Community Chat

[YorkieonmyPillow]

[deepwaterdotter]

What if what others need to do to make them happy prevents me from doing what I need to do to make me happy?

[YorkieonmyPillow]

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@deepwaterdotter wrote:

What if what others need to do to make them happy prevents me from doing what I need to do to make me happy?

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As in.........? How about an example.

[deepwaterdotter]

In my town, what used to be a municipal, metered parking lot was sold to a local business for use by their employees and customers only.  This area was convenient to my doctor's office.  I now park one block away in a municipal parking ramp.  Although I am still able to park my car in a safe area, walking the further distance does not make me happy.

[Mominohio]

A nice thought, philosophically speaking, but in the real world, much of what one does has effects on others, so the whole "live and let live" mantra doesn't really work in the real world oftentimes.

A rather stark example might be that someone loves to drink. And drink heavily and often. That has many consequences that make it my business, or effects me, when they neglect their job, need me to support their children through welfare, get in a car and endanger others, incur heath issues that they have no insurance for (because they didn't keep a job) that I now have to finance as well. 

None of us live in a cocoon.

[AliJoi5]

I wholeheartedly agree with this statement.  But if you wanted to play devil's advocate, an example of someone doing something that makes him/her happy, but prevents another person from being happy, might be a person's husband leaving her for another woman.  The leave-er and his new lady are certainly happy!  The leave-ee, maybe not so much.  But again, it's all in your attitude... there's not a single thing you can do about that situation.  So you grieve, pick yourself up, move on, and try to find happiness elsewhere.  I still believe OP's statement applies.  Now, if we're talking about some crazy going into a movie theater and mowing down 20 people with an assault rifle because it makes him "happy," then I would say that's probably not what OP had in mind with this statement!

[YorkieonmyPillow]

@deepwaterdotter I imagine the local business bought the parking lot for the convenience of their employees. I doubt if it makes them happy, but it probably does make things more convenient.

I doubt parking elsewhere seriously makes you "unhappy."

Routine things that happen in the course of a day....

Why do I get the feeling I shouldn't have posted that meme? LOL

[Preds]

I prefer to not think today.  That would make me happy.

[AliJoi5]

I understand where others are coming from with their comments, and I don't think OP's statement is meant to infer that we're never to be upset about certain things, or fight for our rights.  But rather that, oftentimes we can't control what others are going to do, but we can control how we react.  And at the end of the day, you have to make your own happiness in this world, and we have such little time within which to do this.  So we can spend our time being unhappy about a parking lot inconvenience or a person on welfare who maybe hasn't made the best choices in life, but at the end of the day, that attitude will only hurt our happiness.  And I think we sort of lose in that respect.  I don't know, that's just my interpretation.  Again, that's not to say we should never be upset about certain things, of course, but that we should still keep our eye on the prize.  And that prize is trying to find as much happiness in this life as possible, while also hoping for (or even helping with) other people's happiness and well-being.

[deepwaterdotter]

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@YorkieonmyPillow wrote:

@deepwaterdotter I imagine the local business bought the parking lot for the convenience of their employees. I doubt if it makes them happy, but it probably does make things more convenient.

I doubt parking elsewhere seriously makes you "unhappy."

Routine things that happen in the course of a day....

Why do I get the feeling I shouldn't have posted that meme? LOL

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True, but you didn't specify an applicable level of unhappiness, so I chose this example.  You are welcome to post any meme that appeals to you.