find $5 on the ground, you'd probably think that was good. But, if that $5 bill was a $50 bill, you'd probably think that was even better. Finally, if you bought a $1 scratch ticket and won $400 on it, you'd think that was the best.

On the other end, if you've been dating someone for a week and a half and he says, "Let's just be friends," that's not too bad. But if you've been with him for a few years and he says, "I cheated on you once," that's a whole hell of a lot worse. Finally, if he drunkenly confesses that he's been fucking your best friend for the past six months, I'd say that's the worst.

Obviously, certain things/events are going to seem a lot worse than those that only minorly affect you. And those good things that tend to be life-changing or completely fantastic once-in-a-lifetime opportunities tend to feel a lot better than finding a quarter on the sidewalk.

I mean, do you really think if the best thing to ever happen to you was finding a dollar on the ground or getting an extra cookie with your sandwich that your overall happiness is going to compare to the people who win million dollar jackpots or get into their first-choice ivy-league schools with full scholarships? It wouldn't. And no amount of classifiying into the generic "good" category is going to make you feel as good as the things you'd throw into the "best" category if you had one.

I'm not trying to say that money buys happiness or that you can't find joy in the little things in life, all I mean is, the truly spectucular and extraordinary things that happen to you really do make you feel spectacular and extraordinary. Furthermore, it's perfectly natural to want to rank those things really high on your happiness scale. Winning $250,000 will tend to make you feel really great compared to winning just $25. And unless you're some sort of a millionaire or saint, why wouldn't it make you feel that way?

When bad things happen, of course we want to say things like, "Well, they could be worse." What other choice do you have? No one purposefully takes life's little setbacks and throws them in the same category as things like the death of a close friend or family member. And no one wants to look at the really bad things that happen to them and say with complete certainty, "Well, fuck me, this is the absolute worst it could possibly get!" You'd lose all hope.

I think your theory is really nice, but in practice, I just don't think it would hold up.

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FunkySkunky

Yeah I agree. I think ultimately what I was trying to achieve was an understanding of our need to place these things on the "spectrum"; I'm not sure that I was really attempting to practice the theory. I totally agree that it's not desirable to put "finding a quarter on the ground" in the same lump category as "death". Ultimately, I know that the spectrum scheme is imperative to the way we perceive the world and the thread was more of an attempt to generate a theoretical alternative. However, you are correct that in practice, it doesn't quite hold up. Anyone else have some ideas? Thanks for all the responses so far!

blondie0420

Sorry. I kind of attacked your theory and said it couldn't be put into practice when you weren't even saying it was supposed to be used that way. I feel kind of bad now.

I took an Ethics course once (in the Philosophy Department, of course) and we talked a lot about good and bad, happiness and unhappiness. I think it was Socrates (or maybe Aristotle...I took this course two years ago) who said that the best life was, basically, a happy one and that the ultimate goal of living should be to attain happiness. Now that I've re-read your post, it reminded me a little about that.

Funnily enough, at one point, the professor asked the class the following question: if you could use a drug that produced a euphoric feeling (like opium - sorry, not trying to go offtopic here) with no physical side effects (it wouldn't shorten your life span in any way) - would you rather use that all the time or live a normal life - regular ups and downs and all. I was the only person to say I'd choose the life of taking the euphoric drug. I thought that was strange that no one else would even consider it.

Zocalo

I say this:

Good exists, just like digits 1-9 exist. Also, there's neutral, which is digit 0.

If we do a little thinking...can you have nothing? yes, can you have 1 of something? 2, 3, 4, etc? Yes...can you have -1 of ANYTHING (debt is mathematical)??? NO!!!

Conclusion. There's no bad, just normal, and I'm stoned.

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macphearsome

Personally I don't think I would feel any benefit from adopting such a psychology. Exploring new perspectives is always a good thing, and you're certainly doing yourself good by engaging with the way that you are affected by the events in your life.

That being said, I like to keep my worldview dynamic, and accept things as they come on a day-to-day basis. I don't want to waste time trying to classify the events in my life as though they were outside of my control. I prefer to spend my time and energy placing myself in control of the events, and placing myself in control of my responses to them. I don't like adopting static relationships to events in my life - neither "this is good but that would be better" or "this is good and can only be seen as good" are sufficient categorization methods for me. For me, there can only be "well this has changed my circumstances and it is my responsibility to benefit from or deflect the consequences"

the key is self-efficacy. The more we try to define and quantify the events in our life, the more we make ourselves susceptible to a dangerously objective view of the events in our life, and the more we jeopardize our subjective control over our own emotions and behavioural patterns.

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"What if I want more than the pale facsimile of fulfillment brought by a parade of ever-fancier toys? To spend my life restlessly producing instead of sedately consuming? Is there an app for that?" - xkcd

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