# What is a person obsessed with happiness like?



## Lifehacker (Apr 30, 2015)

We've all had that one friend that you would probably describe as being "too much in the now" with no care for the past or future. Some people view happiness as a personal desire, which can be a very selfish matter if a person is too determined to have contentment in life. They seem almost "timeless" in a sense that the present is infinite once the past and future are forgotten.

Can anyone describe a person they know, real or fictional, that lives too much into the moment?
What is their ultimate goal in life and the underlying objective of living?


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## ScarlettHayden (Jun 8, 2012)

The present is timeless, it's the best place to be.

However, being centered in the moment is different to being obsessed with happiness. I'd say a person who is 'obsessed' is chasing an ideal which is projected onto the future, they want something they feel they don't currently have. I think this is dangerous as it denies the reality of the more unpleasant emotions in life, and when you deny you become selfish.

Happiness is only really found once the desire itself drops away, meaning one has to be content with the unpleasant as well as the pleasant, the past and future as well as the present (paradoxically). It's a balance and is a result of allowing contentedness to happen naturally and joy to emanate from that, rather than a goal that can be met. As soon as you try to turn happiness into something that can be accomplished, you lose it.

So that being said, I don't think I know of any person who truly is present in the moment, as a person who is always on the go is likely trying to hide from some darker emotion in themselves, rather than embracing and accepting it.


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## Lifehacker (Apr 30, 2015)

ScarlettHayden said:


> So that being said, I don't think I know of any person who truly is present in the moment, as a person who is always on the go is likely trying to hide from some darker emotion in themselves, rather than embracing and accepting it.


How about characters that _try_ to live entirely in the moment and forget about both the future and the past? Such as a drunkard drowning his sorrows with alcohol.


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## ScarlettHayden (Jun 8, 2012)

Lifehacker said:


> How about characters that _try_ to live entirely in the moment and forget about both the future and the past? Such as a drunkard drowning his sorrows with alcohol.


The drunkard is still living in the past  Though he is also embracing it and as you said, trying to forget and move on. But the way of going about it is counter-productive. 

Let me think.... Tony Stark comes to mind. He's very much focused on happiness and pleasure isn't he?


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## Twitchie (Apr 2, 2015)

I've posted about my ESTP friend before, but as I'm currently living with her, I'm getting a really good look at her life. When I first met her, I thought she was an attention whore and a little suicidal. As I got to know her, I learned she just completely fails to control her impulses. Simple things like a trip to the mall have been cut short because she went in the fountain. When the security guard approached, she initially looked completely confused why he was coming up to her. When I first tried to type her, I thought she was an ESFJ. She has a heavy dose of Fe going on. But living with her, I can see that Ti up close and personal. She is a people person outside but at home she isn't the same person. That's where I see that Ti really kick in and where she's really herself and let's her hair down. But when she goes out, it's all Se and Fe running the show and it gets her in trouble. I prefer her at home than in public. 

In public, her eyes are going everywhere. When I follow where her eyes are going, she's looking at guys butts, she's looking at what people are doing, looking at prices etc... She only gives the conversation half her attention. She's more interested in what's happening right in front of her than thoughts. 

I'm not sure I can really describe her properly though. She's not considerate of other people but she definitely reads people all the time. There are a lot of things that prove she isn't an ESFJ. Like it's hard to get her to commit to small plans even. She never seems to think rules apply to her and everything is a negotiation. Like being pulled out of the fountain at the mall, she started negotiating with the security guard. She follows fashion to a degree, but it's really an after thought. A lot of her clothes are mismatched but it looks okay somehow. I notice that when she's in public, she speaks loudly. When she's in private, she speaks quietly. Her behavior is directly tied to her surroundings and I don't think she notices.


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## Zoel.fahmi (May 15, 2015)

i don't know, anybody have ideas?


