Is happiness a state of mind? I tend to believe that there is some level of sadism behind happiness.
A large part of happiness is knowing that you have something that other people want but can’t have.
I will provide you with a very trivial example. Imagine attending a function. You are hungry AF. They serve you chicken and pilau. A few minutes later, you realize that everyone else got githeri or ugali. Now you feel special. Imagine the reverse. You find out that everyone else got fish fillet, a glass of wine etc. You will be pissed. Food is a trivial thing after all you can buy most dishes anyway. But in that environment, the same dish (chicken+pilau) made or ruined your day depending on what other people ate.
You are happy or sad depending on whether you are doing better or worse than others, regardless of your current privileged position. Most men would like to have a vehicle. If you drive a vitz, and your male colleagues at work are driving BMWs and Lexus, you will be unhappy. If none of them has a car, you will be happy. Same car, different impact on your personal happiness.
By the way, I used material things because they are the easiest to identify. The same can be said about experiences, social capital/networks, etc. You are only happy if you are doing better than others in your environment. For you to feel happy, others have to be worse off than you.
If you are in the club with a 7, and every other bitch is a 3, you feel like a G. If your 7 is the ugliest in the club you will be pissed and probably try to upgrade next time.
I remember when I bought my first car in my early 20s. I was happy as a pig in shit. Then my wash wash friends started spinning BMW X6’s and all my happiness disappeared.
Let me use my analogy. I am in a university abroad, when I compare myself with those left behind in Kenya, I feel happy. Tukikuja hapa, even though my university is Top 20 overall, I feel unhappy because there are other Kenyans wako Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT, Princeton, Cornell etc but mimi siko. Mind you the school is highly lucrative and charges $90k per year and I am not even paying a penny. Secretly I wish I could be at MIT or Stanford. Such is life
If you like to look at what other people have, you will never be happy.
That’s because there will always be other people doing better than you, even if you’re the richest person on the planet.
You could be wealthy like Jeff Bezos, but when you meet someone like Leonardo DiCaprio and you see your wife get sexually aroused talked to him, it would make you jealous. Meanwhile Leonardo DiCaprio could be secretly wishing he would want to be a billionaire like Jeff Bezos.
At no point will you ever be doing better in everything than everyone else in life.
Ni kama wale watu hupeleka watoi international school halafu wanakosa kuwalipia vitu kama trip. There was this guy alikuwa anaflex vile anapeleka watoi some good international school then akasema hawalipii extras. I thought it would have a negative impact on his kids heri akazane awalipie kama wale watoto wengine ama awapeleke shule anaweza walipia everything. I did not see the point of the guy coughing all that money for his kids to be unhappy and develop low self esteem as their classmates went to Egypt and Switzerland. But to each his own.
What you have given is just a sadist’s or a narcissist’s definition of happiness. Happiness is not a state of mind, It’s a moment of satisfaction; and that means different things to different people. Eg. Kuna msee atafeel happy akinyambiwa ndani ya blanketi na dem, na kuna msee happiness yake itaisha huyo dem akinyamba.
Same way in the cirry we ndio kusema pale Quivers yet huna familia bado, yet your primary school best friend huko ushago ako na na familia na boma na ngombe kadhaa, mbuzi, kuku, pikipiki mbili etc
Thats one way to look at it. There are so many other ways to look at it. Like for instance, if you can afford a relatively comfortable life then you are happy. The takeaway from this post is that you, not any other person I know of, derive your happiness from knowing you’re doing better than others. That’s why most of your posts always have hint of narcissistic tendencies.