Humanity : Pang (Misery)
Misery
Misery is a
feeling of great unhappiness and/or pain.
Happiness
is not something readymade. It comes from your own actions. – Dalai Lama
In this world, there are two types of people: those who choose to be happy, and those who choose to be unhappy.
Contrary to popular
belief, happiness doesn’t come from fame, fortune, other people, or material
possessions. Rather, it comes from within.
The richest person in the world could be miserable while a
homeless person could be right outside, walking around with a spring in every
step. Happy people are happy because they make themselves
happy. They maintain a positive outlook on life and remain at peace
with themselves.
In
the West there is a powerful drive to experience happiness. This tradition
is particularly strong and indeed, it’s difficult to think of anything
more than the pursuit of happiness. But how happy should we expect to be?
Happier than other people around the globe?
Practice negative thinking.
Historically, attitude has been recognized since ancient
times. The Greek philosopher Epictetus observed, “Men are not disturbed by
things, but by the views they take of them.” In the play Hamlet, Shakespeare made
a similar observation when he wrote, “There’s nothing either good or bad, but
thinking makes it so.”
In modern times, contemporary cognitive theorists have focused on emotional assessment have used everyday life events as an explanation of emotional experience. Dr. Aaron Beck, the founder of cognitive therapy, emphasized those cognitive appraisals as the primary determinants of emotional disorders such as anxiety and depression.
a. You change your thinking and you change your feelings.
b. You can create unhappiness by increasing your negative thoughts and decreasing your positive thoughts.
c. Rather than focusing on your possibilities, focus on your limitations.
d. Even better, become a pessimist.
Empirical research has shown that pessimists are more depressed, less healthy, die earlier, and generally get less out of life than do optimists.
In the words of the 19th century philosopher John Stuart Mill, “Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.” Mill’s observation highlights one of the hidden realities of life:
It is in the pursuit of happiness that, paradoxically, we can find unhappiness. From the sacred texts of antiquity to the journals of modern science, there are several themes that have been identified as ways to create more unhappiness and greater dissatisfaction with life. For those seeking to be miserable, these empirical and spiritual texts hold the secrets to unhappiness.
Even
more depressing, studies show that about one out of four people have no one they can confide in.
Causes for Misery
The
average number of close friends we say we have is dropping fast, down
dramatically in just the last 20 years. Why?
#1. We don't have enough annoying
strangers in our lives.
§ Annoyance ,
The
need something to build up tolerance in your life. The more we're able to face
the annoyance out of our lives, the more we're able to handle it.
§ Technology
We've
built an awesome, sprawling web of technology meant to let us avoid be annoyed
by people. Doing shopping online and avoid the fat lady ramming her cart into
you at Target. Spend $5,000 on a home theater system so you can see movies on a
big screen without a toddler kicking the back of your seat in the cinema. Rent
the DVD's from and you don't even have to spend the 30 seconds with the
confused kid working behind the counter at Blockbuster Rental Shop.
§ Conversation
No way we're going to strike up a conversation with the smelly old man in
the next seat. We'll just plug the iPod into our ears and have a text
conversation with a friend or play our DS. Filter that annoyance right out of
our world.
§ Skill
We're
losing that skill, the one that lets us deal with strangers and tolerate their
shrill voices and clunky senses of humor and body odor and squeaky shoes. So,
what encounters you do have with the outside world, the world you can't
control, make you want to go on a screaming crotch-punching spree.
Would
it be awesome if it were actually possible to keep all of
the irritating people out of our life? But, it's not. It never will be. As long
as you have needs, you'll have to deal with people you can't stand from time to
time.
#2. We don't have
enough annoying friends,
either.
§ Shared Life
We
were born into towns full of people we couldn't stand. As a kid, you found
yourself in an elementary school classroom, packed in with two dozen kids you
did not choose and who shared none of your tastes or interests. Maybe you got
beat up a lot.
