Are you happy?

[sweetheart]

About the pursuit of happiness, a snap poll, "Are you happy?"

If something were different, would you be happy then?
And what is that thing?

[Ron Green]

1. Oboy, I'm the first one to vote, and I voted "yes!"

[meganmonkey]

2. All things considered, I am happy

on a personal level. :)

[dmkinsey]

3. I'm generally not disposed

toward happiness.
I think I'm happy-deficient

[Coyote_Bandit]

4. Personally I'm content but

I am a long term well educated but unemployed schmuck. As a single person rapidly depleting my savings that is a matter of significant concern and worry.

I have 10 years of college, 3 graduate degrees, 2 professional licenses. I'm female, over 40, single (which here in the armpit of the Bible belt fundie world means I certainly must be lesbian), neither drop dead gorgeous or particularly religious, and I live in crazy red f*cking JOklahoma. I'd love to relocate but that doesn't really seem to be in the cards right now. I'm thinking of putting my apparently worthless education to good use and learning to groom dogs. Seriously. Maybe then I'll have a bonfire and burn my diplomas and licenses. It is all very depressing.

[Nimrod2005]

27. OK must be one very sad place, with your degrees, why don't

You apply for jobs in cool places, let the company pay for your move, and get the hell out. Three degrees and Oklahoma do not go well together, IMHO.

[Coyote_Bandit]

40. Thank you

I most definitely am continuing to look for work elsewhere. But the response so far is something resembling nonexistent. Patience and persistence - yes, I know.

[sweetheart]

28. Put on your wandering shoes

Pray to leave oklahoma. In your most sincere heart of hearts, a deep
place you "can't" tell anyone else about its so deep and private,
pray to get out of a place of such tyrrany. Minneapolis is but a
trainride away, or san francisco, where someone like you would be
appreciated.

Don't burn it. That is the voice of the demons. They want to
disenfranchise you, a middle aged woman, and make you poor so you'll
have no choice but to accept their imposition. It is upsetting to
read your post, *i hurt*, that womans equality is a long way from
the words to the options of life.

I had a friend once, who was an exotic dancer in south dakota and
general cocktail waitress topless and such, because it was the only
way she could make a fair living not having the degrees you have.
I'd wager that there are even some nations that would accept you as
a skilled immigrant where you will be treated with great respect.

But certianly there are some states with a slightly less stone-age
vibe... the route-9 womens-lib vibe of old massichussets is great for
women, from boston to amherst. Boulder, SF Bay Area, Chicago, all
much more respecting of women.

Thank you for writing such a sincere response. It is so beautiful
your spirit in that suffering, a life reflected in poetic holograph.

Many good vibes to you. Luck is yours for being so good hearted.
Youa re certainly no shmuck.

namaste,
-s

[Coyote_Bandit]

41. Thank you

My last boss (who was every bit of late 50's) actually came to me shortly after I was hired and said that he had never had a female professional work with or for him and that he didn't know how to treat me. I'm not sure why but I was a bit stunned. I had been approached and recruited from a position in another state. Sadly, that is not my only experience with sexism in the workplace.

I may be jobless but I am staying busy. I have repainted the entire interior of the house and done a lot of landscaping. I have started the process of going through all the stuff and determining what I can dispose of and either trashing, donating, or selling it. I've become more health conscious and physically active. I am still job hunting and probably average five new and unique job inquiries a day. I've done some traveling - cheap traveling - but to some cool places. I've been reading alot. And I have been working on a book on politics and Christianity.

I'm generally a happy and optimistic person but I am obviously very frustrated here in my present circumstances. I keep a picture of the Tulsa city limit sign on my computer desktop to remind me that this is not permanent. As they say, this too shall pass.

There is dignity in all work (even that of a topless cocktail waitress). And all who work are deserving of both respect and a living wage that enables them to be fully self supporting.

Thanks for your kind and encouraging words - and for the good vibes. You are a sweetheart.

[Cults4Bush]

5. No! I am not going to be happy until indictments are handed down. After

that I wont be very happy until little boots is impeached and we are withdrawing from Iraq.

