Why aren't you happy yet? 

"Take comfort in the fact that our minds simply aren't designed to be happy." Am I alone in not finding that very comforting?

To those who think the ending of this video is depressing - he's saying that our minds are not designed to be happy _all the time_. It's shown in the video that there are episodes that make us happy, but none of them last forever. Your negativity bias is influencing you to only see the bad here. :p

"Take comfort in the fact that our minds simply are not designed to be happy." HAHAHAHAHA THAT SURE MAKES ME FEEL COMFORTED THANKS PSYCH GUY

In another words, life is menaingless, and happiness cannot be achieved, here are some tips to feel better about yourself.

Progress=Happiness

This is the first video I've ever seen that explains happiness/sadness in a logical, non-sappy, real way. I'd much rather see this than "it gets better", "life is what you make it" stuff.

I do not drive for happiness, but rather joy. Happiness is an emotion. Joy is a state of mind.

"Instead, take comfort in the fact that our minds- Simply aren't designed to be happy." that is the most depressing thing i have ever heard in my life

Wow dude this video was incredible! Thank you so much! The music in the background was really chill. The last line in the video you said was really nice too. "Take comfort in the fact that your mind simply wasn't made to be happy" At face value this seems depressing but it didn't make me feel that way at all after you said it.

So misery and discontent actually confer evolutionary advantages. This is great news. I always thought that me being sad all the time meant that something was wrong with me. Now I know that the people with the problem are the happy people. Have fun while it lasts happy people, because my descendants will populate the world, not yours.

What the video ignores is that developed civilizations and first world countries only exist in such comfort and peace at the expense of the third world - who are essentially our slave countries - working for next to no money so that we can live with the manufactured goods that we take heavily for granted. These same third world countries suffer from widespread poverty and starvation. Simultaneously our comfort also causes us not to urge systemic change from the way in which we burn and overuse one-use natural resources, which, while they deplete ever-faster, also contribute to the loss of countless species of animals. We know also that the vast majority of the wealthy have developed high levels of elitist attitudes, hoarding wealth and power and believing others should not share in it. The 'great' standards of living that we have are highly tenuous and temporary. Until we strive for true justice, sustainability and to reduce suffering - we SHOULD be empathetic and hopeful, not blindly ecstatic. (Also, suicide, depression and anxiety is more common in first world countries - what does that say about how our societies function?)

So the next time you feel sad for no reason, take comfort in knowing, that this is your baseline happiness. Whoopty do

"Take comfort in the fact that our minds simply aren't designed to be happy." Am I the only on that REALLY finds this comforting and relaxing ?

"Are minds are simply not wired to happy." Hahahaha that is comically depressing. I love it.

I've always viewed happiness as a temporary feeling, I strive to feel stimulated on a daily basis and embrace the highs and the lows.

Its funny how I can know all this and understand my behavior and my thoughts etc... but It doesn't change shit

Man is never satisfied. If he's given a valley of gold, he'd always long for another.

We live in a fault finding society. Our thoughts are often about what needs to be done instead of what we have already done. Most jobs are to fix what's wrong: plumber fixing the broken pipes, doctor healing the ill body, policemen shooting the dangerous criminal etc. There's very little appreciation of what is already here, and a lot of thoughts in our brain that focuses what is not here. From a buddhist point of view, when we let go of all these desires to 'get somewhere', to 'accomplish' something, and simply focus on the present moment, we can be calm and satisfied.

Last words of this video blows my mind

Only 1 in 2 have thought about suicide? Seems pretty low.

Thank you very much for making this video. I feel so happy and satisfied after watching it.

Thank you for making this. It really gives me a newer and better perspective about my situation.

"feeling down? Yeah, that's probably not gonna change."

I've never been happy for any significant period of time, but at least I probably won't get murdered.

I miss this channel. I hope the creator is living a good life and is doing something that makes him happy =)

Damn! Why doesnt this channel have more subscribers??? Its great!

Love it. Thank you!

This is such a well made video. Just what i needed to hear

Your videos are so amazing! I find myself watching them more than once just to make sure I internalise the wisdom :O

Happiness is never given, happiness is a decision

Depressing video... But I finally understand my moods!

it's contentment that's the optimal conditions. Contentment has no negative. Big highs decend into big lows. Best way is to move Ones overall condition little by little to a higher contentment level. How. By understanding we will die and all the stuff will vanish. next be great full for the other souls around us, and realise without them who the hell would want to be on this plannet. Gretfull for our enemies as well as friends. This stops all of us concentrating on self, which can do nothing without the others. Try it, see what you are without the others.. nothing. Great video thanks

Awesome video , thanks !

The ending was priceless! I enjoyed this video.

