It's a little cliche but "Enjoy the little things" even on bad days you can look into the eyes of a pet, the beauty of nature, the kindness of strangers, the support of friends, and find happiness. There's been a few really rough days where I just find a little trinket somewhere while running errands that makes me think of my mom and smile

I am interested in following this post to see what good advice someone may have. That ideology wouldn't be helpful to me bc I haven't been happy for a pretty long time. But, I got to keep going bc I have kids to support. If I didn't have them, I would have zero reason to go on. That reality scares me. I've had depression and SI's since I was a teenager, and I became a mother when I was 19. I'm glad I had my kids bc they are really the only aspect of my life that makes my life meaningful. I would never tell them they are the only reason, but in truth, they are.

Hi O
Having that ideology is dangerous. mainly because it demands an ultimatum out of a feeling. If your not happy, your not living. The more dangerous is the 'unless' in there, it opens the flood gates of unlimited variables of perceived 'happiness'. If you have the flu, your not going to be happy, but that 'unless' puts the demand to find a way to be happy...or else. so you look at 'unhappy' situations as personal failures.
As I said above, 'Happy' is a feeling and every feeling is unique to that happiness, one usually felt after a satisfying act or situation. it should be looked at this way, the benefit of a positive result and all unique to that happiness.
Since your not 'happy' all the time you seek to make others feel 'happy' to help bolster your own feelings and worth, thusly making you happy. But you cant always make everyone happy and this destroys you to 'let someone down' (like your friend in your message) and this brings the whole house of cards down being built on a foundation of other peoples needs and opinions.
On a desert island or in the middle of a million people you are still just yourself. The best mantra is one of intimate personal love for yourself. if you know that, then you will be happy and with you happy it will glow off you onto others. Love

DancingDolly, thank you very much. My first reaction was that yes, it does sound cliche, but I also don’t appreciate the nice things in my life enough.
LindsayAlone, that’s my exact fear, that one day I’ll encounter a long hardship and decide to go when it’s simply not the right choice. I hope for you too that you’ll find something that makes you happy, or at least good advice on this post.
KingSolomon, I think “if I an not happy, I am not living” is the perfect way to describe how I feel about all of this. On days when I can’t muster any cheer, I simply let myself fall like a deflated balloon. And yes, unhappiness has become a personal failure... you have such a crazy ability to predict exactly how I feel, have you been through this yourself? But I like your mantra. I think I’ll try it.

live for the day. Enjoy the little things.say out loud on front of a mirror I'm worth it and I'm loved. When your brain startstelling you otherwise say it again. But never forget you are always making progress. Even going backwards is progress. And when you come back from that it's Even more progress.the isn't one person who realistically only moves forward. Shit happens. Sometimes it's self inflicted, sometimes it's not but it's unavoidable. Yes it's ideal to only focus on the good but then you lose sight of the bad and aren't able to deal with it. We have to be prepped to face the bad and learn howto process it and come out of it. I think the best mantra you can have is never give up. Never give up striving for happiness and never give up clawing your way out of the pits. We are all fighters. Sometimes we just fail to realize that we are stronger than we give ourselves credit for

Your mantra is not at all helpful to you, and it sounds like you already know that, but my guess is that it is pretty common. It has taken me quite a few years to get to the point of reasonable satisfaction with a lot, but not all, of my life. There are little joys, and occasionally big ones, and a fair amount of just ok. I think the TV ads and the idiots in them make us think that the whole world, except for us, is happy. Progress, not perfection.

My mantra is hard to explain. It's part of a long poem I read in a book when I was a kid.
Basically it is a calming repetitive mantra about stillness in an undying forest.