[Nadia]

Happiness

Social happiness

"The desire for happiness is the engine of any human activity. This is the main goal of human life. From the cradle to the grave we are mostly looking for happiness in many different ways. We are so obsessed by the desire for happiness that we want to be happy not only in this life but also in the next, which clearly shows in concepts such as heaven, reincarnation, nirvana etc.
But what is happiness in itself? Sometimes we are happy when we have a girlfriend, but sometimes we are happy when we get rid of her. Tricky, yeah?
And may be at this moment it would be appropriate to say that happiness should not be confused with pleasantness. This, of course, does not mean that happiness is not  pleasurable. On the contrary, happiness always is. But not every pleasant thing brings happiness.
When we say ��?Facebook happiness’ we actually mean an experience of happiness, which is strongly influenced by our Facebook activity and the Facebook activity of others. In this book it will be discussed what the connection between Facebook and our happiness  actually is and why this connection is so important. We will talk about the different ways how proper social communication in the biggest social network in the world may make us happier.
Great philosophers throughout the whole human history teach us that everything  composed of conditions will be lost. But this also means that everything which is subject to conditions can be created. And this is very inspiring because it means that happiness is actually in our hands. It turns out that what we think, say and do today is in the very base of what will happen to us tomorrow. In that way we should be very aware of the fact that knowledge is one of the main things that helps us to avoid suffering. And it is logical. If we encounter knowledge that brings suffering, it is obviously not in-depth knowledge.
Here is an example: According to statistics, quite unexpectedly, it appears that the most unfortunate among Americans live in California and Florida. As you probably know, these are the most beautiful and congenial parts of the U.S. There is almost no temperature change throughout the year, the ocean is always pleasantly warm etc. But obviously this is not enough. Apparently, happiness does not lie in the external conditions, but in our mind. And the state of our mind is largely predetermined by the quality of our social communication.
Each of us is smart enough to give an intelligent explanation why we do not always manage to be happy. Actually, the more intelligent we are, the more easily we find reasons why something cannot be done. And often, sharing such point of view, we are able very convincingly to prove it to ourselves that happiness is impossible. But there are interesting studies, such as that one, recently done also in the U.S., which shows that if our neighbours are happy, our chance to be happy increases by 36%. And an interesting question arises: – What does my neighbours’ happiness has to do with me? Curious, isn’t it?
 The truth is that every one of us takes their decisions by themselves, we always have the freedom to make them and we always use this freedom, even if we don’t realize it.  Indeed, whether we like it or not, our happiness depends entirely on us. That’s why we must have the courage to accept the effect of our thoughts, words and actions, whatever it is,   and have enough wisdom to realise that we are those who are able to change our lives the way we wish. And one brilliant idea that we can come up with is to analyse and rethink our social communication.
 Happiness, in fact, is a worthy contender for containing meaning of life. And if  everyone of us, in one way or another, keeps trying to avoid suffering and be happy, then probably the meaning of life is to be happy. And not just happy from time to time or for a while but most of the time, and even always. So how to achieve this lasting happiness?
One of the greatest, but somehow quite incomprehensible truths about life, is that our personal happiness is largely based on the happiness of others. There is not a person on Earth who feels happy while everybody around them is unhappy. This is simply not possible. In this sense social networks are actually very important. Facilitating communication and elevating it to quite a new level, they give every idealist  the chance to bring more happiness to the world. If we use phenomena like Facebook properly, we can contribute significantly to the happiness of those around us, and from there increase the richness of our own life. When we understand that our happiness does not lie mainly in material things, but in our skilled  communication with the others, the world fills with potential and starts to look very different. We begin to understand that to compete with others for glory, wealth, youth and beauty is something that has its momentary appeal, but as a whole it is pretty pointless. Nobody can be forever young, glory passes, beauty withers, and wealth is pleasant, but  does not bring happiness in itself. Even if we buy a Ferrari, but have no friends to share the joy with, it is somehow not the same. If one opens with an understanding to meaningful communication,  they cease to consider life as depressive and poor and begin to experience happiness more often and in a deeper way."

