(no subject)

[balmofgilead]

I've been thinking a lot lately about how unhappiness (and conversely, happiness) can be a learned behavior--or habit.  I think this applies both in the sense that people have a default, a (learned) state they tend towards when no outside events are pushing them either way [toward happiness or unhappiness] but also--more interestingly--in the sense that doing (or not doing) things to create happiness is a learned behavior. 

Comments

[nahuelito.livejournal.com]

I completely agree. I have a co-worker who is absolutely determined to be unhappy. it doesn't matter what happens, he always manages to see it in a negative light.

[balmofgilead.livejournal.com]

I think it can be an issue of unhappiness being familiar territory. The territory may be war-torn and in famine or filled with nuclear waste or something, but it's familiar.