§ Privacy
As
grown up. And if you're, say, a huge Dragon Force fan, you can go find their
forum and meet a dozen people just like you. Or even better, start a private
room with your favorite few and lock everybody else out. Say goodbye to the
tedious, awkward, painful process of dealing with somebody who's truly
different.
§ Peer
That's
right. Even though they had almost no ability to filter their peers according
to common interests (hell, often you were just friends with the guy who
happened to live next door), they still came up with more close friends than we
have now-people they could trust.
§ Superiority
It
turns out, apparently, that after you get over that first irritation, after you
shed your shell of "they listen to different music because they wouldn't understand mine"
superiority, there's a sort of comfort in needing other people and being needed
on a level beyond common interests. It turns out humans are social animals
after all. And that ability to suffer fools, to tolerate annoyance, that's
literally the one single thing that allows you to function in a world populated
by other people who aren't you. Otherwise, you turn ego. Science has proven it.
The
problem is that peacefully dealing with incompatible people is crucial to
living in a society. In fact, if you think about it, peacefully dealing with
people you can't stand is
society. Just people with opposite tastes and conflicting personalities
sharing space and cooperating, often through gritted teeth.
Yet,
on the whole, people back then were apparently happier in their jobs and more
satisfied with their lives. And get this: They had more friends.
#3. Online company only makes us
lonelier.
§ Eye to Eye
When
someone speaks to you face-to-face, the percentage of the meaning is actually not
in the words, but the body language and tone of voice.
It's 7percent for the words. The other 93
percent is nonverbal, according to studies.
§ Subconscious
The
problem is that human ability to absorb the moods of others through that kind
of subconscious assimilation is crucial. Kids born without it are considered
mentally handicapped. People who have lots of it are called
"charismatic" and become movie stars and politicians. It's not what
they say; it's this energy they put off that makes us feel good about
ourselves.
§ Mood
When
we're living in Text World, all that is stripped away. There's a side effect to
it, too: the absent for the sense of the other person's mood, every line we
read gets filtered through our
own mood instead can cause was an irritable mood and easily offended.
And worse, if I do enough of my
communicating this way, my
mood never changes. After
all, people keep saying nasty things to me! Of course I'm depressed! It's me
against the world!
#4. We don't get criticized enough.
§ Real Critism
Most
of sulks about not having close friends to the missed birthday parties or the
sad, playing single-player games of ping pong with the wall. What dreadful is
the lack of real criticism?
Time
online words like "fag", "knob goblin" and "boring"
is not something new. And none of it mattered, because these are lots of
insults but none it criticized you.
An
insult is just someone who hates you making a noise to indicate their hatred. A
barking dog. Criticism is someone trying to help you, by telling you something
about yourself that you were a little too comfortable not knowing.
§ Real Conversations
Tragically,
there are now a whole lot of people who had
lost have those man conversations. The interventions, the brutal
honesty, the, sort of conversations. Those horrible, awkward, wrenchingly
uncomfortable sessions that you can only have with someone who sees right to
the center of you.
§ Honesty
E-mail
and texting are awesome tools for avoiding that level of honesty. With text,
you can respond when you feel like it. You can measure your words. You can pick
and choose which questions to answer. The person on the other end can't see
your face, can't see you get nervous, can't detect when you're lying. You have
almost total control and as a result that other person never sees past your
armor, never sees you at your worst, and never knows the embarrassing little
things about yourself that you can't control. Gone are the common quirks,
humiliations and vulnerabilities that real friendships are built on.
Browse
around people's MySpace pages; look at the characters they create for
themselves. If you've built a pool of friends via a blog, building yourself up
as a misunderstood, mysterious Master of the Night, it's kind of hard to log on
and talk about how you went to prom and got diarrhea out on the dance floor.
You never get to really be yourself, and that's a very lonely feeling.
#5. We feel worthless, because we
actually are
worth less.
There's
one advantage to having mostly online friends, and it's one that nobody ever
talks about: They demand less from you.
