It's been so simple the entire time...

Happy people's minds are primarily occupied by happy, positive thoughts. On the flipside, unhappy people spend most of their time having unhappy, negative thoughts. I mean, can anything be more obvious??

So if everyone truly wanted to be happy, then why isn't everyone prioritizing the training of their mind to think mostly happy thoughts???

I think the reason for this is because most people miss the fact that it's a feedback loop. Not only do you have happy thoughts when you feel happy but you also feel happy when you have happy thoughts. Both are causes and effects of each other at the same time. When people only focus on the loop in one direction, they think they need to rely on external factors to get the happy wheel to start spinning. Unsurprisingly however, the happiness from external factors never lasts long for people whose thoughts are quick to default back to negative and thus, turn the entire feedback loop negative.

See, there's only two kinds of thoughts you can have. Statements. Or questions. Each of these can then either be negative, neutral, or positive. So be honest with yourself...what kind of statements or questions do you spend most of your time practicing? Whatever answer you give...well that's who you are because you know what they say about practice...

So if you want to feel differently, then start practicing thinking differently. It won't be easy but it is simple. Make it a habit to replace negative thoughts with positive ones (or even neutral ones if you have a hard time being positive at first). For example, if you're an anxious person like me, then you probably spend a lot of time asking too many questions and doubting things. If you have low self-esteem, then you probably spend a lot of time thinking bad things about yourself. The list goes on but at the end of the day, you are what you practice. And while we can't control emerging thoughts from the get-go, we CAN interrupt them and replace them with a different thought. In psychology i think it's called redirection. "The sky is blue." "I love my dog." "I'm excited for dinner". Anything that is more positive or less negative than your initial negative thought...is better. As time goes on, I believe the redirective thoughts will become more refined and more powerfully positive.

That's it. If you got through the whole thing, thanks for reading. I know there are some of you like me who had already achieved everything they thought they wanted and still didn't feel happy. Well now i know that i can't expect that to ever change if I continue to let my brain run too many negative scripts. I've only just started my attempt at retraining my brain and I already feel a huge difference. I hope this helps someone.

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.

– Marcus Aurelius

Well said dude
Ever forward my misc fam
We’re all gonna make it.

Put penis into vagina.

Agreed. Be happy bro. Keep it simple just like you said. And keep negative thoughts at bay.

Think about thing in your control and try to change if you don’t like the way they are. Rest can go fuk itself (like people judgements)That’ll make someone happy. Haha

How about v on top of p and then slide onto the p?

My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius.Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.

OP What did you achieve in life and still didn't feel happy? srs

Also remove negative aspects of your life, could be family/people/work.

Brain is like a sponge and takes in what the surroundings give.

Enjoy <3

For me, keeping happy just takes a trip down to the Asian spa once a week ((Lucky Spa)). She tells me i shoot high and laughs. That makes me giggle

Happiness is scrolling past a wall of text and finding cliffs, pix of hot chix, or both

If you wrap yourself up into only thinking good thoughts, you will be crushed when those thoughts fail.

So put your faith into something that won't fail or realize all things come to an end and that is ok.

Then the question is.. is just putting in the effort to think happy thoughts and be positive enough?

Or is it also necessary to cut off negative people and sources of overwhelming negativity, like the news and social media.

Good post.

I've thought of this before (don't actually practice it though as I think some of it is almost genetic aside from also being environmental...hard to be happy if you were homeless for example).

Another thing to consider is in your lifetime you only have a LIMITED number of thoughts. It could be a trillion if you are smart and live to 80 or like a thousand if you are a moron who dies in a DUI at 21....i dunno. Buts its limited.

And nothing really matters other than being happy....nothing. Not money or foids or whatever else you think will make you happy. Even thinking something will make you happy isn't really aligned towards happiness but rather a form of anxiety. I do think this is why so many people take drugs/drink...it is the only way they can suppress negative thoughts.

Anyways good post.

big facts bro

great post OP, a very good reminder!

