Happiness State of Mind

Happiness, an elusive eight letter word with a mighty punch! Many have sought to define happiness, but found it a difficult task to do. While reading an article published in the New Yorker by Will Sorr on July 07, 2017 titled “A Better Kind of Happiness”, I was informed that happiness is more than just a word, happiness is essential to the well-being of human health. Dating back nearly two and half million years ago an ancient Greek Philosopher and scientist, Aristotle, proposed the idea of eudaemonic happiness. He stated that “happiness was not merely a feeling, or a golden promise, but a

Happiness is something that all people, no matter what race, gender, or social class, strive for. Based on lifestyle or perspective each person has their independent idea of what happiness is, but everyone shares an end goal to live their definition of a happy life. Many people, though, struggle in finding their way to this goal. They face hardships and challenges that test their happiness every day. Happiness, though somewhat indirectly, does take learning and training to discover and maintain.

When we look to define happiness, many different ideas come to mind. Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary uses three definitions for happiness: good fortune, a state of well being and contentment, and a pleasurable satisfaction. In Brave New World, Aldus Huxley argues that a society can redefine happiness through the government’s manipulation of the environment and the human mind itself. The government accomplishes this by mind conditioning throughout the process of maturing, keeping a caste-based society, and obliterating problems. The government thus defines happiness as the absence of all conflict. This differs from happiness as the American society sees it: the ability to pursue and enjoy individual desires.

Everyone defines happiness differently, but everyone needs happiness. The book Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse talks about how Siddhartha finds happiness through many ways. He leaves home and his friend, Govinda, to find enlightenment. He starves himself, he learns love, he even thinks of suicide… Fortunately, he meets a ferryman, who becomes his best friend, also his “teacher”, and helps him find the ultimate way to achieve enlightenment. Siddhartha abandons his relationships, money, and education which bring him happiness, and in the twenty first century, these still bring happiness as the essential steps to take.

Happiness is one of the most significant dimensions of human experience. Many people can argue that happiness is a meaningful and desirable entity. Studies indicate that everyone pursues happiness in various aspects of their life. Our four fathers saw happiness as a need, so they made the pursuit of happiness as one of the three unalienable rights branded in the Declaration of Independence. There is a sense of complexity behind the meaning of happiness; its definition is not definite. Think of happiness as a rope; there are many thin fiber strands bonded together to become the strength of the rope. Like the analogy of the rope, there are numerous factors that can contribute to an individual’s overall happiness in life. This study is going to

Happiness is often confused with acceptance, which means some people accept their lives and protect themselves with a false sense of happiness , instead of striving for the life that brings them the most joy Many people in their lives have a false sense of happiness, instead of seeking out for what they want in their life they try to be content with themselves. For example Brave New World is all about a false sense of happiness and how everyone should always be happy and content, in the book they all take soma to escape their feelings and their life, “ she

The amalgam of the human experience and the pursuit of happiness is that of an instinctive and inexorable nature; perchance in happiness lays the fundamental purpose of the human experience. Happiness, throughout the lapse of time—regardless of multifarious discrepancies, such as nationality or age, has proven to be an all-inclusive search. Whether it is derived from power, wealth, success, or elsewhere, happiness is a perpetual pursuit. Illustrious philosopher Aristotle believed “happiness depends upon ourselves (Aristotle)”, speaking to a notion of happiness being an individual endeavor.

According to the classic sense, a life full of happiness is a life that manifests wisdom, kindness, and goodness. However happiness has been twisted by a secular culture and the classic sense has given away to “pleasurable satisfaction”. Pleasurable satisfaction depends on external circumstances going well. Moreland points out that because of this the modern sense of happiness, “pleasurable satisfaction”, is unstable and varies with life’s circumstances. Pleasurable satisfaction becomes increasingly addictive and enslaving if it becomes the dominant aim of one’s life. By contrast, classical happiness brings freedom and power to life as one ought, as one increasingly becomes a unified person who lives for a cause bigger than one’s self. Western culture has been disillusioned into seeking happiness as their main priority in life. Although, happiness is important, when its importance becomes exaggerated, it leads to a loss of purpose in life, and even depression. What Western cultures need to realize is that true happiness can never be achieved. Over the past 50 years, levels of health, wealth, and liberties have increased, but levels of happiness haven’t.