§ Nuisance
Sure,
you emotionally support them, comfort them after a breakup, and maybe even talk
them out of a suicide. But knowing someone in person adds a whole, long list of
annoying demands. Wasting your whole afternoon helping them fix their computer.
Going to funerals with them. Toting them around in your car every day after
theirs gets repossessed by the bank. Having them show up unannounced when you
were just settling in to watch the Dirty
Jobs marathon on the Discovery channel, then mentioning how hungry
they are until you finally give them half your sandwich.
§ SMS
You
now have so much more control in Instant Messenger.
The
problem is you are hard-wired by evolution to need to do things for people.
Everybody for the last five thousand years seemed to realize this and then we
suddenly forgot it in the last few decades. We get suicidal teens and scramble
to teach them self-esteem.
Well,
unfortunately, self-esteem and the ability to like yourself only come after you've done something
that makes you likable.
§ Authentic World
It's
the kind of physical, dirt-under-your-nails satisfaction that you can only get
by turning off the computer, going outdoors and re-connecting with the real
world. That feeling, that "I built that" or "I grew that"
or "I fed that guy" or "I made these pants" feeling, can't
be matched by anything the internet has to offer.
Prescription for misery
a. Focus on progress
rather than problems.
· Psychological research reveals that people
who have an external locus of control over their lives report more unhappiness,
depression, and stress than people who have an internal locus of control.
· We are more likely to be unhappy when we
shift the focus of our attention away from what we can control (e.g., our own
behavior in response to a difficult situation) and focus more on the things we
cannot control (e.g., things that happened in the past or the behavior of other
people).
b. Focus on changing the things you can change
(yourself) rather than focusing on changing the
things you can’t change (others).
· People who are highly successful are, in
large part, more resilient in the face of defeats, setbacks, and
disappointments of various kinds.
· Attitude can define the difference between
problems and progress. An increased focus on your problems can magnify them,
while decreased focus on solutions can help you feel more miserable.
· Rather than looking back on life and
recognizing the challenges that you have overcome, spend more time focusing on
the problems that you have not overcome. Engage in catastrophizing, which means
labeling challenging situations as terrible or horrible.
·
Develop resilience, which refers to a
positive capacity to cope with crisis and to develop new strengths through
adversity, cultivate resentments for the bad things that have happened in your
life.
c. Surround yourself with people who enlighten
you.
· People who are most fulfilled in life
surround themselves with mutually supportive friendships
· Our relationships are like investments that
involve deposits and withdrawals. Healthy relationships seem to make deposits
into our lives, while unhealthy relationships seem to make withdrawals. In
other words, some people build us up, while others tear us down. Some people
bring out the best in us, and others bring out the worst.
· To create happiness in your life, surround
yourself with cheerful people. Get more involved with people who fulfill you,
and avoid people who drain you. Even better, get involved in a good
relationship.
d. Don’t share your expectations with others.
· People who state what they expect from
others, in a clear and direct manner that takes into consideration the rights
and feelings of others, usually have more effective communication with others
· Assertiveness involves a direct, honest, and
appropriate expression of feelings, opinions, or requests. In other words,
assertive people say what they mean, mean what they say, but they don’t say it
meanly. When we talk assertively, we take control of our actions and accept
responsibility for ourselves.
·
In contrast, mind-reading is a cognitive
error that occurs when a person believes that he or she knows the thoughts or
feelings of another person without asking the other person. This cognitive
error can contribute to conflicts in relationships, especially when we don’t
articulate our expectations but instead we expect that others should read our
mind. Unspoken expectations are essentially premeditated resentments, to the
extent that others have no idea how to respond to us if they have no idea of
what we expect in a specific situation.
·
To create more harmonious in relationships,
express your expectations of yourself to others, so that they have some idea of
what you want. In this way, others are almost guaranteed to live up to your
expectations of them.
e. Cultivate a sense of entitlement.