It is ticking…

"When we are in Facebook, time often passes unnoticed. And sometimes it changes from pleasant experience to meaningless experience, and even to unpleasant experience. Especially when we are hanging about in front of the computer until 4:00 in the morning, with drooping eyelids, looking at things that we are no longer able to see and clicking on things that we can no longer understand. The reasons for such unhealthy behavior might be many, but one main reason is our habit to get distracted. And if we start to watch ourselves and others, we will understand soon enough that when we speak about “distraction”, it is just a matter of habit.
If we get distracted when we experience our fresh moments, when we are alert and fit, we may think it was by accident. But when we are suffering from fatigue or are under stress, and instead of taking a break or just relax, we open Facebook at 3 in the morning and strain our eyes, ears and nerves even more, then we should get it clear, that the pursuit of distraction is not a coincidence, but a habit. And sometimes we are under the delusion that thus we are resting. And since the habit of distraction is very strong, sometimes life can pass us by quite meaninglessly. Only if we act responsibly, having a better understanding of how we spend our own time on Facebook and mostly enjoy the freedoms and opportunities that we have there, we will achieve lasting happiness.
It’s no use wasting one’s time in any situation. Very often we tend to overestimate the importance of certain activity which is obviously a total waste of time. We tend to deceive ourselves that what we do is important to us and, in some more sophisticated cases, that it is even important to others. If it really was, it wouldn’t have been that bad. But when we are just looking for an excuse for wasting our time, then we are not useful for anyone.
Time is rare and precious resource. In fact, it is the most valuable thing one may have. And this is logical. If we were in the state before birth or after death, any other resources we have, would not be of great benefit. Whatever opportunities and prospects reality offers us, if we do not have time to absorb and implement them, they practically will not exist for us.
It is therefore important to value our time and especially our leisure time. Modern people know perfectly well that rest is actually part of work process and proper recovery is directly related to the intelligent use of leisure time.
In this regard, spending hours in our favourite social network is often stressful, and the large amount of impressions and emotions which we absorb there put extra pressure on our subconscious. Things get more complicated if these hours are at night and almost dangerous if they are after midnight.
Information overload, especially late at night, is not always a manifestation of common sense. Of course, sometimes there are moments in life, related to our profession, our education, or other meaningful activities, when we do not even sleep at all, if circumstances force us. But the one and only aimless clicking in Facebook is just a waste of time.
In fact, sometimes it is not so easy to judge when we are wasting time on Facebook and when we are not. And since each person is unique and the scenarios in which everyone of us takes part are many, it is very difficult to define clearly what is “wasted time” on Facebook. But despite the diversity of our social life online, there are enough common features which make us understand whether our social communication is useful or not.
For example, it is unwise to use Facebook during working hours, when we haven’t finished our work for the day. This might undermine our professional efficiency and lead to complications in communication with our bosses or clients. In fact, if we use Facebook during working hours only after we have done our duties qualitatively, we will find that our social communication will improve before we know it. The reason is in the inspiration that everyone gets from the sense of satisfaction from a well- done job. It permeates our thoughts, words and actions, effectively transforms the accumulated negativity in our minds, and gives us greater access to our infinite potential. Thus, on a practical level, we begin to speak and do more meaningful things on Facebook and effectively achieve higher levels of happiness.
It should also be mentioned, that if we work for a company in which the use of Facebook during working hours is not permitted, it is not appropriate to violate this restriction. If our need of Facebook communication during the day is great and we find it difficult to function without it, it is better to consider changing our job.
Another interesting tool, which shows us that we have probably been staying too long on Facebook is some lack of freshness of our experience. If there is no freshness in our Facebook communication, it is not because the whole world has faded out, but rather our psyche is already overloaded. At this point it is better to stop. When we do not react quite effectively as a result of fatigue, it is very easy to come into conflict. At such moments the logic of our perception is confused and it is possible certain healthy mental habits to be broken unintentionally. Profound lack of freshness in our communication changes our perception of Facebook. And for the sake of good style, all we have to do is just to stop at this moment.
Distinctive indicator that we are now beginning to waste our time is the emergence of anger in our Facebook communication. And when we say “anger”, it is better to be careful about its appearance both in ourselves and against us. Of course, it makes no sense to pay attention to a random insult. But if we notice frequent expressions of anger or aggression towards us, may be it is wise to give some rest to our Facebook universe.
It is even more recommended to give ourselves a break if we express anger. Unfortunately, we often notice that we are angry only when it is somewhat late. Nevertheless, if we feel that we are angry, we should immediately switch off. Nobody will benefit from deterioration of the social communication, and if we communicate while we are angry, it will come exactly to that. Anger creates fear and expectations, making us weaker and less centred. So, really, in those moments, when we are angry or Facebook community is obviously aggressive towards us, it makes no sense to waste our time there.
The world of Facebook actually has no independent existence. It is entirely created by users and is new and different each second. Although we often perceive it through our senses and concepts as something independent, without us Facebook would be just an unfulfilled potential. And because the freshness, brightness and attractiveness of Facebook really depend on the experience of all users, the way each of us behaves there, is important for us all. From this perspective, wasting our time on Facebook just does not help anyone. Even if we do not go to extremes in communication because of fatigue or boredom, the fact, that at this moment we are not useful to anyone, is not very inspiring. Not adding value is the same as taking it away. Without having any independent nature, our experiences on Facebook emerge from the meeting of a myriad conditions. Here, an intelligent look at the situation will show that most of these conditions depend entirely on us. And if we create these conditions in a healthy way, our chance to be happier on Facebook will grow significantly."

