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Originally Posted by Captain R
I pretty much agree with all of this, so my point is why are we trying to change how people feel?
As a general principle, I believe that the closer people live to what is true about the universe, the better off they are. So insofar as it is good that people's feelings are in line with reality, I think it's better.
For example, there are people who feel helpless even if they're not and this causes them to not take proactive steps towards "better" outcomes than they're experiencing (learned helplessness). Since those feelings are (oftentimes) incongruous with reality, I think they ought to be changed.
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Their own perceived sense of happiness will remain about the same.
I personally don't put as high of a value on "happiness" as I think might be inferred from my participation in this conversation. My sense of happiness is that it ebbs and flows with circumstances.
But I do believe that there's a richer sense of contentment that can be cultivated and is much more steady than happiness. In fact, I would not be surprised at all if it were the case that the modern American emotion of happiness is something quite distinct from happiness from previous times and places (for example, "the pursuit of happiness" invokes a difference sense of "happiness" than what we imagine when we think of a "happy" person).
We have put a high emphasis on how we feel (to the point of validating virtually all feelings, even if grounded in fiction), at the expense of emphasizing how we perceive the world around us and how we think about it.