Projections vs Reality in happiness

[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.

[Sabth]

I used to be happy when I know only people of my own race. And people. (My own people). It felt like you're being sheltered. With adults. And many more. But the more integrated you are, the more it will be spoilt. 

[An young being]

2 minutes ago, Sabth said:

I used to be happy when I know only people of my own race. And people. (My own people). It felt like you're being sheltered. With adults. And many more. But the more integrated you are, the more it will be spoilt. 

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.

[Razard86]

The mind does this on autopilot. It's not about not making comparisons, it's about understanding that they don't even matter. If your mind didn't make comparisons, you wouldn't know where your body starts and where it ends. All finite strategies...ultimately fail, unless you can create an infinite strategy...its pretty much only as useful as the limit it can expand too.

Edited October 31, 2023 by Razard86

[Lilia]

2 hours ago, An young being said:

Nowadays we don't even look at the faces of people to judge whether they are happy or not.

Good point. 

One thing I've learnt about people is that you never know what's on everyone's mind. The best I can do is to free them of my own projections of what they are thinking and feeling and just let them speak instead.

[An young being]

18 minutes ago, Razard86 said:

The mind does this on autopilot. It's not about not making comparisons, it's about understanding that they don't even matter. If your mind didn't make comparisons, you wouldn't know where your body starts and where it ends. All finite strategies...ultimately fail, unless you can create an infinite strategy...its pretty much only as useful as the limit it can expand too.

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.

10 minutes ago, Lilia said:

Good point. 

One thing I've learnt about people is that you never know what's on everyone's mind. The best I can do is to free them of my own projections of what they are thinking and feeling and just let them speak instead.

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.

[Lilia]

@An young being I think there's great wisdom to the age-old saying: We can only love others up to the degree we love ourselves. 

The more tolerant I become of my own eccentricities, the more tolerant I get of everyone's.

After all, everyone's eccentricities are my eccentricities. As if there is anybody else in this town 

[Razard86]

1 hour ago, An young being said:

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.

And I'm saying that is just some limited egoic strategy that will end in failure. Why? Because it has limits. Your mind going to make comparisons...the only way you were able to disagree with me just now...was because your mind compared what I wrote to what you wrote.

This is the source of all conflict and you aren't turning it off. Without comparison...you literally cannot have your own perspective. There is no growth without comparison. For you to track your individual progress you have to compare it to your previous progress. So literally the only solution is to accept that your mind makes comparisons and just don't take them too seriously. That's all.

[An young being]

18 minutes ago, Razard86 said:

And I'm saying that is just some limited egoic strategy that will end in failure. Why? Because it has limits. Your mind going to make comparisons...the only way you were able to disagree with me just now...was because your mind compared what I wrote to what you wrote.

This is the source of all conflict and you aren't turning it off. Without comparison...you literally cannot have your own perspective. There is no growth without comparison. For you to track your individual progress you have to compare it to your previous progress. So literally the only solution is to accept that your mind makes comparisons and just don't take them too seriously. That's all.

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.

 

[Sabth]

The best kind of happiness that I had as a kid is going for a holiday or a vacation with my cousins and family, and just doing our own things, at hotels and resorts , and it was just a good company. And we're family. That's the best. But as we grew older, we seldom had these vacations anymore. And we grew apart. Idk if we can relive our childhood moment again. Or wether it will be the same. We have grown into adults. 

Just exploring hotels and pools , wake up in the middle of the night, with my sister and fam. Now they are having their own family. We're not exactly the same. Anymore but there are new generations emerging. 

I just like that adventure. 

Edited October 31, 2023 by Sabth

[Razard86]

3 minutes ago, An young being said:

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.

 

.....You cannot stop comparing...comparing will end when your human life ends. The only way for you to even disagree with me...is to compare. No comparison...=Absolute Agreement.

God never has conflict, because God doesn't compare. To compare is to see difference. So the only way to eradicate it...is to be completely indifferent. To be completely indifferent is to not care if you are being strangled, starved, or tortured. Right now you are in fantasy land, but if I dropped you in a warzone all your ideastic thinking would crumble. 

In fact you are demonizing comparison by saying it needs to be eradicated which is literally =selfhatred. This means you hate the fact that you see difference. Ego= selfhatred, bias, be okay with the fact that you are going to carry some selfhatred. 

[An young being]

2 minutes ago, Sabth said:

The best kind of happiness that I had as a kid is going for a holiday or a vacation with my cousins and family, and just doing our own things, at hotels and resorts , and it was just a good company. And we're family. That's the best. But as we grew older, we seldom had these vacations anymore. And we grew apart. Idk if we can relive our childhood moment again. Or wether it will be the same. We have grown into adults. 

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.

[An young being]

3 minutes ago, Razard86 said:

.....You cannot stop comparing...comparing will end when your human life ends. The only way for you to even disagree with me...is to compare. No comparison...=Absolute Agreement.

God never has conflict, because God doesn't compare. To compare is to see difference. So the only way to eradicate it...is to be completely indifferent. To be completely indifferent is to not care if you are being strangled, starved, or tortured. Right now you are in fantasy land, but if I dropped you in a warzone all your ideastic thinking would crumble. 

In fact you are demonizing comparison by saying it needs to be eradicated which is literally =selfhatred. This means you hate the fact that you see difference. Ego= selfhatred, bias, be okay with the fact that you are going to carry some selfhatred. 

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.

[Sabth]

4 hours ago, An young being said:

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.

Now that you've said this, I wonder if such things can exist. Will I be happier? There is something like a language barrier. In the end, I would feel limited. And always be in control. 

I wonder if I can be happy. 

The other kind of happiness is when I meet people (a batch) who are my age. To make it right, they are my junior by one year in university , because I enroll with people who are one year older than me, but when I failed my core subject, I joined these junior batch who are one year below me. But we're same aged. And what I realized was, they reminds me of my cousin. So I treated them the way I treat my cousins. It felt like a playmate. And we do travels together to make out project. Every semesters. So it was double the fun. So I had these , like a reliving my childhood memories, with a different groups of people who are alike. So we click like that. This is the second time that I was repeating this pattern. But our relationship didn't last. Till we meet again. 

So I wonder if there are a group of people whom I can be like this again. It's precious. And it couldn't be just anybody. 

*I'm gonna show a little sneak peak of it a lil bit . But I'm gonna delete it soon *

Nah. I'm gonna delete it.

 

Edited October 31, 2023 by Sabth

[An young being]

5 minutes ago, Sabth said:

 So I wonder if there are a group of people whom I can be like this again. It's precious. And it couldn't be just anybody. 

Memories can indeed be precious, but your don't have to look for the same experience to attain the same level of happiness. You could go on a tour with your friends or family or something else like that and achieve the same level of happiness that you attained before. Our memories can delude us into thinking that we were the happiest in the past and we can never get the same happiness by any means, but it's not true.