Can we be happy doing things we don't want to do?
I think we all have some kind of idea of what we think we want our lives to look like. The issue that I find I had with this concept of what I thought I wanted is that it led me to also believe things had to happen a certain way to achieve this life. I spent a lot of time breaking down my own expectations and illusions of what I think my life needs to look like and figured out that the easiest way for me to get there was by removing the things I didn't want one by one. It's been a long process and I can't say it's complete or ever will be complete, but it brings up one major question in my mind: Can we ever be happy or even content doing something we don't want to do?
Perhaps that question is easier examined from this direction: Why would we do something we don't want to do? I feel that this is the biggest illusion and issue that many of us avoid addressing. Let's look at relationships as the example of what I'm discussing here. If we think that we want or need someone in our life, because they bring us happiness, but the requirement of them being in our life is that we have to put up with things we don't want or never asked for, then looking at things as a whole, they are bringing us both things we do and don't want. The issue is that we are now personifying and projecting our emotions onto another person and they are conflicting.
If we first accept that we are responsible for our own emotional state and don't base that on anything external to ourselves, it's clear to see that relationships are always going to have some push and pull, but they shouldn't be used to justify things we don't want as that leads to resentment and externalizing our own power. It's not only damaging to our own self worth to externalize that power, but it puts a lot of unrealistic expectations on the other person that they will never be able to live up to no matter how hard they may try. In a sense, we are making our partner responsible for our own happiness and emotional well-being. That's not only unhealthy for ourselves, but it's unfair to the partner as they are now the justification for us putting up with things we don't want.
It's easy to get lost seeking things we think we need for a person we think we want in our lives. I realize compromise is one of the things we view as necessary to making relationships work, but perhaps we spend too much time compromising with the wrong partner instead of just finding a partner that we don't have to compromise with as much in the first place. So I speculate the answer to the first question is really about justifying things we don't want because we are afraid of losing the parts of things or the people associated with them that we think we do want. In the end, aren't we just living a lie and making ourselves unhappy and using another person or thing as an excuse?
From my perspective, we can't be happy doing things we don't want to do, regardless of how or why we justify them. Love is not an excuse to put our own dreams, wants, or desires to the side. An idea of what we think our lives should look like doesn't always justify the means we use to get there. What's the point of spending 40-50 years working a job we don't like to just get by and go home unhappy every day? What's the point of having kids to make a partner happy if we don't want children? Personally I think we all have to look at our own lives and be as authentic as we can be to actually be happy and all the reasons that justify how we get there are probably what is keeping us from being happy in the first place. So the question shifts in my mind from: 'Can we ever be happy or even content doing something we don't want to do?' to the question of 'Can we ever be happy living a lie?' The answer I come to is no. Namaste.
I reckon the trick to happiness is recognizing what things do make us truly happy as opposed to the the things we are told "should" make us happy.
I know it has taken much of my life to be able to distinguish.
Generally our modern western education is all about making us obedient consumers of bullshit, without any true education about ethics or our nature as human beings.
It takes maybe some Ayahuasca journeys and some luck to escape the clutches of cycle of materialistic greediness.
Way back in 1983 I acquired a brand new Porsche, and found the experience quite hollow, but my brainwashing continued for a long time after....
Now I'm my happiest; solo cycle touring with the minimum.
I finally escaped much of the brainwashing.
That's awesome to hear! I lost most of my "possessions" in a flood about 16 months back and I found the experience quite liberating honestly. So much having shit just to have shit and it's all pointless. I haven't got to have the ayahuasca journey lol, but I have dabbled in other things that break the fourth wall so to speak. Awesome comment!
Truth.
Also, the constant strive for happy makes me dizzy to consider.
Happy is fleeting, but it comes more for me when I'm being and doing the things that give me peace and contentment.
I have noticed that times where I've been bogged down with grasping for "happy," it was a tell-tale indication that I was externalizing because I was not operating from a place that was aligned to my sense of balance.
It's certainly an inside job for sure.
Indeed, it is.
I don't believe we will be happy if we do thing we don't like. For true happiness freedom is necessary. Freedom to express ourselves, freedom to choose what we want and do what we want. Ignore what others think and just do what your heart tells you. Thanks and have a nice day.
Agreed. Some things just can't be compromised out of the equation.
No, we cannot be happy doing things we don’t like. Happiness is about fulfilling and enjoying every moment. If we make things we don’t like, how can that moment be an enjoyable one? It can’t.
In that case, we might wonder why would someone do something without enjoying it? And the answer is simple: sometimes the only way to survive is to do things we don’t enjoy. In Miami’s we have a lot of examples. Cubans and Venezuelans escaping from totalitarism and doing crappy jobs in order to survive.
I can't say anything right now... I believe it would take me a year to finally come to conclusion. I had a corporate 9-7 Job in a metropolitan city of India which I never use to enjoy and start developing anxiety issues and was always restless. I had always taken myself as businessmen but circumstances were against me, I didn't had any back support and for educated people in India business is not acceptable by the society.
Against all the odds I took a plunge, lol going to be 2 years now .... still hustling trying to make my way. I am not that happy now maybe in coming years I'll be able to connect the dots and be successful in what I love to do.
Glad I found steemit and blockchain technologies :), and these type of articles get me going !
I think that we cannot do only what we want, but make a smart decisions to do mostly what we want in the big picture :)
You will feel the happiness within yourself from the bottom of your heart when you are doing what you love doing. If what you love doing is materialistic and lucrative, you will spend little time on it before becoming a successful one
My_uncensored_talk
Sometimes happiness is really warranted by things that are selfish, there really is no way for that to happen, unless that happiness is not really natural
Well, there are lots of things we don't want to do, but have to in order to live a great life - like exercising. Sometimes we just don't want to do it, but it is actually good for us.
So I guess another answer is that - yeah, we can be happy doing things we don't want to do, provided it has a positive inherent purpose.
What do you think? :)
I think that's one perspective. I've also read about plenty of perfectly healthy people dropping dead of a heart attack for no reason. So in the end they got the stick but no carrot.
Sometimes it's just bad luck I guess.
This is a problem of 50% of the people in the world. They want something, they want to change but can't take that step. So they have job that doesn't want, family that make them unhappy and finally they wanna live someoneelse's life.