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## Thalassa (Jun 10, 2010)

My sister, who I suspect is an ESTP with anti social tendencies, has sacrificed nearly everything in her life to have what she wanted at that moment. She had ambitious goals at first, a cheerleader in high school, always very athletic and rough, I mean brutish, from childhood, but seemed to balance out somewhat as a young adult having children and working on her biology degree. Then she just threw it all away, she scammed the welfare system, basically abandoned her children, became physically violent towards family members, used the father of her youngest child for money, and developed a drug problem so severe it beggars all fucking belief, and yes I do believe she did this living in the moment, not in the past or future. It's so senseless it's harmed her and affected everyone around her. 

Is that happiness? I don't think so. 

I have seen other kinds of people, usually Fe types or idealists, so obsessed with a different kind of happiness they deny things, it almost seems like a fantasy world to me, and I have read articles that suggest an overemphasis on positive thinking can actually be a form of repression that makes you sick, or enables others. There's nothing wrong with being optimistic, and it's constructive to put things in perspective or say positive mantras, but it's not really realistic to expect life to be a sitcom or self help novel 24/7.


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## Mac The Knife (Nov 5, 2014)

Delusional


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## shameless (Apr 21, 2014)

Definitely sounds like an STP thing depending on enneagram. 

I can relate to a small level of the things you guys are describing of the ESTPS but more contained on some level, they sound like me when I was a teen (you know hormonal and still figuring life out). 

Anyways I do not think what your describing is happiness. Its self gratification. (Huge difference). 

As ISTP 7 I can highly relate to their struggle. I am curious the ages of the people you guys discuss (they may have some epiphany pull things together for them down the road if they are young). 

This last year I had to really contain myself from momentary distraction and work on me. And even there I still ended up getting distracted a few times but redirect myself back. 

I definitely do not think instant gratification is the same as happiness. Both those people sounded like 7's. 

A little off subject but got my thinking about a contributing factor on my end, I recently became closer to a long time ENFJ friend, she put into perspective how much my very long time ENFP friend feeds off of my chaos. I guess it was something on some level I felt or knew prior but I tucked it away. Anyways this ENFJ friend has been a very positive and kind friend at rather then feeding off my chaos like a leech rather redirecting me to the big picture having all the same functions I totally believe helps us understand each other even if we go about things differently. It totally bothers my ego to realize how much I had let the ENFP friend feed off my chaos like a leech, funny thing her new boy toy an ESTP called her out on doing this to people in general to a point she was so over exposed she was actually ashamed and embarrassed and felt revealed. She has actually not tried to patronize me sense he exposed her (even tho I have said this about her before it was two STPs calling her out on this she just froze, "they see thru me" yes we see thru ya bitch we just get hung up sometimes on how to respond to bottom feeders. We live in the moment. So I went way off there but I think sometimes people get stuck in rutz and patterns that just start to play off of everything and feed into situations and such.

And I think age and enneagram and responsibility plays a part. I would have totally ran into the mall fountain prior to having kids just screwing off. Its really kinda like a drug, self gratification in a moment is just like a mini high not what I actually define stable loving thy self happiness.


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## umop 3pisdn (Apr 4, 2014)

Unhappy. That's how obsessions are.



ScarlettHayden said:


> The present is timeless, it's the best place to be.


To be fair, timelessness has no position in time at all, and I mean that phenomenologically. Indicators like "here" or "there", "present" or "absent" seemingly lose any kind of meaningful demarcations.


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## Jud (Jul 7, 2015)

Some people think I have too much fun in the present but don't have a care for the past or future. It is true that I try to have fun in life and (especially) at work, which is hard to understand for some who think I do what I do SIMPLY because it's fun when in fact it's where my passions are. I also think life wouldn't be any better when you worry too much about the past or the future, so why not enjoy the present?


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## Alpha_Orionis (Jan 18, 2015)

I think that those people just act out of whim in almost every situation. And they choose a scenario that will, right away, bring them joy, even thought those scenarios are, in long term, a bad choice. Such people jump into unprotected sex, binge drinking, reckless driving ect.


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