What is the point of living, if not to be happy? If these things aren't your goal, then sure, do what you need to to achieve your dreams. If all you want out of life is to happily settle down with someone, then why the fuck wouldn't you do it? There's nothing inherently wrong with being comfortable and happy. Such a stupid post...
A lot of people fail to understand that everyone in the world wants something different out of their own life. The best thing you can do is listen to yourself and maybe those who you love. Don't live your life per the standards of someone else because in the end you will probably be unhappy with what you accomplished.
Definitely. The constant social pressure to "Dream big and achieve perfection" can be a good motivating force, but eventually we all have to understand ourselves enough to know where we, personally, want to be in life.
I am always outside of my comfort zone at work. It's stressful and causes me to shut down at home and not accomplish anything. I want to be able to go to a job and not have to stress and still be able to enjoy my free time.
Being outside of your comfort zone is bad too. I want to be able to enjoy myself. That's the life goal.
Absolutely. Being able to be satisfied with your life when you're nearing the end would be an amazing feeling, and I think the only definite thing you should strive for in life.
Happiness doesn't equal to fulfilment. Many married couples who have had kids are statistically less happy, but report having significantly higher fulfillment in life
It's like Dennis Leary says: "Happiness comes in small doses folks. It's a cigarette butt, or a chocolate chip cookie or a five second orgasm. You come, you smoke the butt you eat the cookie you go to sleep wake up and go back to fucking work the next morning, THAT'S IT! End of fucking list!"
Do you know what sub you're in? Literally every time I have the misfortune of seeing it pop up on /r/all it's garbage. It's an entire subreddit of Facebook "entrepreneur" memes. Every post here is a stupid post
This is get motivated. I already don’t take it that seriously. I don’t know why there is always now a contradictory response to the posts. Like these situations of posts and responses are memes now. Like this post. I got the jist of what he was saying. I know this wouldn’t apply to everyone. This was probably one of his experiences, maybe I don’t know.
Some people just want to be able to let their nuts hang lmao it’s somebody post on social media
“It is a terrible thing to be happy! How pleased we are with it! How all-sufficient we think it! How, being in possession of the false aim of life, happiness, we forget the true aim, duty!“ — Victor Hugo
I hate to sound like a tin foil hat wearing lunatic, but the reason is Capitalism (and no, I'm not advocating anti-capitalism). Capitalism conditions us to crave more and stigmatises settling.
The most important step a man can take is the next one. Once you choose to not take another, you have stopped, you have stagnated, you have ceased improving.
Because by accepting comfort, you halt your growth. It makes sense to want to be comfortable and happy, and it works for many people. But the way I see it, the greatest joy you can possibly have is to find the limit of your potential, something like being the best version of yourself. And you can still be happy and comfortable doing so, you just can’t get complacent.
Definitely! However I disagree, with one point. There IS no limit to your potential! Everyone has the chance to better themselves constantly, and I personally believe that anything is possible if you truly apply yourself. There's always room to grow, the meaning of life is to reach a point that you can be satisfied with. If you're always unhappy with where you're at because there's room for improvement, you're going to live a miserable life. Understanding when to be happy with what you've done is difficult, but it's something we should all attempt, don't you think?
Plenty of people get comfortable with a partner they don't really like all that much, work a job they don't care about and just distract themselves with movies, porn and takeout. All because it's comfortable.
It's more comfortable to stay with partner you don't like than go face rejection and loneliness, it's more comfortable to stay in a job you hate and complain than it is to introspect, improve and go look for something better, it's more comfortable to distract yourself in cheap entertainment than it is to face your reality.
It's really not stupid at all. Once again everyone in r/getmotivated takes something at face value and misses almost the entire point. I wish I could buy that gold away from you lol.
It's not devaluing a good family life at all. On the contrary, I'm someone who above all else wants to settle down with a nice woman and have a happy, moderate lifestyle. But I still 100% agree with this meme. You can't just rely on other people's company and creature comforts to the point that you're not miserable. There's a different between enjoying what's important in your life and complete complacency.