[Tommy_J]

6. Please try to be happy

Things could always be so much worse

[libhill]

34. Don't worry

they'll get worse, as long as Bush the Rethugs are running the country. The New Orleans fiasco made be ashamed to be an American. If I was independently wealthy, I'd get out of this country and never look back.

[Tommy_J]

45. Yeah, I know what you're saying

But I just meant that unless your bleeding to death out your mouth 'cause a 20 pound tumor in your stomach just hemorrhaged you, should still try to be happy and appreciate the moment.

[leftofthedial]

7. I'm WAY too pissed off to be happy

goddamit

[bridgit]

8. yes, in this day & age...could be better; but yes...

[G_j]

9. how bout Grumpy?

does that count? :-) :hi:

interesting question though..

I can say I used to be happier than I am now.
Maybe I'm too sensitive to the world around me.. :shrug:

[Greyhound]

10. I would be happy if I could just make a decent living. n/t

[LittleClarkie]

26. Ditto

That's what's got me worried at the moment.

[RaleighNCDUer]

11. My personal fluctuations are between pissed and neutral,

and rarely bounce up into happy.

Actually, I think the 'neutral' is more 'depressed'.

[bee]

15. Im with you. n/t

[TahitiNut]

12. Happiness is a way of traveling, not a destination.

Happiness is a choice. The "pursuit(s) of happiness" are those activities one chooses while maintaining such a state of mind. It is often difficult to keep this perspective in mind in the face of the common idioms such as "make me happy" which infer that one is not in control of their own state of mind. This inference/presumption lies at the heart of many of our neuroses, imho.

This is, I fear, something that cannot be conveyed by mere words, no matter how erudite, and must be personally experienced. Viktor Frankl said it best, imho.

[ultraist]

30. I like that...

"Happiness is a way of traveling, not a destination."

It really is the day to day, moment to moment experiences, not someplace off in the future.

[atommom]

33. What he said. nt

[tenshi816]

13. With my personal life?

Yes, very, very happy. I had a troubled upbringing in a completely dysfunctional family (seriously, to the point that every now and again somebody in the family would get shot at by another family member), but my life now more than makes up for all the craziness I saw as a child. I consider myself lucky and have a good life.

On the other hand, I will not be truly happy until the misbegotten gang of criminals who run America are taken down. Publicly humiliated. Imprisoned. I'd probably run naked through the streets, I'd be so happy. Or maybe not.

[Godot showed up2]

14. FORMER long-time Rightnation.us Poster Here

I've been a poster to Rightnation for years now. Up until yesterday I thought the site was a decent place in cyberspace filled mainly with decent people. Yesterday I found out differently. I posted under the name, "Godot showed up."

You and I--that is, posters to the DU--agree on absolutely nothing. I'm sure if you read my posts to RN you would detest all my views. That's okay. And I don't expect that I'll be doing much posting here in the future. There's simply far too much that we'll never agree on, in principle and in fact.

But yesterday and today I discovered this, and I feel more than a fool for not seeing it for so long: many, many, MANY of the posters to RN, far more than I would ever have imagined, are flat-out anti-Semites. I even suspect that some of what I called "crypto-anti-Semitism"--harping on the 38-year-old USS Liberty incident, calling Israel a "pseudo-ally"--meets with some approval here. That's okay too. I'm not looking for approval. Just a place to post my thoughts.

Most of this crypto-anti-Semitism was dealt out by a MODERATOR named Taliesin68, and another poster named Attila. When I posted a thread that was NOT intended as a violation report, but a discussion of whether or not these two ARE anti-Semites, two things happened: first, to my astonishment, the response was almost overwhelmingly in their support, and second, I was suspended for daring to "gossip" as they put it about another poster. If that rule were applied across the board, anyone who DID post to the violation section (I originally posted the new thread to the "chit chat" section), would automatically be banned.

In short, the victim was punished. And I can only conclude that this is because, in the main, the staff and many, many other posters to Rightnation are of like mind in this. If you look at the thread I created (I can't link you to the threads because they are inaccessible to me now; sorry), you'll see a POGROM taking place in cyberspace.

I wanted to post this as a new thread, but you have your own rules on that, so I had to do it as a reply.