Facebook pride

"Pride is sometimes viewed as something negative and improper, sometimes as a virtue, for example, when we feel joyful pride because the successes of others. But since we are talking about “negative states of mind” in Facebook, it is obvious that we are interested in the “bad” kind of pride.
As St. Augustine once said: “The pride is the love of one’s own excellence”. The idea that we are better than the others is the very base of the pride. Thoughts like “I am so beautiful, and they are so ugly” while viewing photos of the class or “I am so smart, and they are so mediocre” while watching the discussion of our colleagues on Facebook business page of the firm where we are working, are a serious obstacle to achieve lasting Facebook happiness. The reason is that surely there is someone in this world who is smarter, more beautiful, more powerful or better lover than us and if we do not realize it there is a great danger in time to become stiff, sour and contentious. If we often focus on the faults of others at one point most of our Facebook friends will be bad people who annoy us and are good for nothing. We will fall in a situation of ‘social poverty’ and seeing all the people like worthless would deprive ourselves from the wonderful opportunity to be inspired by the good qualities of others and thus develop our own innate abilities. In order to overcome pride in Facebook is useful to try to see others as exciting and interesting by concentrating on their positive qualities. For example, our classmate may be is not so beautiful, but is good in arts and is very kind with pets. Our colleagues may be talk too much on things that they do not understand very well, but still probably are very good in organizing parties and have fun. Thus, we will naturally develop positivism and broadcast of joy and good attitude towards others will create many new reasons our friends in Facebook to love and respect us."

How to develop Love in Facebook

"Happiness in a relationship depends on 30% of the man, 30% of the woman and 40% of the social environment that surrounds them. Every experienced person knows that romantic love can sometimes occur spontaneously, but never develops without the influence of our social relations (look at Romeo and Juliette). Want it or not, the opinion of the social environment of the partner affects how he or she perceives our personality. We begin with questions of “major” importance, such as: “Do his parents like me?”, “Whether her children accept me”? and “Will I get close with his sister?”. Then came summarizing-stabilizing issues such as: “What do his friends think about me? “and “Whether I do well in front of her colleagues? “. And finally come questions frankly neurotic, such as: “Does he likes video that I post on my Facebook wall” and “Why she doesn’t comment my morning post?”
 
Be yourself. This is very important. Each artificial attitude we manifest in the beginning of a relationship just to please our partner later can become a serious test for our relations. The reason is simple – by the time we become tired to sustain behavior that is not natural for us. For example, in the beginning we daily post some nice things on our wall that flatter our partner and demonstrate our good attitude towards him or her. But time passes and as this activity is unnatural for us we begin to reduce it and eventually stop completely. Actually not posting daily is our natural Facebook state, but because our previous attempts to impress our partner, he or she no longer thinks so. For him or her this is a change in your Facebook communication, this change is associated with him or her and this change is in the negative direction for him or her. And here starts the problems.
 
So, be yourself. It makes no sense to artificially prolong the relationships in which there is not enough potential. Of course, this advice does not include the cases where you feel a prompting to do something about the partner that is not habitual for you. In this case this is not a simulation, but development. Sometimes we meet a partner who inspires the emergence of new qualities in us and that is wonderful.
 
Develop self-sufficiency: A relationship becomes difficult when we expect our partner to make us happy. So it is very useful to develop self-sufficiency. Do not weary your partner. There is no need to send him 43 private messages and 36 “Love Lucks” for a day. Any such act of attention on your part requires your partner to respond in some way and if he or she is not in the same mood you risk to remain misunderstood.
 
Give space: Do not go too much into the space of the other. Public declarations of love should be well balanced, especially in the beginning. In the early stages of a relationship when people do not know well enough each other, and do not know exactly what they want from the relationship too much public sentiment can be fatal. In the context of Facebook, this means do not act like Facebook is a theater, you and your partner are the main and only actors, your Facebook friends are the audience and you constantly act out scene after scene, showing different aspects of your romantic relationship. This brings fatigue. Do not be intrusive. Use Facebook fully. If your relationship really gives you a surplus of love – share it with other friends through the 5 Facebook positive acts (coming soon)
 
Keep clear view: It is very useful consciously to maintain a high opinion of your partner. The only way for a girl to become a princess is to make the man beside her to feel like a prince. The same goes for a man too. If we do not appreciate and respect our partner we actually do not really appreciate and respect ourselves, because our partner is one of our choices.
 