High paying job, nice place, nice car, HBB gfs, decent physique, decent hobbies. I already knew that it wasn't so much about the destination as the journey and I knew I had to keep challenging myself to keep things interesting. But even with rationalizing that, it was hard for me to consistently enjoy the journey and i couldn't figure out why that was becoming increasingly harder. Now i know, it's because of all the bad scripts i continued to run in my head which only got worse the more I practiced them.I don't know exactly what you mean about thoughts failing. Do you mean hoping for something to happen and then it doesn't? Even then, there's lots more ways to be positive that have nothing to do with hoping something that hasn't happened and instead appreciating something that already has. The latter can't "fail" and being grateful is only one example of positive thinking.Inevitably, yes. I just didn't want to get into that topic and make the OP longer than it already is. It's impossible to completely cut off negativity (and everyone needs to learn how to effectively cope with negative things anyway) but yes, you should want to minimize unnecessary exposure to anything that influences you to start repeating negative messages over and over in your head.

I appreciate all the positive comments from everyone who enjoyed the post! I expect people on a BB forum to relate to the fact we're all gonna make it, but ONLY if we train the right way and if we do it consistently. So don't neglect training the mind boyos.

"Here's a little song I wrote
You might want to sing it note for note
Don't worry, be happy
In every life we have some trouble
But when you worry you make it double
Don't worry, be happy
Don't worry, be happy now

'Cause when you worry your face will frown
And that will bring everybody down
So don't worry, be happy
Don't worry, be happy now"

OP is exactly right. I used to be an extremely negative thinker. My life was ok on the outside, job, home, friends, etc, but I was never really happy or content.

Then I saw this threadhttps://forum.obnoxiousbrutes.com/showt...t=affirmations

and this happened:

actually pretty deep

“The unexamined life is not worth living” – Socrates.

I agree with OP, good post.

Marcus Aurelius was an A1 category asshat. Picture yourself in max security prison, or a war zone, or any situation where your survival depends on your ability to not relax and be happy. The moment you lower your guard or rely on someone you get a lung full of piss and or a trip to the rainbow bridge. Then go read that ******* and tell me if you won't cuss him out irl.
The secret to being happy is not having piss in your lungs, having enough to eat, not being in pain, not being in danger.

The key to happiness is gratitude, which is essentially what you said, as if you focus on being grateful for what you have, the negative aspects of life fade away.

Mindful monkey, happy panda.

Mindfulness.

Being lost in the current moment. Not thinking about either the future or the past but only being in the present.

Srs.

What are the changes/positives after several years?
Still doing it?

Caveat here though is that if you have very little and are busy with this sort of mental masturbation, your ego takes a big hit. Ego size correlates with effectiveness. So, being a little less grateful and just admitting that you got dealt a chitty hand is sometimes more helpful - if you don't let yourself get crushed by it.
For example, if you get hit by an authority figure and then sit around grateful for your blessings, you might feel better. But your feelings are less important than acknowledging that what happened was painful. Here's why it's important. The guy that punched you then punches your kid. You gonna tell your kid to be grateful for xyz and teach him how to cope? Or will your grab your nuts and acknowledge that it was wrong and get folks to know that you will not support that kind of behavior?
Foster kids get out of foster, and after having been told "be grateful" too much, they are nearly powerless to speak out against abusive parents. Maybe that's just water under the bridge, but if you get folks to focus on feeling good rather than speaking the truth, then the next generation is going to follow that weak, yet stoic path. Fuk stoicism and gratitude. It's much, much harder and more terrifying to say, "don't fuk with me, don't fuk with my kids, don't fuk with my dog."

What you are talking about is the basic needs within Maslow's Hirearchy. From reading the thread, the assumption is that these basic needs are being met. However its the psychological and self fulfilment needs which are most peoples gap.

What Marcus Aurelius is actually hinting at with his quote is that thought is suffering. By becoming self aware of thought or as OP is suggesting to focus more on positive thoughts, we can overcome suffering.

Piitb

That's all i need

cope is a helluva drug