How to be happy

[DanaC]

Now that I think is probably the most sensible thing that's been posted in this thread thus far. I really do think there's a choice involved in happiness and unhappiness. As a general state, I mean, not in terms of experiencing the day to day effects of the world on you. It's more than just figuring out what's making you unhappy and changing that, it is, I think a decision to be happy, or not.

Obviously, one cannot simply wave a wand and decide not to be depressed...but they are very different things. Though I could not claim to be happy whilst I am affected by depression, and though I regularly am affected by depression, I would still say I am, overall, a happy person. I am not jumping about with glee. I am aware entirely of the dark morass lurking slightly beneath the surface of that overall happiness and am occasionally (usually whilst a bout of depression is creeping in) somewhat worried about what would happen if my little happiness raft did split. So much of it is founded on a present I understand and the future is filled with losses that could capsize me. But I choose to be happy. I chose long ago to jettison guilt and regrets and to try and be less possessive of my pains.

A lot of us do that at some point. We realise we've been carrying round an injured teenager in our heads. A picture of ourselves that is somehow dependant upon the scars we've gathered. It's a choice to let that go sometimes.