Happiness as an ultimate goal is a contradiction. Happiness exists in contrast to sadness. Pursuing happiness as if it could be perpetual would put you in a bipolar cycle. Contentment is an attainable goal and enlightenment is the ultimate path in life. Reducing friction with your environment in your pursuit of fulfilling potential through wisdom. I think our negativity bias is more about identifying negative things so they can be avoided in the pursuit of positive things, but what if those negative things can't be avoided. Edward Bernays promoted the use psychology in marketing to exploit people for profit. Commercial interests have scripted western culture and guess what the biggest threat to its profitability is... contentment. Temporary happiness/contentment brings maximal profitability. TV was called the idiot box for literal reasons.

If you know pain, you can enjoy happiness even more. If you are happy all or most of the time, your just bored. Without suffering, you can't be happy. People who are already happy will take things for granted and they feel depressed.

Here's why, life has become to damn easy for many of us. I mean real easy. I bet if life weren't so easy and we'd be out trying to survive day by day, we would have no time to be depressed or even consider suicide.

happiness is definitely NOT the ultimate goal in life. or at least for me. it's forfillment. would you really want to only feel happiness for the rest of your life and no other emotion?

Thank you for this video! It's a very interesting and true explanation.

That video made my day !

This saves my days

awesome, similar in book by eckhart tole "the power of now", happiness is in the present moment, depression, anxiety is located in past and future (aiming goals is in future state) one of method is meditation

This was an amazing video

Thanks man, this really connects to my experience with antidepressants. I found the period which I was prescribed antidepressants my tendancy to work decreased. Not only that but I didn't improve in mood. However, according to assessments I was likely to have major depression. Turns out that the incorrect prescription of medications is not uncommon. Buts while I say this, I am a high school student. So the assessment of medications is not something I am familiar with. Regardless, I am Australian and 2011 OECD studies claim that Australia has the second highest prescription rate in the world with an average 8.7% of people being prescribed antidepressant medication. On top of this there are numerous studies which reputed the effectiveness of antidepressant medications. Form memory, I read a arrival on the effectiveness of CBT with people who were said to suffer depression. They concluded that the techniques of CBT corresponded with a decreased relaps rate of people falling back into depression after medical treatment. While antidepressant medications such as Lovan can be useful for some people with major depression. For people like me it was a hindrance. Reflecting on the function of the antidepressant Lovan, it is not so hard to see why it may be a hindrance to some people. Lovan is a medication which according to Wikipedia suppresses the symptoms of anxiety, depression and obsessive compulsive disorder. These are three aspects I have learnt to employ for aspects of study in terms of focusing on problem solving and critiquing my work. Thurther more, side effects of antidepressants include the suppression of the labido system. While this may not seem like a usefull system for a high school student I found it acctually contributes to other aspects of the phych. Hormones like dopamie and testosterone may be inhibited in the use of such drugs. While the libido system is predominantly connected to the sexual drive, inhibiting it can also effect emotional connections to plutonic friendships. Imagen not having the same excitement when saying hellow to your friends in the morning as the dopamie triggers of social interaction are inhibited. Also imagen being more submissive to your friends teases or being less frustrated by problems you encounter ( would you prioritize them with the same importance? Would you be more driven to resolve those problems?). My experience with drugs has been a troublesome one. I try to not let these things define who I am. However, it is a difficult thing to manage; Identifying, validating and communicating ideas, behaviours and thoughts become difficult when they are subjective and along with the effects of medications on your ability to perform tasks it simply compounds the issues I face.

Very Good Explanation

Those who are happy most of the time, are so because they know and apply two things: •Those who are conscious of their spiritual need and fill it with Bible truth are happier more often . •Those who are generous are happier more often. The reason we’re not happy all of the time, or at least content, is multifaceted: There’s the evil in the world that we face daily: sickness, death, pain, greed, crime, war, pollution, disappointment… (How can we be continually happy, or truely content, with the uncertainty of the world we live in now?) There’s chemical/hormonal imbalances in our brains that cause us to feel bad even when our current circumstances could leave us feeling better than we do. (Drugs and/or therapy can help sometimes with the negative emotions) So we are not hardwired to be sad or down at times.

I feel happy after watching this video.

So that's why I feel so depressed.

Great videos. Where are you from?

"only the greedy and powerful survive" people call me evil because I am motivated in winning every chess game

Our minds simply aren't designed!

Just listen to Pharell William's happy when ur sad

4:19 People on average rate their happyness on about 3.8? i'm fucked

"take comfort in that our minds aren't designed to be happy" that's actually depressing as shit

I've thought about working hard to become happy but I'm just not sure if it is, in fact, better... You can no longer relate to all the people in pain around you, it's a huge change and honestly it feels like I'd become a different person, etc.

I think part of the trouble, at least in America, is the consumer culture and how luxuries become necessities. I'm 51 years old and as a kid I always carried coins to make phone calls. At age 33 I got my first cell phone; no extra features, just a phone. Now I have an iPhone with all the bells and whistles. When I was a kid only Mr. Spock had something to do all my iPhone does. In each case as soon as I got the new version I couldn't remember how I managed without it. Oh well, time for a cold beer. LOL. But seriously folks if you feel down there are RU-vid channels of puppies kittens and laughing babies. Check them out- it's like having grandbabies without all the work. Peace.

