Saturday, June 27, 2009

What am I: Synthetic Happy or Cotton?

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The traffic on the road never ends where I reside. If it is summer then it gets busier no, busiest starting very very early hours. As you imagine it becomes almost impossible for me to sleep till late hours. When I was having my iced-coffee early this morning I captured this view from my balcony. How lovely framed beauty, isn't it?! A peugeot cabrio as I ever imagined, and a wonderful pink geranium happily dancing and hanging from its bed. Wish I could have both of them, but only geranium I've got. Story begins at this point...



to make shopping

to meet our loved one

to become rich
to success

to get married

to have kids

to be beautiful

...and even
to be healthy.


According to the latest research, that is the list above which do NOT make any contribution in our happiness.

Who could say it...

Who could know it...

but in fact we all know very well to be happy with anything what we have got at hand.

And, it is stated in the research that happiness is a constant. It is unrelated with anything to gain, to consume, to meet, to have, to get around. Psychologist Dan Gilbert says that "Because of our immunity system, being human we can be happy in both situation when we even have the things that we wanted to much, or when we lost them." He calls this as "Synthetic Happiness" that is as real and pure 100% as "Cotton Happiness".

Let's take an example.

You are again and again happy -no matter if you've got or not, a pair of lovely shoes, award, etc. We always make our own set up to be happier in another future. But it can't be easily said that we would be much more happy when that day arrives, doesn't it? In other words, there is no such a (specific) day. What we do is that we always cancel ourselves for the satisfaction of other day not coming, yes maybe a day not coming easily and probably it will never come. In this way we fall behind.

From this Saturday morning following questions placed in my mind, waiting to be discussed;

are those happier who have no two ways about it?

if we are selective, then we consume less and less run out. Is it?





3 comments:

  1. Hi Nihal!

    There's a contrast in that pic that I like: the traffic and that beautiful pink geranium. Cars and traffic together with beautiful nature.

    Hapiness is so ephemeral, indeed. My philosophy is to live the 'now and here' and enjoy our moments of happiness as much as possible. Not asking for too much, accepting what we have, not being too demanding to reach our goals...

    Take care!

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  2. I firmly believe we must make our own happiness in our here and now. Waiting for something to make you happy has the potential for never occurring. We never know what the next second has in store for us.

    That doesn't mean that we shouldn't have goals or anticipate what is coming. We just must live in the moment in a way that prepares us for what is to come.

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  3. Nihal, what a brilliant picture!
    I agree with the list of the research except for "to meet our loved one": I think this could make us happy (at the moment). However, it's very hard to describe the real essence of happiness (if happiness exists), which may have many different facets.
    Have a good week ahead!

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