If you were to graph your happiness in life over time what would it look like?
Would it be a jaggedy line depicted by the millions of ups and downs in your life?
Would it be a smooth line marked smoothly by the significant events in your life?
Would it have a positive and negative number?
Where do you predict the line will be at in 5 years.. 15? 30?
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It would look like a long wave frequency.
Haha! What a cute question!
Throughout childhood when life seemed very straightforward the graph would show a pretty even keel. I was a happy child. There’d be a bit of a dip in my preteens when the beginnings of complex emotions started to trouble me, and I had some social trouble during that time too. It’d dip way down for a while around age 13. Who the hell is happy at age 13?
After then is when it gets difficult to plot. After age 13 life became a lot more than happiness and sadness, good and bad, black and white. I daresay my graph could not be represented by a function because emotional maturity brought about such troubling, confusing phenomena as simultaneous happiness and sadness that could not be represented by a single line. Age 14 is what I consider my happiest year so far but was arguably one of the scariest too as that’s when I got sick. And even now, it’s hard to assign a fixed value to my feelings. Am I happy right now? Yeah, I suppose I am. Am I content? No, no I’m not. Did you know it’s possible to be happy but not content? What number would I give it on a scale? Fuck, I don’t know!
Did I overthink that?
Beep Beep Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep
The Rocky Mountains only with wider plains between the highs and lows.
It would look like the Stock Market, when the Great Depression hit.
All high points of fun and devotion to my family and fellow police officers.
Pikes Peak with a drop slide at the bottom!
This is a very insightful question! My graph would have peaks and valleys that peaked in my 30s and have been downhill since. I actually plan to spend the weekend graphing this as I think I will learn a great deal about myself for doing the exercise! Thanks for asking the question this way!
Hmm well… Up until about age 5 my happiness would be graphed way up there. Then it just drops rapidly as I grew depressed when my dad ( one of two of my only happinesses in life ) moved away. At age 9 it would be a straight neutral line until about 12 or 13. Then it goes up to about average as I realize how great my life is and how lucky I am. Recently it goes down to rock bottom because of a recent memory that will probably haunt me for the rest of my life.
@digitalimpression what would your graph look like?
@Mariah Not at all was it over-thought. Great answer.
@Cruiser I’m only a few miles from there. XD
@Kayak8 My theory is that it is pretty steady for the good or bad until we get older and start to realize that our short term choices can (or already did) have much more severe long term effects. As we start to mature and reflect on choices made and choices soon to be made our graph either smoothly curves upward as we get wiser, stays on a flat line if we refuse to get wiser, and sharply drops if we just don’t care.
@bluejay My graph would be (on a scale of 10) would start as a flatline at about 9 until the age of 11 whereupon it would spike sharply downward. It would then slowly curve upward until around 15.. it would then curve steadily down for quite a few years (with a few bumps along the way, of course) and for the last decade or so it has curved upward to about a 7 or 8. In a few years I can easily see it back up to the 9, 10 level if I play my cards right. =)
In the red, flat-lined at the very bottom, if it were not possible for it to fall off the chart.
@Seek_Kolinahr – I love happy endings :-) Sorry about your mum, though. Was she a religious fundy who couldn’t deal with your anti-conversion?
My mother is a user and abuser who blames me for ruining her life by being born. She only barely pretends to be religious to please her husband’s Fundie family. She’s not smart enough to make a decision on something like “personal beliefs”.
My deconversion actually started when she beat me up, and the entire church stopped talking to me because I dared to call the cops on her. I got beat up, and became the bad guy in the story. Because, y’know, the Bible says anyone who displeases their parents deserve to be beaten senseless, even if they’re grown, married adults.
Sorry for the rant, folks. ^_^
Like the Rocky Mountains.
Peaks, valleys and cliffs of both extreme happiness and extreme misery. I’ve been in a great valley for awhile now, I’m at home on my range. lol
Mine’s just a straight line, ignoring all important graph structures, and for ever going onwards…like zombies! :D
@Luiveton
Yep, choice is always the biggest slice of the pie. ;-)
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