Respect the partner: To respect your partner is one of the foundations of healthy and beautiful relationship. Everyone is beautiful by itself and if you fail to maintain that attitude for your partner at least most of the time, then your relationship will be difficult. For example it is not wise decision to make jokes about your relationship in front of your partner, especially publicly. If your connection is already strong it is quite acceptable, but if you still develop your relationship it is not time for this kind of jokes."

Wise judgment

"We must not enter into the soul of a man with muddy shoes. Somehow it is not proper. But in our hectic lives and in our dynamic communication sometimes we did not even realize that we not only have entered without invitation in the private zone of the person in front of us, not only haven’t taken off our shoes, but our shoes are very muddy. And that brings unhappiness.
 
Therefore in our Facebook communication wise judgment must always be leading. Without wisdom, our thoughts, words and actions are not always a tool to help others. And as we have learned, if we are not helpful to others in our Facebook communication, we are not beneficial to ourselves too.
 
Fortunately, wise judgment is a kind of communication activity on Facebook and as such it can be developed. The most direct path to develop it is to apply consistently and unswervingly the five dynamic positive states of mind in Facebook: Joy, Love, Compassion, Confidence and Optimism. Although it is developed through regular practice to develop wise judgment in our social communication takes time. That’s why we have to be patient. And until the time comes when we can judge situations with sufficient wisdom is reasonable to apply meaningful behavior. And to develop faster, with high quality and with a lot of joy with on the way we should conduct our Facebook communication with healthy enthusiasm. And if we do this with enough social generosity wisdom will come alone. Thus our social communication will be formed not only as a means of communication but as a tool that will bring to us a lot of happiness."

How to see the potential in our friends?

"Facebook allows you to have communication in public and in this way encourages openness by allowing more information to be shared spontaneously with different and often unexpected people, which creates new relationships and deepens and strengthens the old ones. This sounds good, but on a practical level, what exactly means the word “friend”?
Actually in Facebook we do not meet with people as they are, but we meet with our own opinion about them. We always look at a person through the prism of our own idea  about him or her. And no matter whether we know him or her for a decade or just for two minutes. And if we have to be honest, we’ll find that our mind often concentrates on the negative side of the person in front of us. And this limits us. Only when we approach a person as a creature, full of potential and when we focus on its strengths rather than weak sides we will create the basis for true friendship. This does not mean to brag or flatter people for qualities that they have not developed or do not show in practice. That would be a lie, people will sense it and will further move away from us. Here we talk about how to help people around us to develop a positive potential, which already occurs in one way or another as we give them the energy of our approval. None of us is stupid and usually we are quite aware which of our qualities is weak and which is strong, whether we admit it or whether even realize it. In this sense, to put people in lower position by “advising” them or nagging them directly what should and should not do, how should or should not behave etc. is childish and sometimes – offensive.
So, do you manage to see the potential in your friends most of the time? And more importantly – how?"

Facebook joy

"We usually behave the way we feel. But it is also true that we feel the way we behave. We all know how few new photos on Facebook can change our mood in seconds, how a simple message “How are you?” by a specific person can stain our day in the colors of the rainbow and how the coffee is somehow better when the number of “likes” under our morning post on our wall constantly increases. Thus the radiation of joy on Facebook, even if sometimes we are not quite so joyful is very important for our happiness in the social network. If you create a habit to be joyful, then the step to create a habit to be happy is small. Our positive state of mind is felt by others, consciously or subconsciously, and according to the emitted emotions Facebook community reacts to us. Therefore, the radiation of joy is so important.
If a person has a lot of joy he easy can pass it to others. Joy in Facebook is somehow contagious. It flows through the space of Facebook, winks to us from pictures and posts, shouts to us from video clips and inspire us through the chat and personal massages. Turn the broadcasting of joy in your Facebook creed and simply will not believe how happy will become your Facebook universe. Post joyous posts, positive images, share the joy of your friends and especially the joy of your enemies. And just never stop! When a person is in Facebook it is much easier to implement the advice “If the life offers you a lemon – make lemonade”! This opportunity is given to us by one of the features of Facebook communication – the space between thought and its manifestation, because of the need for technical transfer of thought from our minds on the Facebook. If we learn to take this opportunity to broadcast as much joy in the social network as we can, our lives will surely be much more joyful and happy."
Angel Todoroff