Is it selfish to seek happiness?
No.Before i answer your questions, let me tell you a little about selfishness.In simple being selfish is making one’s own self (profit and pleasure) without considering others. Aren’t we all selfish? - Not all, but most of them.Quick PicYou get what you give, when you seek for happiness - give it to the people who needed it the most.I have come across this video of a little girl talking about food and not eating animals ("I Won't Eat Animals," Girl Tells Her Mother), lets race it - People kill animals to eat and when animals do the same to humans, we all hate it. That’s being selfish - Too hard to accept it but yes it is.Now, let’s talk about Happiness - Tenali Raman one of the greatest poet from India knows and explained how to observe happiness.- - -Enjoying the gentle sea breeze, lying on a hammock, Tenali Raman’s friend wore a dreamy broad smile on his face.Tenali : “Why are you smiling all by yourself?”Friend : “I’m thinking of the day when I will be truly happy”.Tenali : When is that?Friend : When I can have a house of my own by the sea, a comfortable car, a healthy bank balance, get married to a pretty girl, have four sons, get them educated so that they get a good job, earn a lot of money, and…Tenali (Interrupting) : I get the picture, but what will you do after all that?Friend : Then I can simply put up my feet and relax and enjoy the gentle breeze and the sun on my face.Tenali : But my friend, you are doing that now itself – without having to do all that hard work!- - -“Happy people plan actions, they don’t plan results.” - Dennis WaitleyOne last thought - If you see happiness in money, you are being selfish.I feel so good to write this on Quora.
Why don't you seek happiness?
Why don't you seek happiness?Oh, but I do! As a matter of fact, we all do!You might say all humans are ‘hard wired’ to seek happiness.The trouble is that human happiness is thought a different thing by different people. The criminal thinks happiness lies in his ill gotten gains; the sensualist in pleasure; the glutton in food; etc.Only after a careful mental assessment do we realise that aiming at true happiness is already there within us. But few listen to that small, still, voice! And few learn from their mistakes! Thinking this or that will make us happy, and discovering that it doesn’t, ought to teach us that happiness lies elsewhere. But few learn, continuing to seek the same kind of thing!These days we often hear of a Moral Compass. An interior something that points us in the right direction. But few listen! Hopefully we will join those few!Ultimately we learn that happiness, though difficult to attain, is conforming ourselves to reality, thus gaining moments of true happiness in this life. But because it’s so often brief and even momentary, our final happiness will be eternal; can only be the uninterrupted ‘vision’ of GOD!
Do people seek happiness?
This question ultimately asks how we define happiness, and is somewhat tautological. If we were to define happiness as something we did not seek, meaning that it is undesirable or something else is preferable, then wouldn't we just call that thing happiness instead?We certainly may not always seek happiness effectively, but it is ultimately the underlying motivator in healthy human behavior.See my answer to What defines happiness? for a detailed breakdown of how to think about happiness in terms of three key concepts: Pleasure, Flow, and Meaning. I think these three components are quite clearly things that most people do seek, though to varying degrees and in different ways.If you're interested in the question of how humans go about seeking happiness, I highly recommend reading Daniel Gilbert's Stumbling on Happiness (http://www.amazon.com/Stumbling-...). He details some ways in which humans routinely make poor decisions, due to psychological mistakes we make reasoning about how happy things may make us in the future, or how we felt about things in the past.Some other outstanding books on the topic, all based upon psychological study rather than self-helpy preaching, are:Jonathan Haidt's Happiness Hypothesis (http://www.amazon.com/Happiness-...)Tal Ben-Sharar's Happier (http://www.amazon.com/Happier-Le...)Martin Seligman's Authentic Happiness (http://www.amazon.com/Authentic-...)Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's Flow (http://www.amazon.com/Flow-Psych...)
If I don't know what true happiness is, how can I seek it?
If I don't know what true happiness is, how can I seek it?From Tao Te Ching:The greatest crime is to have too much desire.The greatest disaster is not to find contentment.The greatest mistake is to desire for endless possession.Hence, when one is gratified with self-contentment, True contentment can then long endure.True happiness means different things to different people. One person might say “being filthy rich”, another might say “to recover from my serious illness”. So really we define our own happiness. And we really can decide what happiness means to us.If you want to find out what your idea of happiness is, it’s probably something that will come to you over time or something you already know the answer to deep down. Meditation can help a lot on this journey.I spent about a year trying to understand what I needed to be happy, meditating every day. In the end I realised that what I wanted wasn’t happiness, I just wanted to be content. When I was content with my life, I became happy by default.Your own happiness is something that only you can discover - nobody can truly teach you.So to answer your question, I would suggest based on my own experience that you meditate and try to think carefully about the question you are asking, rather than trying to find the answer. I would also recommend reading Tao Te Ching (the book I quoted at the top).Of course you don’t have to meditate and read Taosim books, you could pray and read the Bible instead; in the end I think whichever path you take you will end up in the same place.Good luck!
