An young being

One of the main factors which affect our happiness is comparison. We always tend to compare with our neighbours, friends, relatives, other country men, aliens etc. in order to rank our own level of happiness. Nowadays we don't even look at the faces of people to judge whether they are happy or not. We mostly interact with other people (except maybe our family) using social networking or mobile phones. We judge how happy others are based on posts with a laughing pose and counting the number of smileys or how they show their faces during video calls. While doing so, we come to the dangerous assumption that everyone in our social world is happier than us. Even the dog posing in the photo is happier than us. What we don't realise is that all these are projections, a human need to show others that we are happy and cheerful. A human desire to not open our worries to others, so that they won't think lowly of us. It's important to realise how deep projections run in our everyday life, especially with regard to happiness. Neighbours always smile when they see you, and you might smile back as well, and there's nothing wrong in doing so. But it is definitely not good for us to have thoughts on how the neighbour is always smiling or seemingly happier more today, "Is it due to his newly bought car? Is it because of the big house he built? Is it because of the expensive jewellery she bought? They are always boasting about it and smiling around it, so definitely they would be happier. I should buy the same things and beat them in the race for happiness. ". If they were really happy, a race for happiness would atleast make sense, but unless we go into their minds or connect some electrodes into their brain, we may never know for sure. But in truth, a race for happiness may never make sense in any circumstances, especially when we try to understand how happiness works and what happiness really is. Are we getting happier and happier everyday when we are doing things more and more that we assume to be increasing happiness? I don't think so. We are always bound by a limit on how much we can be happy or sad, which is determined by various factors, including genetics. Imagine life as a wave, happiness as the peak and sadness as the trough. You can undergo extreme happiness or pleasure for quite sometime, but you will be pushed back to sadness as well to the same degree. So no matter how happy you get, especially due to materialistic pleasures, you will always be pushed towards the opposite spectrum either within days or after a few years. This is popularly known as hedonic treadmill. You can learn to adjust the amplitude of the wave, but it's difficult to make it one sided. When you make it closer to being flat, you will achieve enormous peace, but you might get bored easily. But what is in your hand is the baseline level of the happiness wave. Doing heartful activities such as compassion, gratitude, forgiveness and Unconditional love and combining them with meditation, mindfulness and exercise/yoga can raise the baseline levels to a good extent. This is the simplest explanation for karma, which affects how happy you are based on how heartful you are or how good you are to others. In short, realize that whatever you see outside your self are projections, including those of close family members, and don't make assumptions and comparisons based on them, especially with regard to happiness based on materialistic wealth. This will lead to decrease in your baseline state of happiness. Instead focus on activities that can improve baseline state of happiness such as mindfulness, meditation and heartful activities.

There are different levels of understanding for different levels of people. This post is for those who are trying to be happier. What you say also means that poverty is not something to be eradicated and demonised but something to be accepted. This could very well find agreement with people who understand Spirituality to a greater extent, but it cannot help those who are suffering due to poverty.

This is another example of comparison. Here, I believe you are comparing happiness with the past and worrying about not having it in the present. You can choose either to think about your past memories and feel grateful that you were happy in those days or you can choose to compare that you are not having the same experience in the present. I don't know if you were doing the same, but there are several new experiences you can have now which were not available earlier that can make you as happy as you had it in the past. By comparing, we are not being grateful for what makes us happy right now.

You are speaking about comparison on an absolute scale and I agree that it is a fundamental part of our logical thinking and it's difficult to live without it. But when it comes to happiness, we can very well stop comparing to the people who are better than us and start comparing with ones whom we perceive to be in a worse condition. Such kind of comparison is mental conditioning and I believe it can be minimised, if not eradicated.

Hedonic treadmill is the answer to what's wrong with hedonism.

It requires a great deal of effort to be lazy and not get bored at the same time. So they deserve to be called the heroes!

There are always steps to expand consciousness and I believe realising the role projections play in the comparisons we make is a step towards it. Thank you. Projections are nothing but limiting beliefs that can affect the experience of interacting with others as much as it affects our own happiness. It's always good to have an open mind, no matter what the situation is.

Treat it differently when it comes to evaluating how the environment affects the beings in it and what you can do to improve. Treat it the same when it comes to understanding how God loves every environment with equal love.

If you are poor, aim for a college that is cheaper and within the country.

Take an educational loan and do a course that fetches good jobs as well as that you are interested in. If your parents don't accept, tell your parents that you would work hard to pay back the money in a few years. You can also do part time works while studying.

If God uses a ranking system to rate your purpose's impact, Leo's and other people you mentioned will be making the world 0.0000000000000001% better whereas you will be making it, maybe two or zeroes more or less than that figure. So, it's not really important how much it impacts the society, what is important is that whether you get the happiness out of creating the impact you are envisioning by seeing it in action. If you are saving an ant and looking at it roaming alive because of you, you have created an impact. Mindfully realising how your actions have created impact is more important than the measure of impact in comparison with others.

It's a wonderful thing to do, especially if you are good or passionate in making music. All the best!

The more you build social relationships, the more you will be happy. When you extend your social circle beyond family, religion, country etc. you will be happier since you have more chances of socializing and can form new experiences.

The feeling of flying is truly a marvelous experience, both physically and emotionally! Do it long enough and the leg will disappear from existence for quite sometime.

Humans needn't even have to fly in order to fly. Get a time machine, go forward 100 years, strap yourself in a virtual reality device connected to your brain, and voila! you not only can fly, but do whatever you want in whatever world you imagine. But it simply becomes another kind of porn.

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The problem with horse-human marriage is that the horse cannot give consent. It will be accounted as rape. If the horse develops a good brain and development like humans and wishes to marry a human, then why not?

Definitely something weird. They would wonder why humans are taking so much effort to understand simple things using complicated stuff like maths. And our nerd scientists would wonder how they could imagine something as amazing as Maths as weird!

Yep! Lesson learnt: Don't hug anyone too tight.

The only thing I am sure quantum mechanics proves is that universe can get as complicated as it can to understand if we try using logical mind. But, sure, the mind creating or affecting matter is another interesting theory arrived using the observed mechanisms, but I believe it's way more complicated than it seems, atleast logically.

Noted!

Sounds like an exciting adventure!

But sometimes they come back so hard that they destroy the planet!

Unless there is an alien with a different logical mind. Maybe they would be explaining gravity with light as a language, who knows!

Incense sticks are good if used once in a while, like once in a month, especially if you associate it with something religious. Even a natural perfume can give the same effect. But, if you want to move deeper into Spirituality, you have to learn to break all the associations. Then, the incense stick becomes another experience to love, but nothing special or divine.