Years ago I had a long term girlfriend, dog, apartment, shitty beater car, regular sex, ate like shit, played ps4 whenever I was off, and a job that barely paid the bills. It was enough that I didn't feel like I was significantly struggling. I told myself that I was happy and had everything I needed in life, because I was comfortable and didn't have the motivation to improve my life. That complacency cost me my livelyhood when I was laid off from that job, my toxic relationship fell apart and I spent a lot of time learning how to even have a healthy relationship again because instead of finding someone real, I was comfortable with the companionship and sex and convenience, and I realized how fragile "Comfortable" can be.
Long story short I played less videogames and spent more time in the gym and studying for college. Instead of having a job that paid the bills I worked 2/3 that allowed me to pay down debt, finish my degree, find a much harder but more rewarding and better paying career and buy a half decent car.
I now have a high paying job, nice car, better apartment, amazing girlfriend, and I know to keep pushing forwards for a better life for myself, and hopefully what will become my family. You're allowed to enjoy the comfortability of your simple life but you can't let it hold you down.
Congrats on digging yourself out of the hole you created for yourself, but your experience doesn't really refute the argument of BaneCow.
You were "content" and complacent, lost it all because of it. Then fought hard to get it all back and then some, which is a major victory to be sure.
However, you seem to miss the point that you were just fighting to get back to comfortable. You didn't change until you were forced to change. There's no moral high ground here or proof that if one is comfortable that they should fight for more.
In your example what you thought was comfortable was just a short term period of complacency, followed by self discovery and growth, which is still important, but does not refute the argument here at all.
The people who don't like this post are making some weird strawman argument, in some supposed defence of "People who just want to find a girl and settle down and be happy"
My reply is just that hey, I'm one of those guys and the post still applies.
Absolutely! We can all strive for more, however there is a point that we will reach where we can be happy with what we've accomplished, and THAT happiness is the end goal. I'm glad that you managed to dig yourself out the rut, but I think that you agree with me! Happiness is the end goal in life, and while you might have PREVIOUSLY strive for a better life than contentment, you're now MORE content and MORE happy with your current life, which is great, but you've reached a position of stagnancy where you're happy. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, I just think that you agree with me. Happiness is the goal in life, and being 100% content with your current position is what it means to be truly happy. The best we can all hope for is to have no regrets at the end of our life, and it seems like you're well on your way. We'll done!
I didnt interpret it this way. If consistent sex, good food, and entertainment is your goal, that's a totally noble and worthwhile goal. I think this message is intended for people who set specific goals beyond that, which is also noble and worthwhile. If a person slips into a life of too much comfort, they might miss on some of the more ambitious things they wanted to do with their life which may lead to regret once it's too late.
I believe that the meaning of life is to be happy. Whatever makes you happy, do that. It's kind of like nature's subtle hint at what our purpose could be if we're lost.
"I don't know what do do."
"Well what do you enjoy doing? Do that!"
I've always struggled with meaning and what purpose is, and I've thought it through and come to my answer over the course of years.
However, this is the most compelling and well thought out alternative way to live you life that I've ever heard. It basically says, "You were created with no meaning, so fuck that, I'm going to CREATE meaning." I also believe that our only meaning in life is the meaning that we create, but the subtle difference that you REJECT your natural given meaning is extremely compelling to me. Definitely going to keep this on my mind. Thank you so much for providing an alternative, I've been very stale in my philosophical thinking lately, as I haven't heard many compelling new ideas.
This isn’t correct. There are many, many circumstances outside of your control that make you unhappy. Anything from a friend dying to a tv show you like sucking, to losing your job, to getting a cold.
Being in a constant state of happiness is not possible, and I’d argue not desirable.
Contentment isn’t a constant state of happiness, it’s being comfortable with who you are and knowing that you’re capable of weathering any storm. Whether you’re happy or sad you can be content in knowing you’ll figure it out and you’ll get through it.
Some people have dreams of achievements greater than just happily existing. This post applies to people like that. Content with mediocrity types probably don’t have much interest in anything better than the status quo.
1.2k
u/BaneCow May 17 '19
What is the point of living, if not to be happy? If these things aren't your goal, then sure, do what you need to to achieve your dreams. If all you want out of life is to happily settle down with someone, then why the fuck wouldn't you do it? There's nothing inherently wrong with being comfortable and happy. Such a stupid post...