Wow the end of this is very zen, its more just accepting life in the moment then trying to strive for me. Just love the baseline and forever be at peace.

can somebody genetically modify me to be happy for life? if yes - YAY

Intro song name?

If I were you, I would have used some other positives... What you've listed is very debatable, in my honest opinion...

The short version: We're all fucked. YEEEAHH!!!

This argument reminds me of a youtube video I saw a while ago. "Is Futurama the best argument against transhumanism?" It's pretty interesting.

Great video on the topic of happiness. At our Inspired Life channel we also try to disseminate topics about happiness. Glad to see another similar video on happiness

Happiness is so subjective. It's a feeling that goes up and down and cannot be easily measured. If you are looking for happiness as your ultimate goal in life you will never be satisfied. There is no need to devote so much time to happiness, it's a feeling easily manipulated like any other. Animals other than ourselves cannot comprehend God, Civilization, Culture, Justice, Morality and art. Use these advantages in search of the truth.

True, Those that are easily contented are usually view as unambitious & failures in the eye of our society..

(They raise the question, they don't beg the question.)

you will have happiness if you can have a peaceful mind and always be grateful in your everyday life. you will never be happy if you never be grateful in your life

Because I need food, water, shelter, medicine in a estable way. For me and my family.

Goddammit. My brain can't take you changing the resolution of the video all the time. Why would you do that? I can't focus on the video because of it...

I'm happy.

In a world where social comparisons don't exist I would be that easily satisfied caveman, for better or worse.

Have robots do everything. Eliminate the need for money. Permanent holiday! Happiness.

Focusing on the negatives allows us to spot threats more easily... or maybe holding onto a supposed positive makes us perceive more threats to that positive (i.e. negatives)? :] I think there's a subtle but big difference between an object which we want and don't want, and a phenomenon which is a threat to our living bodies.

wow

When I searched the definition of happy in google, it said the feeling of pleasure. When I searched the definition of pleasure, it said the feeling of happy! WTF! Then what is the definition? Someone please answer this.

In other words, be optimistic.

I have crippling depression

Lol. Then he ended with "our minds have been designed..."

I just rubbed out one at a little sister video. I'm happy.

At least it is true, that humans have no control over their own will.

Oh come on. That ad at 1:40 is obviously a tongue-in-cheek depiction of a playful married couple. Just look at her face. Her husband isn't beating her because she bought the wrong coffee. Sheesh.

I believe it's those who can endure suffering and hardship are the ones who survive, not the greedy and powerful. Maybe the easily pleased people weren't challenged like the 'greedy and powerful,' as you describe them, and so unhappiness was more of an environmental factor rather than psychological. Also, maybe the 'greedy and powerful' were the hard workers of the group and the easily pleased weren't. Maybe the 'greedy and powerful' were the slaves and the 'easily pleased' were the rulers. Which leads to the reason why empires and slavery can no longer exist in today's world.

Greed is not what causes motivation. You don't have to be greedy to be happy. I actually think you would have to be happy and pleased to be motivated. If you're not happy or pleased, you don't want to do anything. Being happy would motivate someone to achieve something but being unhappy demotivates someone to do nothing. If you are happy after achieving something, don't you want to achieve something else? If you are not happy after achieving something, do you still want to achieve anything else?

U can get ur base line up

further in life? you mean like the grave ? That's where we are all headed

Wait, one in two? That seems a bit of a stretch.

Interesting, so we are genetically predisposed to always want more, because in life until the last century you've always had to have more in order to survive and have your family survive. Personally I'm unhappy because society expects me to work for 2/3's of my life before I can finally relax and enjoy the fruits of my labour.

Your videos are amazing.. Just work on your thumbnail game

Well maybe I'm the only one but I'm happy. And if you keep getting back to your baseline level, keep pushing out your comfort zones.

Doesn't the fact that our happiness averages to a set baseline mean that pursuing happiness is fruitless? If you believe as I do, that happiness is the ultimate goal and that all others only build to it, what's the point of trying to achieve anything? You could be destitute with no friends or family, or you could be a billionaire with everything you ever wanted, supportive friends and family, and an incredible mind. Either way, you just average out to your natural predisposition towards happiness. I don't propose this idea as a challenge; I would prefer that someone explain why this viewpoint is wrong.

is god happy with his achievements, or he always strives for more as well?

I'm never happy.

i feeel so sad:(((((((((( pls help me

The title is a lie because I'm happy right now. : )

Happines is easy to lose because Easy to lose Hard to earn

so one should focus on increasing the baseline

Lucky that i'm from Denmark the happist country in the world

I will bresk out of this Evolutionary cycle one day! ToGODshi will show the way

sigh

Happiness is an overrated and glorified term to no end. I look for satisfaction instead.