Wednesday, February 2, 2022

Is Happiness a Learned Behavior?

 

photo from movie, Brad's Status

After watching the movie, Brad's Status, I'm seeing people in a different way. In this movie, Brad -- played by Ben Stiller -- is dissatisfied with his life. He thinks all his friends are better off than him, in every way. When he sees that they're not really, he decides they're not even his friends, but only pretending. Everyone he meets, he imagines enriching his life, then quickly imagines them using him and throwing him away. He thinks his son is going to Harvard and gets very excited thinking about his success; then he imagines his son making fun of him on national tv and he resents the imagined success. This goes on and on with every situation, until finally someone he has just met calls him on his self-pity. I won't tell you how it ends in case you want to see this film. But I did have the realization that many people I know feel exactly the same way as Brad. What causes some people to be happy with what's right in front of them, and others to want everything to be different? I don't know the cause, but I do know the cure: Gratitude for every little thing you see and do. I think being happy might just be a learned behavior. We tend to think of it as some sort of divine dispensation, but nothing can give you what you do not want. This movie has given me much to ponder. Namaste, my friends ...

"Many theories relative to God and man neither make man harmonious nor God lovable. The beliefs we commonly entertain about happiness and life afford no scatheless and permanent evidence of either. Security for the claims of harmonious and eternal being is found only in divine Science." Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 323:5

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