I have come to the conclusion that reason does not lead to happiness but to despair. Reason is just a tool to facilitate life so when it stops accomplishing its task stop using it and just be happy for no reason. You cannot judge the value of life through reason so all judgements of life are just a projection of yourself only not life in general.
Carefully thinking rationally about what I should do to be happy has not led to me acting in a way that will make me happy so I hope that by being happy in the first place I will actually act in a way that someone who was happy would.
Being vulnerable and telling my sad feelings to others and to myself has not led to me being happy either on the contrary by putting them into words I have made my sad feelings more real. By constantly concentrating on it I simply multiplied my sadness uselessly. By asking "Why am I not happy?" I have come up with innumerable reasons not to be happy.
But what about "positive" thinking? I am led to believe there is no such thing. Thinking is connected to negativity. If I didn't have a problem then I simply wouldn't be thinking about my feelings at all. This is the reason that motivational speeches and quotes always feel so hollow. Motivational speeches force you to think about why you are not happy and so by providing you reasons for why you are not happy it provides you with reasons for why you should not be happy.
Think about the classic positive thinking exercise of writing down things you should be grateful for. Why isn't it the panacea that it is hailed to be? Because it automatically drives your attention to the things you are not grateful for because truthfully you are not feeling grateful if you need to write a list of things for why you are grateful.
A truthfully happy person does not need to carry around a list of reasons in his hand for why he is happy lest he forgets that he was happy. This is the reason I don't read those motivational/self-help blogs. Sure at the moment that I read them I may feel good but soon afterwards I forget what they said and so why I should feel good.
This leaves a wide window open for the cynicism that those motivational speakers and bloggers are just trying to profit from my misery by offering a cure without any intention of following up to get any feedback to check whether I am healed. I mean if their cure actually worked then they would be out of a job.
It is a confusion of cause and effect that has led me here. Thinking rationally and planning out what I should do to be happy and then carrying out the actions of that plan has not made me happy. However by being cheerful in the first place ignoring what reason dictates this should lead me to act instinctively (without thinking) in the manner of someone who is happy.