Does happiness depend on what we feel now, or what we think we feel when we look back at an event? I've been wondering about how life circumstances make some moments seem better retrospectively, like how a death in the family gives new meaning to times spent together. And how some moments are completely destroyed by what happens in the future. e.g. finding out that your perfect relationship never was, because your partner was unfaithful from day one. So what makes that feeling at the time less relevant than what you think about it later on?
There are feelings about what IS happening to you when it happens and memories about what happened before. Both have different ways they affect us so I'd think that we try to think about memories that we want to remember to either enjoy or to not forget so that they don't happen again. Happiness does not have to be brought on by memories but can be attained by what you are doing today. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I'm reading The Reader presently, a few chapters in and I was struck by this notion as presented in the book.
well, when you can't stop smiling isn't that a sign of immediate happiness? i don't believe all good memories are lost by negative events later on... if you have many wonderful years with someone, you love them, and they betray, it is possible to get those memories back. while you may never be able to forgive and it might take some years, it is possible for those memories and that happiness to take on independent significance and value. Well, in my experience anyway.
Yes, but those humans who wrote it only told of what THEY thought brought THEMSELVES happiness because they couldn't tell what other people were thinking about.
There are other factors but I'm confident I'd feel happier now if I'd had more happy experiences and/or less bad. Even if the majority of it was 15 to 25 years ago.
We rely on our memory so much it's hard to know for sure what our feelings were like at the time. What if our memory has been affected in some way?