Since their beginning, Humans have debated over the true cause of happiness. Some people argue that wealth brings happiness, while some say that love is the only real way to acquire happiness. Some even devote their entire lives to a god in an attempt to gain an inkling of genuine, long-lasting happiness. Every human has some belief system when trying to find true happiness, but many go their entire life without experiencing it except for in brief, fleeting moments. Through the use of various literary elements, “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” and “Federigo’s Falcon” both indirectly suggest that happiness gained through others or physical possessions is doomed to live a short life, but happiness derived from contentedness within oneself cannot be extinguished by anything except for death itself.

What then is happiness? Perhaps happiness is a basic and familiar concept, yet it may occur to be perplexing when one has to convey it through the medium of words. Lyubomirsky defines the term as “the experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile” (Lyubomirsky 32). It is often subjective, personal, and can stem from a myriad of activities: some may experience similar feelings by engaging in sports, spending time with family and friends, others while reading or simply being in solitude. Due to the personal nature and subjectivity of happiness, a handful of myths pertaining to this concept has emerged. Three happiness myths were presented within the chapter: 1. Happiness must be found. 2. Happiness lies in changing our circumstances. 3. You either have it or you don’t. The first myth greatly piqued my interest, since I, too, have once externalized happiness and assumed that it would be found outside.

Daoism is one of the main philosophical traditions in China and the East. Daoism uses nature as a guide to understand the way to live and by using common themes like the Yin and Yang and The ‘One’ or better known as the child, the Daoist Sage reflects a harmonised way of living. These two themes from chapters stated above help identify the meaning of Daoism, and what this way of living reflects.

Although the definition of happiness has been changed and rearranged for as long as humans have existed, thousands upon thousands of years, some philosophers want a hard definition of it. The term happiness signifies something different depending on whom you ask. The question of “What is happiness?” has been theorized and discussed by many philosophers throughout the years, and many have their own labyrinthine conclusion that may put off the average person who just has a subconscious thought of what is happiness and why we need it and/or experience it. A few theories on happiness have emerged from people who are educated in this discussion like Matt Killingsworth, Carl Honoré, Graham Hill, Dan Gilbert, and David Steindl-Rast. All who were featured in “Simply Happy,” a segment on the “TED Radio Hour” from 2014 and they give a more modern approach on being happy throughout life and share other theories. The Tao Te Ching by Laozi was written around the sixth century BCE and is one of the classic texts in China which separates yourself from your life to achieve happiness and a more recent theory of happiness from the past teachings of the Dalai Lama, The Art of Happiness which strictly distincts happiness from desire which are often thought of as related in today’s modern society.

The everlasting question of "What is Happiness?" has been inquired since the creation of men. Unfortunately, the only agreed answer that humanity came up with is that all the creatures seek happiness, but no one has the concrete directions for achieving it. Our libraries are overwhelmed with books about happiness, but no dictionary definition explains which path men must take to be happy. No mathematician gave us the axiom which we could use to solve the problem of living in bliss. No scientist brought up the formula of fusing certain ingredients to produce the "drink of happiness". Still almost all the people consider that their ultimate purport in

Our internal world governs our happiness, not conditions put upon us from our external environment or conditions we place on ourselves. To put it another way, our search for happiness is the very reason we’re unhappy (McLeod, 2007). Psychology considers happiness an emotion or mental state and a predictor of how well one’s life is going. Some say that happiness is a choice, and therefore a behavior that one chooses. Happiness is a way of interpreting the world, since while it may be difficult to change the world, it is always possible to change the way we look at it (McLeod, 2007).

It is common sense that all the human beings would like to live a happy life and they will spare no efforts in order to realize the purpose of really living a happy life in the end. However, different people have different definitions toward what a happy life is and they tend to have different standards as for how a life is that can be regarded as a happy life. There is no doubt that people will then try different means in order to pursue a happy life based on their definition toward what a happy life is. Therefore, the following will talk about the pursuit of a happy life from the perspectives of both Dalai Lama in The Art of Happiness and Viktor E. Frankl in Man’s Searching for Meaning, during which the experiences of some characters from the film Forrest Gump will be applied as evidence. Generally speaking, the pursuit of a happy life in the minds of Dalai Lama and Viktor E. Frankl can be achieved via experiencing sufferings and adversity. It is hoped that this analysis can help people understand what a happy is from a different point of view.