I made clear to them that, of course, I wanted no further dealings with them in any case. Think of a blind man who has been blind all his life having a late-in-life surgery that restores his sight, and then discovers that the house he considered clean for so long was cockroach-infested for all those years. That might describe how I feel about what I discovered about RN. I also made it clear to the Moderator (name of "Annie") who suspended me and spearheaded their little pogrom that I would do as much as I could to let the rest of the blogosphere know what they really are, and not to be fooled by the seeming innocuossness of the site. It hides a deep, deep, entrenched anti-Jewish ugliness beneath what appears to be a merely conservative ideological surface.

There are some good people posting to RN, and I'll miss them, but the people running the site are unquestionabely anti-Semitic garbage, and now I know there were many other posters who were well-served by such an administration.

Thank you for allowing me to post this to your Forum.

[G_j]

17. hope you find some useful

stuff here. At least most here try to back up their info with solid links etc.
& as a rule seriously racist posts/remarks are dealt with promptly here.

[bee]

22. I feel bad for you to have been treated so poorly..

that kind of thing is simply not tolerated here at DU. But from what Ive read at various conservative forums, I cant say that Im surprised. Bigotry, racism and hatred for various groups is almost always overtly present both in comments and general attitudes of many posters on those sites. Its a general trait of the christo-nazi types, who due to their ideological beliefs, align with the Republican party.

Welcome to DU. :hi:

[Godot showed up2]

24. Oh well, thank you to both of you

You sound like good people. I don't want to propagate misinformation, though; none of the people I discussed actually used ethnic epithets. It was as I described. But there are many ways of expressing ethnic hatred without resorting to overt "fighting words".

Now that I'm here, of course I'll read some. Only a fool spurns other viewpoints merely because he disagrees with them. But--ah well, believe me, you definitely wouldn't like my views, and I don't want to start a brouhaha (or imbroglio, or kerfuffle :)) when the two of you have been so polite and truly nice.

I'm an atheist myself, and except for the matter of evolutionary theory, this has rarely caused me to be at odds with the majority of other posters at RN, not that a person need be an atheist to understand that science is science and faith is faith and the two don't overlap; most biologists who are also paeleontologists have some sort of faith in God, same as most people. But I AM Jewish by birth, and I take the kind of anti-Semitism masquerading as anti-Israelism that I just discovered at RN VERY personally, because if the world ever decides to do away with Jews again, claiming I'm an atheist isn't going to save me.

You two are good guys (or gals; hard to tell from the handles). Thank you for the welcome, and the opportunity to vent some.

[Seansky]

16. Grey area qs. "Pursuit of happiness" was stolen by corporate America

and as a result, I a bit unhappy that most of us, at one point of another, bought into the idea and more and bigger possessions meant greater happiness.

I am not happy about the fact that pursuit of happens isn't a "peace of mind" happiness and it has taken me a while to realize how far out I went into achieving the Corp. America product of "pursuing happiness" and I get criticized for having given that definition up and for that now I'm call a lefty at time, even though I consider myself independent and moderate in many issues (although I am definitely pro choice)

So until I acquire real peace of mind and tranquility, no, I won't be happy (hope I get some before I die)

[sweetheart]

39. The earth was silent when they wrote that

No motors, buzzing jetskis, cars, passenger jets, stereos and all the
clamour. It was birds singing in the trees outside when they penned
"pursuit of happiness"... in a backdrop of stillness and silence,
closer to the peace of mind you mention.

[verdalaven]

18. I'm too tired to be genuinely happy

I am happy with my family and that is all. Hate my job, my chosen career is a joke, we work harder now than ever and still can't save money, our house is falling down around us with no money for fix up, our cars are failing with no money for fix up, ect, and the deficit (with the looming threat of depression in the future) scares me witless. Politically speaking, I have been depressed since the election last November.

Probably if my chosen career took off even in a marginal way I'd be happier, but the chances of that are about as good as winning the lottery at this point. The upside is that I am well liked at my food service job. :P


~~okay, I am done whining~~ But that felt good. :) Thanks for asking!

