happiness or duty

[Rachel]

What is more important to you, happiness or duty ?
While we try to find a balance, its not always possible. Some give up their happiness because they believe in duty to their family & friends. While others believe only in their own happiness, with no thought or care for those around them.
Which way do you swing ? And just how important is it to you ?
Do you hate it ? Do you hate your self for being that way ?

[playaa]

I think, unless you have immediate family before you, you should always put your own happiness before your duty, and always try to find happiness in your duty.. If that makes sense.

If you have immediate family (significant other/kids) then you should find happiness and making them happy which in that case would be your "duty". :)

[Frank D. White]

was raised duty is all important!! You had a duty to raise your family a certain way. You had a duty to serve your country. A "REAL" man behaved in a certain way; step out
of those borders and you were fag, wooss, failure, bum, etc. ! When you hit 65 years old, retirement, you were
entitled to think about yourself, but just a little bit. The happiness that was allowed was through others. You made your wife & or kids happy, you were allowed to be happy!
I think that is why I like to make others laugh, it's an allowable happy!

Frank

[Mandylion]

Playaa is pretty spot on IMHO.

I like the part about finding happiness in your duties, but sometimes duties need to come before happiness even outside the home/close family. Maybe this is a product of me working in Japan so much, but kind of like Frank was talking about, if you live up to your duties people around you view you in a good light - which in turn makes your life outside the home easier and thus increases your happiness.

If we always put happiness before duty, the world would be a pretty selfish place to live in.

On a side note, and kind of what Playaa was saying about finding happiness in duty, it seems that happiness is a state of mind that can very much be controlled. Granted the people who tended to be able to do this were Buddhist monks who spent long years working on activly cultivating compassion, but it kind of shows that if we are happy or not in a given situation - even in an adverse one - is not totaly beyond our control.

[kirei_na_me]

I'm not even going to get into this now.

This is like opening a can of worms to someone like me!

[Elizabeth]

On a side note, and kind of what Playaa was saying about finding happiness in duty, it seems that happiness is a state of mind that can very much be controlled. Granted the people who tended to be able to do this were Buddhist monks who spent long years working on activly cultivating compassion, but it kind of shows that if we are happy or not in a given situation - even in an adverse one - is not totaly beyond our control.

I agree with this as well. Focusing all your emotional energy on making everyone around you happy sounds more like coercing or manipulating them into it which will always reverberate back in the worst way. Obviously some personalities and values will simply clash and others will get along like hand in glove. There's absolutely nothing selfish or willful about my family, but it's doubtful they could ever have made me happy no matter how hard they tried. We're simply too different. I would still advocate being sensitive and attuned to other people's interests, not going out of your way to offend or make an extravagant show of personal desires, while at the same time actively seeking out people or situations that do make you personally happy. A fine balancing act, as the saying goes....:)

[Glenn]

This is interesting, because I was recently exposed to a theory that emotions are all self-generated. Nothing happens to people, things happen and people react (usually) or respond. If you are unhappy with anything, you have the power to change it, all you have to do is make up your mind to do so. Of course, some decisions are pretty difficult, so it isn't always as simple as I just made it sound.

People are selfish creatures, we do things for our own benefit. If we see no benefit, then we won't do it. You may say that you work for a company, and you want it to do well. On the surface that may seem selfless, but really you want it to do well because it will be beneficial to you. You try to raise your kids right, not so much for the kids, but because it is a reflection on you and what kind of person you are, etc. (Of course I find it hard to believe that one's own kids would be seen as just "projects").

I find these ideas to be interesting, and so far, they seem to be mostly true. Although there were some situations that I had thought of that seemed to be contradictory to these assertions, I can't remeber them now (except for the above one). Also, I have only looked at this a little bit, so I don't feel that I completely understand everything that is involved in this theory.

[Hachiko]

I chose happiness. If it was duty, I wouldn't enjoy what I'm doing. If happiness leads, duty will follow/run side by side.

[Winter]

I relate to what Frank said. I was raised the exact same way, but the second I got out of the navy, I didnt think that way anymore.

I dont live for my duty. I do my jobs in life, do my tasks, get what needs to be done done, but I dont live for it as a priority.

Nor my happiness.

I dont live my life to seek to make myself or others happy. In many ways, I'm just going through my life waiting to die. *shrugs* What can you do, you know?