· Those who keep gratitude journals feel
better about their lives, so be sure to ignore any feelings of gratitude if you
want to feel worse about your life. Compared to a control group of participants
who recorded hassles or neutral life events, those who kept gratitude journals
on a weekly basis exercised more regularly, reported fewer physical symptoms,
felt better about their lives as a whole, and were more optimistic about the
upcoming week
· Therefore, to make yourself more happy, decorate
“thank you” in your vocabulary. Cultivate a sense of entitlement and assume
that others in your life will be there to satisfy your needs. When they don’t
meet your needs, focus on your contentment. Compare yourself favorably to
others who have what you do not have. Even better, develop a sense of kindness,
and begin be generous what others have.
f. Be as it is.
· Happiness is more strongly complement with
the number of gratifications events rather than with the volume of satisfying
events.
· In other words, to make yourself miserable,
focus on waiting to win the lottery, rather than enjoying the simple pleasures
of each day.
· Learn to say to yourself, “I would be happy if
only ….” Although surveys of lottery winners reveal that people who win the
lottery tend to have a brief burst of happiness, these happiness bursts last
only for an average of three months before returning to the baseline before
winning
·
Therefore, to make yourself happy, never keep
waiting for the next treasure chest but noticed the smaller delights of each
day.
g. Seek
long-term solutions and expect delay gratification
· The greatest satisfaction and rewards come
to those who develop the discipline to delay gratification while focusing on
long-term goals.
·
On the other hand, some of life’s greatest
frustrations and disappointments come to those who focus on immediate results
and short-term goals.
· If you want to experience greater
unhappiness in life, live in a world of instant gratification: instant coffee,
instant meals, instant love, and instant success.
· Seek delayed gratification of your desires.
Develop a planned, work orientation. Even better, never seek pleasure at all
costs, especially when the short range costs are high.
h. Develop a sense of patience and calm
· In order to make yourself contented, develop
a sense of patience and moderate. Develop calm, plan and to perform every task
meticulously.
· In learning to cultivate satisfaction with
life’s experiences, it equally important to developed mindfulness, which refers
to being aware of the present moment.
· Being mindful of the simple, healthy
pleasures in life develop the character virtue of patience in life.
·
Focus on the here and now to getting to the
future.
i. Spend
more time thinking about others.
·
Engage in rewarding activities that involve
others, consider others, connect yourself, and spending more time thinking others.
· Cultivate your inner self by becoming more contented
and outgoing. Become more benevolent. Even better, develop a sacrificing personality.
· Cultivate the character of humbleness, which means thinking that it’s
all about others. Humbleness can be developed by taking into consideration others
interests while ignoring the interests of yourself. In other words, construct
an identity in which the world revolves around others. For example, the next
time you have to wait in line, consider breaking to the line to allow person with
a special needs.
·
Be loaded the feeling of empathy toward others.
j. Strive
for Wisdom as a character.
· American Psychological Association, Dr.
Robert Sternberg, has observed that some people (particularly corporate
executives) may be susceptible to certain fallacies in thinking because, they
have been so rewarded for their intelligence or other abilities that they lose
sight of their humanity.
· The fallacy of omniscience (all- knowing) involves
the belief that one knows about everything, when in fact one may only know a
lot about a little
·
To create happiness in your life, strive to
be humble. Show the need to learn in from others. To be more wisely in solving
problems than that you are an expert on everything.
k. Say
you’re sorry.
· Research and theological writings have shown
that relationships are enriched by the processes of forgiveness and
reconciliation. The 10th Step of Alcoholics Anonymous reads, “Continued to take
personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.” This step has
been described as “relationship glue” for those who are living a life of
intentionality.
· In contrast, one of the best ways to ruin a
relationship is to never admit when we are wrong. We can hurt others through
acts of commission (things we have done that we should not have done) as well
as acts of omission (things we have not done that otherwise could have helped someone).
·
Focus on the things you have done that have
hurt someone, or the things you have not done that otherwise could have helped
someone, consider making a list of all the things that someone has done to hurt
you.