[porphyrian]

19. I am not unwell, thank you. - n/t

[Kailassa]

20. The important questions are:

Do you have someone/something to love?
and
Do you have a Reason in your live that makes you want to get out of bed in the morning?

Happiness is a commitment and it takes courage, the courage to keep picking yourself up and trying again, the courage to look past all the things that inevitably go wrong and stay aware of the things you love in this world.

As the wise Tahiti-Nut said: "happiness is a journey".

[RandomKoolzip]

21. I am happy with myself: I just completed my second day of fasting.

I became "raw vegan" last week and I fell better than I have in years.

I have band practice tonight and a gig on Friday night, I have that to look forward to.

I love my wife, my cats are in good health, and hopefully soon I will be too.


As for the state of my country, however.....

[jokerman93]

23. Being Happy?

It's a mood right? I'm happy a lot. But my heart breaks and my anger burns as well. Life is a package. I love it and I love the challenges.

What would give me joy? If I saw people start to realize that power is given and power is taken away by the people. It's simply an agreement to a certauin kind of relationship to power, and their is a script we're expected to follow. It's an ingrained perception we have of our relationship to power habituated by thousands of years of kings and priests telling us who we are and what's good and bad for us. I'd love it if the human race grew up and weened ourselves from the teat of militarism and authoritarianism. I'd be in a happy mood too if I saw people everywhere radicalizing their thinking about what we can make possible, and turning away from the political, social, economic and environmental dead-end we're currrently heading toward.

Radical doesn't have to be violent or illegal, but it can be ingenious and devastating to the "dead-enders" who have been running things.

Anything can be done. There ARE ways.

~ citizen J has ranted.
:beer:

[sweetheart]

25. The irony of the vote at 65

With 65 polled, 33 are "yes" and 32 are "no", that every single person
who voted "yes" in the poll could have changed the collective
majority to "no".

My feeling is that lots of people put on a brave face when they vote
"yes", that many persons are suffering during this time, people who
don't have the time or luxury to express their feelings on the web,
are taking a beating in their lives.

Of those who voted "no", i wonder how many are not just unhappy, but
deeply dissatisfied, really put out, absolutely really miserable, not
clinically depressed, but feeling that death will be a relief, to
finally awake from the tyranny, and all the loved ones who are gone
forever.

I wonder how many people really just give up,
inside their trust in love, or some quality,
and unhappiness begets itself, a self fulfilling prophesy.

[ultraist]

29. I voted yes, I'm happy

Within my microcosm, I feel very fortunate. Things have never been better in my personal life: family, work, and friends, with family as the most important. I'm a mom of two healthy and happy kids, have a great husband and our small business is going well.

Yet, when I stop to think about the horrors going on around us, it's infuriating and quite depressing. The dichotomy is strange to me at times.

[bigwillq]

31. Yes

I'm very happy with the state of my life.
Not happy with some of the other things happening in the world around me.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

32. today was a good day.

n/t

[The Straight Story]

35. I got zoloft and beer, yeah I am happy :) (nt)

[meisje]

36. This poll is being FREEPED!!!!!!

[apple_ridge]

37. Dumbest poll ever!!

[Independent_Liberal]

38. I'm happy!

As a matter of fact, I'm beyond happy!

:D

[Shine]

42. All in all, I am Happy.

I am generally optimistic and positive, by nature.

:hi:
Shine

[drfresh]

43. Life's too short to be anything but happy

So you got to find hapiness where you can :)

[nomatrix]

44. Happy with what?

Happy Birthday?
Oh happy day.

Happy to be alive, yes.

I was more content when Clinton was president, as were most people in the world.


Today I am malcontent - one who is dissatisfied with the existing state of affairs.

I cannot believe where the U.S. stands globally in production, education, manufacturing, etc. with all that we had going for us.

Greed has become the national anthem. Few are singing along.

Now the RW are suggesting changing the tax breaks on mortgages.

We got an economy in the tank after 5 short years, a never ending occupation for no honest reason, no fair election process, majority of people without healthcare, a DU comrade with 10 yrs. of college who can't get work....

all I can say is
ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?!!!??%$#$*

Sorry for the shouting.

[triguy46]

46. Its all relative, things can always get worse. n/t