the keys to happiness

[13TreeofLife13]

My life took a dramatic turn in a more positive direction when I started to consider that being happy, sad, mad, whatever emotion is often a choice. It goes along the same idea of why advertisements always show people having the time of their lives in commercials. Over the years we build neural connections relating completely unrelated things together. This can cause unstressful things to turn stressful. But if we learn to counteract that, to realize that we don't need to stress about the trivialness of certain experiences, then we can start the healing process. You can start to break down the neural nets that cause you to easily get stressed. You can try putting it in a positive light, and then maybe your mind will naturally turn to happiness instead of stress. It takes time, but it is worth it. I am no expert, but I consider that you can get addicted to negative hormones as well as happy ones such as endorphins. For example, people get addicted to the runners' high. Why not other forms of hormones? In my observation, the vast majority of the time people will always go out of their way to cause dramatic episodes in this life. I don't consider that conscious intent, I consider that to be embedded within like a subconscious addiction.

Then you can get into how culture has impacted the way you emotionally react. Are your thoughts really yours? Here's a radical example: it has not always been considered taboo to engage in incestual relationships or pedophilia, but it is now. Did we suddenly unlock the secrets of morality? I don't think so, but people still get so very emotional over those forms of relationships.
Culture is our operating system (Terence Mckenna)

What do y'all think?