Sunday, January 13, 2019

Happiness

For this post I am going to go in a different direction. Here, I want to talk about happiness and what I believe real happiness is. I believe this definitely has a lot to do with Autism as it is an emotion experienced by people with Autism just like everyone else. Additionally, people on the Autism spectrum just like everyone else have a certain list of what makes them happy, such as a certain interst, and unhappy such as a denied access to that interest or sensorily unfriendly situations. This is also something that I have wanted to talk about and have reflected on. Often times people rely on the external to find happiness such as a nice job or a nice car or house. Often times pleasant things and situations lead to happiness while unpleasant situations lead to unhappiness. If someone was to ask you "What makes you happy", they would probably expect you to say something external such as money, or friends, or a favorite activity. All those answers are incorrect.

The truth is that what really makes you happy is you yourself, you and only you can make you happy. Real happiness comes from within. It is a feeling that arises internally, it is a response that we have to outside stimuli. It is true that we are naturally inclined to react positively to certain stimuli and our brains are hardwired to react negatively to pain, mostly we choose how to react to certain situations. We have the ability to choose to react more positvely to situations such as not having something we desire, not getting a promotion/getting advancement, or getting stuck in traffic. We can choose to see things more positvely as well as be content when we lack something that we want. We can choose to feel positively about ourselves regardless of our current situation. Person A can have fame, fortune and all the material things in the world while Person B doesn't have any possessions of his own yet Person B could still be happier than Person A. Certainly it is much easier to feel happier in some situations than in others and people are more likely to feel happy in some situations than others, but that doesn't mean happiness and other positive feelings are not our choice or something we can't control. It is something we can control as it comes from us internally.

Overall, to me, happiness is an internal feeling that we choose to feel.

Sunday, January 6, 2019

A New Year

Hello again readers. It has been a little bit since I last posted. Thanksgiving, Christmas, and a turn into a new year has passed since I last posted about winter weather, more of which is still to come for the next 2-3 months (Spring can't come soon enough). Anyway though, I did not repost to talk about winter weather again. I am here to talk about a new year and a change that I would like to make for this upcoming year, a change though that is very difficult for anyone but especially for someone on the spectrum like me. The change I would like to make is to be calmer and more content. This change includes remaining calm and being content with the present situation, even if it is an aversive/unpleasant situation. This change stems from the simple yet often forgotten notion that happiness is something internal that can from within, not an external thing controlled by present situation. It is the overlooked idea that one can still feel contentment internally and not put themselves into a negative emotional state even in unfavorable circumstances.

It is a simple idea, yet putting it into actual practice can be quite the challenge, especially for someone on the Autism Specturm such as me with my propensity for anxiety  and my high-strung demeanor. Often times, my brain tends to switch to anxious/upset mode almost instantly in reacting to negative stimuli making it tough to maintain my goal. This has made remaining calm and content often a struggle for me. Multiple times, I have found myself reacting to negative stimuli by getting upset/anxious and have had to remind myself to calm down and try and be content. Often times it is part of my high-wired active brain that seems unable to be slowed down sometimes. Knowing how active my brain is sometimes deflecting my brain onto something positive can help me calm down, even thinking about calming down can help. It goes back to the idea that sometimes the best way to stop a negative thought or behavior is not by eliminating that negative thought/behavior, but by replacing it with a more positive thought/behavior. This new change will be a challenge, and it will take some time as it will be going up against decades of how my brain has worked in the past, but it is worth trying and will be rewarding if I am successful.

Autism Awareness Month

This month is April, and April is Autism Awareness Month. I haven't been posting in a while but thought it would be best to post again f...