· Think about what you would like for you to
do to make amends to the other person and takes action to apologies. In order
to create happiness in your life, be sure to apologize when you have hurt or
offended someone.
l. Take
the blame for the problems in your life.
· People who avoid accepting responsibility
for their behavior are more likely to achieve less than those who readily
accept responsibility
· Look at your own contribution to situations
that turn out badly, focus more on the responsibility to the other person. When
things go wrong, notice not what the other person said or did to cause them to
go wrong.
·
Develop a sense of internalization, which
means placing the blame on yourself. Don’t place the blame on someone else, and
take responsibility for your own actions.
m. Give
what you want from others.
· People who are unhappy are also more
selfish, and people who are selfish are also unhappier than others.
· People often feel better off when they spend more
time thinking about others problems, and focusing on helping others with their
problems. There is a strong correlation between health, happiness, well-being,
and compassion
· Therefore, in order to make yourself cheerful,
spend more time caring about other people. For example, the next time you dine
at a fine restaurant, leave a tip. Even better, pay for the meal.
·
In addition to holding on to what is yours,
cultivate the attitude of charity, including loving and trusting. For example, giving
your time by volunteering at a homeless shelter, take a tour of destitute homes
and notice your feelings of empathy.
·
When you see something you like, think of
ways to give so that you will have less
than others. Giving to others, expect none to be given to you.
n. Let
go and forgive others.
· Forgiveness is the process by which we let
go of negative emotions such as anger and resentment. On the other hand,
resentment can be defined as the process by which we hold on to negative
emotions such as anger.
· Resentment is like setting yourself on fire
in the hope that the smoke will bother the other person. The key to harboring
resentments is to hold on to the anger and other negative emotions that are
associated with being hurt or wronged by someone. There is usually an emotional
payoff in holding on to resentment; we get something out of it.
· Forgiveness releases us to the problem to
the person through contentment. This form of emotional giveaway gives us a
sense of gratification. For example, take the initiative to reconcile a small
rift with a friend.
· Reserve grudges and resentments for the big
things in life but learn to harbor resentments for the little things as well.
For example, rather than calling a friend, become angry while waiting for your
friend to call you
o. Hold
on to love and goodwill.
· Psychological research has shown that people
who are angry are more likely to be miserable and they are also more likely to
die early. Sustained hostility with angry outbursts contributes more strongly
to death from heart disease than other well-known risk factors, including
smoking, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol
· Scientific investigators have found that the
ability of the heart to pump blood efficiently though the body dropped
significantly during anger but not during stress or exercise
· To make yourself cheerful, maintain a
seething sense of pleasure in your life. Take responsibility for your own
emotions.
· It is better to be happy than to be right.
Engage in rational reasoning, equating a feeling with reality, will produce
positive emotions. Engage in rational stockpiling, which means keeping apologetic
mental list of forgiving.
p. Live
a more meaningful life.
·
In Man’s Search for Meaning, expanded from
its original title, From Death-Camp To Existentialism, Holocaust survivor and
psychiatrist Viktor Frankl wrote, “Suffering ceases to be suffering in some way
in the moment that it finds a meaning”
· Therefore, to be as elated as possible, it
is important to live a life purpose or meaning. Live with higher values, basis
of principles, actively participating in the world.
q. Allow life of religion and
spirituality.
· A review of the scientific literature
reveals that religiousness is one of the best predictors of life satisfaction.
· According to one Gallup poll, people with
high religious involvement are twice as likely as those without such
involvement to say that they are “very happy”
· Therefore, in order to develop a pervasive
sense of unhappiness, avoid the religious or spiritual side of life. Become
more arrogant, because arrogance is the enemy of spirituality.
·
Follow any spiritual discipline, such as
serving, praying, meditating, or worshiping. If you are a spiritual person,
consider directing your focus to the spiritual.
Excerpt and extracts taken with many
thanks from :
http://www.lifed.com/22-things-happy-people-do-differently
http://www.cracked.com/article_15231_7-reasons-21st-century-making-you-miserable.html
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