![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
joy, happiness, pleasure and gratification
The next diatribe.
and for those who wonder if these are geared at specific topics or events... no. They spun out of me looking at my life and sometime specific events got me to question how i would act in different situations and why, but I am not targeting anybody with any of these... except myself and who I want to be. In my exploration of whom and what I am lately, I have discovered a few things about myself. I can feel pain, I can make bad decisions, I can blame others for my decisions, and many other negatives. I have also discovered many positives. The challenge of this series of writings, to me, is to make myself the person I want to be.
joy, happiness, pleasure and gratification
(please don’t get me wrong instant gratification is fun I like it too).
Out of the last ramble, I was looking at how we are prone to confuse happiness with gratification. What i want now out weighs what I can have later even if what I get later is better.
A hypothetical example.: rolling simulates euphoria, happiness and contentment. These are also things that we can work for and achieve. We see something pretty, a new car, a new toy, a new sex partner and we don’t think about what the trade offs are. We get a toothache and rub ora-gel on it until it rots out because the pain was gone but we didn’t treat the problem (yes i have done that recently).
Shrinks would blame the advertising and internet for these things. Where we can get or see whatever we want, our way. I am not here to really worry about why I/we behave that way; I want to look at what the differences are and leave each of us to decide what we want.
So far i have looked at honor, Love, and loyalty. The reason this next group is together is because I think these are results or casualties of those 1st 3 topics:
So lets start with gratification:
A need where something is immediately needed or desired is filled. "I’m thirsty, hungry, horny etc." I get the thing that was missing, or wanted and i am gratified. This may or may not lead to pleasure. Pleasure, in the aforementioned examples would come from getting the thing that gratified or fulfilled your/our was enjoyable. (i.e. I’m thirsty and got a nice cold Guinness). It was enjoyable/pleasurable, but may not lead to happiness. a pleasure is something that is enjoyable at the moment it is being done but doesn’t necessarily translate into a mood. A few beers or drinks may lead to happiness though because i may get a buzz and my mood can be elevated from doing something that is enjoyable to feeling happy..
This is where the line gets harder to cross. Happiness is a mood, not a state of being. It is hard to cross from a mood to a state of being. Drinking more beer or the same amount of beer more often will not elevate me to joy. It may prolong my happiness, or it may destroy me, but it will not bring me to joy.
At this point, before I go into my sermon on what I have come to believe joy is to me, I would lie to interject that this is the one I really want feedback on. What yall think joy is, how you achieve it, have you achieved it etc
To me, joy is a state of mind that is independent of my current mood. I can be happy, sad, angry, etc but still have joy. Joy comes from knowing who I am, what is important to me and who I want to be. Joy comes from knowing that I am working towards being the best person can. Not from accepting all my faults, but from examining them all and deciding which ones I need to accept and which ones I need to change.
Some faults, I may like, and they may bring me happiness, but they may hinder my joy.
The shortest definition I can think of off hand is joy is being happy with the path that my Self is on. Or one could put it, “Do I truly like who I am striving to be and am I really making ground towards being that person?”
Obviously there is a lot more that I cold write on joy… entire libraries are built on that one topic, but this will suffice as my simple definition that I hope guides me.
So in summary,
Gratification is fulfillment of a need
Pleasure is enjoying that fulfillment
Happiness is a mood
Joy is a state of mind/being
and for those who wonder if these are geared at specific topics or events... no. They spun out of me looking at my life and sometime specific events got me to question how i would act in different situations and why, but I am not targeting anybody with any of these... except myself and who I want to be. In my exploration of whom and what I am lately, I have discovered a few things about myself. I can feel pain, I can make bad decisions, I can blame others for my decisions, and many other negatives. I have also discovered many positives. The challenge of this series of writings, to me, is to make myself the person I want to be.
joy, happiness, pleasure and gratification
(please don’t get me wrong instant gratification is fun I like it too).
Out of the last ramble, I was looking at how we are prone to confuse happiness with gratification. What i want now out weighs what I can have later even if what I get later is better.
A hypothetical example.: rolling simulates euphoria, happiness and contentment. These are also things that we can work for and achieve. We see something pretty, a new car, a new toy, a new sex partner and we don’t think about what the trade offs are. We get a toothache and rub ora-gel on it until it rots out because the pain was gone but we didn’t treat the problem (yes i have done that recently).
Shrinks would blame the advertising and internet for these things. Where we can get or see whatever we want, our way. I am not here to really worry about why I/we behave that way; I want to look at what the differences are and leave each of us to decide what we want.
So far i have looked at honor, Love, and loyalty. The reason this next group is together is because I think these are results or casualties of those 1st 3 topics:
So lets start with gratification:
A need where something is immediately needed or desired is filled. "I’m thirsty, hungry, horny etc." I get the thing that was missing, or wanted and i am gratified. This may or may not lead to pleasure. Pleasure, in the aforementioned examples would come from getting the thing that gratified or fulfilled your/our was enjoyable. (i.e. I’m thirsty and got a nice cold Guinness). It was enjoyable/pleasurable, but may not lead to happiness. a pleasure is something that is enjoyable at the moment it is being done but doesn’t necessarily translate into a mood. A few beers or drinks may lead to happiness though because i may get a buzz and my mood can be elevated from doing something that is enjoyable to feeling happy..
This is where the line gets harder to cross. Happiness is a mood, not a state of being. It is hard to cross from a mood to a state of being. Drinking more beer or the same amount of beer more often will not elevate me to joy. It may prolong my happiness, or it may destroy me, but it will not bring me to joy.
At this point, before I go into my sermon on what I have come to believe joy is to me, I would lie to interject that this is the one I really want feedback on. What yall think joy is, how you achieve it, have you achieved it etc
To me, joy is a state of mind that is independent of my current mood. I can be happy, sad, angry, etc but still have joy. Joy comes from knowing who I am, what is important to me and who I want to be. Joy comes from knowing that I am working towards being the best person can. Not from accepting all my faults, but from examining them all and deciding which ones I need to accept and which ones I need to change.
Some faults, I may like, and they may bring me happiness, but they may hinder my joy.
The shortest definition I can think of off hand is joy is being happy with the path that my Self is on. Or one could put it, “Do I truly like who I am striving to be and am I really making ground towards being that person?”
Obviously there is a lot more that I cold write on joy… entire libraries are built on that one topic, but this will suffice as my simple definition that I hope guides me.
So in summary,
Gratification is fulfillment of a need
Pleasure is enjoying that fulfillment
Happiness is a mood
Joy is a state of mind/being