Why does everyone seek happiness?
The proposition that everyone seeks happiness is a tautology. "Happiness" is the feeling one experiences when one gets what one wants. Becoming happy is, therefore, equivalent to getting what one wants. So the question of why people seek happiness is equivalent to saying "why do people want what they want?", which is, in fact, different for different people. To say they are all seeking happiness is redundant - if they seek at all, they are seeking happiness, by definition.
Happiness is where we find it but rarely where we seek it. what does that quote means?
To me, it means that happiness is something unexpected. We don't always know what will REALLY make us happy. You may THINK that you know what will make you happy, but sometimes when you get it, it doesn't. Then there are other times when you are not looking for happiness, and have no expectations, and those are the things that sometimes make us the happiest!
Why do we seek happiness so strongly?
We seek happiness so strongly because we seek for ourselves so strongly. Happiness comes easy to a child, but as you grow up there is a growing sense of having lost something you’ve always had, yourself.A wise person once said thatwe’re not homesick to a certain place, we are homesick to a way of being.And that way of being is yourself. And the further away you are from yourself, the more strongly you will seek happiness.One of the first things we do when we realize that we are ‘far from home’, is to start looking for directions. Society, friends, family provide a lot of directions, but as most people are lost themselves, their directions take us even further away from ourself, not closer. Prestige, status, beauty, financial freedom, bigger cars, bigger homes are all things that everyone tells us will make us happy.What we realize however is that no matter how much we follow these directions, no matter how much we indulge in pleasures (things external to ourselves), they don’t bring us lasting peace, and we aren’t any happier.That’s when think that going the opposite direction will take us home. So we run away from society and all its demands and delusions, we starve ourselves of all pleasurable things of the world, to just sit quietly and breathe.If we are lucky we realize that home is everywhere, home is where the heart is, it’s just that for so long you haven’t been in touch with it.You also realize that there’s nothing inherently wrong with cars, boats, houses, wines, jewelry, penthouses and Kobe beef - as long as you don’t take them for directions home. These are just roads of life that lead nowhere, but with scenery and vistas that you may enjoy. After all, your home is in your heart, and your heart belongs fully immersed in the world where it can do some good, not away from it.
Why won't people seek happiness when they know they are miserable?
They don’t? How can you know that?I’m sure that many things I did when I was miserable (or do when I am miserable) don’t look like happiness seeking, but I can assure you that I am desperately wanting happiness. I just don’t know how to get what I want.Like right now, I’d love to be talking to someone who I felt really understood me and actually cared about me. Someone who would stick by me and maybe even could be said to love me. If I found such a person. it would make me pretty happy. If there isn’t such a person in my life and no prospects for anyone like that, I’m going to continue to be pretty miserable.I’m doing everything I know how to do to invite such a person into my life, but I can’t make them show up. I run out of energy. I fall into despair. I don’t get out of bed. I don’t get dressed. I don’t eat. I know I should get out and get exercise and meet people, but I just can’t get myself to do these things. I’ve been doing a lot of those things, but today and this week, it’s just become too much. I only have so much energy to keep on trying and this week, I just don’t have it. All I can do is sit here and write.If you look at me, you’ll think I’m doing nothing. Or maybe you’ll think writing on Quora is doing something (it isn’t) and you’ll think I’m not seeking happiness. You’ll have to trust me when I say I’m doing everything I can right now. But getting out of bed to sit in front of the computer is as much as I can do, today. Writing answers to questions is as much as I can do, and mostly I do it for the illusion that I am connecting with people, and that people might care about what I have to say, even though I don’t see anyone and don’t interact with anyone in the real world. I know this is an illusion, but it’s also the best I can do right now. I’m sorry if it doesn’t seem like anything. It doesn’t seem like anything to me, either.
Seek not happiness too greedily, and be not fearful of happiness.?
If you seek happiness greedily it means you want it all for yourself and haven't yet realized that you can't be happy at someone else's expense. It also may mean you hold onto *things that MAKE you happy* rather than seeking happiness itself. If you are fearful of happiness it means that when you actually manage to get somewhere in your life that is happy you start to worry and get conflicted, perhaps because you believe that you don't deserve it. Fear is the common denominator in both thoughts - in the first you fear that happiness can be taken away from you, whilst in the second you fear that you shouldn't have it. So the message here is, watch out for these simple ways in which you might be depriving yourself of happiness, through your own fear.
Can you really buy happiness with money?
I don't believe you can either. Money can take away some stress, which will make you a little bit happier, but true happiness comes from your heart, not your wallet.