An Essay About Love, Our Supreme Emotion, By Daniel Gilbert

When having good experiences, most people, if asked, would claim that they feel happy. However, if one decided to ask Martha Nussbaum, author of “Who is the Happy Warrior? Philosophy Poses Questions to Psychology,” she would most likely respond that she was feeling pleasured. In her article, she draws a restrictive line between pleasure and happiness. She introduces the viewpoints of many intellectuals who have spoken on the definition of happiness, and then offers her own opinions in regards to theirs. Her thoughts generally align with those of Aristotle, Plato, and the ancient Greek thinkers – the very ones she spent much of her higher education studying. Her main ideas, that happiness is too complex to be concretely defined and that pleasure is a feeling that we may experience while doing certain things, are well-explained and supported. She offers the idea that happiness is not an emotion – rather, it is a state of being that we should all hope to attain as a result of self-reflection. Nussbaum continually counters the beliefs proposed by psychologists, like the notion that happiness is a one-note feeling, or the concept that happiness is only influenced by positive emotions. In my essay, I will explain how Martha Nussbaum’s explanation of the complexities of happiness is superior, as well as how the ideas of two psychologists, Sonja Lyubomirsky and Daniel Gilbert, are faulty and disreputable. However, it is important to note that just because Nussbaum is the least wrong

Lyubomirsky defines happiness as the “experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile” (184). She challenges the myths that people can find happiness by changing their circumstances and that people either are “born happy or unhappy” (186). Happiness is not something that can be found or something that not everyone can have. People make their own happiness, despite the difficulties they may face. Happiness comes by “choosing to change and manage your state of mind” (185). Lyubomirsky gives cases of people who are happy even though they suffer from losses and setbacks. These are the people whose circumstances should make them unhappy, but their intentional actions bring them joy. She also gives cases of people who have not suffered any major losses but are still unhappy because they may see events negatively and feel helpless before them. Lyubomirsky asserts that “changes in our circumstances, no matter how positive and stunning, actually have little bearing on our well-being” (186). Even though a person’s circumstances may be positive, those circumstances do not make them happy. Lyubomirsky uses a Subjective Happiness Scale to measure happiness, which takes the average of numerical answers to four questions. She argues that in order to become happier, “you need to determine your present personal happiness level, which will provide your first estimate of your happiness

As human beings we are naturally wired to seek happiness wherever we can find it. When we don’t, we may enter a stage of anger, anxiety, or distress. That’s why it is our personal goal to look for happiness and preserve it once we acquire it. Many have explored ways to find what triggers this feeling of “happiness” and what we can do to keep it; nonetheless, the evidence found is hardly sufficient to make a public statement on how to find happiness. For this reason, most of the time we speculate what might provoke this feeling of contentment. “Happiness is a glass half empty,” an essay written by Oliver Burkeman, highlights the importance of happiness and discloses how we can find delight through unorthodox methods. The prime objective of this piece of writing is to inform the audience about the effect of happiness on their lives and how their usual attempts of becoming happier can sabotage achieving this feeling. Furthermore, he wants to promote the benefits of pessimism and describe how it can help us in the long run. The author utilizes pronouns, logos, and pathos in order to prove his point and draw the audience into his essay, in an attempt of making them reconsider the way they live their lives and adopt this new pessimistic way that would greatly boost their level of happiness.

looking at how to minimize pain and not maximize happiness. He starts the article by recounting

Happiness. It is not tangible, measurable or even understandable. Yet, above all other things, it is what people seek the most. Individuals draw happiness from a number of different sources,presumably causing the confusion as to why happiness can not be traced back to a specific object. Still, how can you possibly meet the expectations of being happy? This article will attempt to demystify the subject of happiness.

peace” and “a sense of release” (Armstrong, 14). For Fredrickson, this emptying would lead to positivity resonance. She would go on to explain each of the three parts; the brain, oxytocin, and

Happiness is a euphoric state, it is the light at the end of the tunnel, it is what individuals seek to achieve. Human beings inherently want to be happy. Happiness is unique because it has seven billion different definitions. In his book Immune to Reality, Daniel Gilbert argues that individuals are only as happy as the subconscious function of their brain allows them to be. Additionally, he questions the state of happiness by citing the psychological immune system. The psychological immune system is a subconscious process of the human brain, which favorably rationalizes human decisions whether they were right or not, regardless of outcome it always finds something favorable to take away. In Barbara Fredrickson’s Love 2.0, she introduces the vagus nerve as a biological apparatus to increase loving potential; Fredrickson links higher levels of loving potential to increased overall health. Most importantly, Fredrickson establishes the relationship between love and happiness as an interdependent one, “Having at least one close relationship like this is vital to your health and happiness” (108). Fredrickson believes that humans have the power within them to biologically alter themselves and to shape their own identity. Inversely, Malcolm Gladwell proclaims that human identity is shaped by the environment an individual is subject to in his book The Power of Context. Gladwell affirms that humans have the power to shape their identity, however only by changing the

Trained in the profession of psychology, Sharon Begley had multiple pieces published in The Wall Street Journal, and conducted several survey critiques of happiness. Begley introduces the article by talking about a book labeled “The Loss of Sadness: How Psychiatry Transformed Normal Sorrow Into Depressive Disorder.” Essentially, the novel depicts how today’s society relies too much on a pill for solving ones disputes. It is normal to feel dismal after an event such as a break up, and instead of letting an individual cope with the feelings the assumption is that a person is depressed and needs to seek medical attention. Begley proceeds to touch on the fact that “...only by experiencing sadness can we experience the fullness of the human condition” (557). It is necessary to feel all different emotions rather than masking them all with one. Begley is not stating that happiness is a bad thing, rather she interprets that it is healthier to be in a state where you can have improvement in your life.

People travel through life with what seems like a single goal: to be happy. This may seem like a selfish way to live, however this lone objective is the motivation behind nearly all actions. Even seemingly selfless deeds make people feel better about themselves. That warm feeling experienced while doing charitable acts can be described as happiness. But what is authentic happiness? There is an endless possibility of answers to this question, and man seems to be always searching for the solution. Although one may reach his or her goals, there is always still something one strives for in order to be happy. In the book Stumbling on Happiness, Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert takes the reader through

If you’re not paying attention, the mind can be a tricky labyrinth. The less you know about it, the more inexplicable and frightening it becomes. For example, why do seemingly benign elephants wreak havoc upon villages? In “An Elephant Crackup,” Charles Siebert explores the aberrant nature of these elephants and correlates them to their traumatizing upbringing, deprived of community and kinship. The biochemistry of the human mind, analyzed in “Love2.0” by Barbara Frederickson, serves as a worthy addendum to Siebert’s conjecture. “Love2.0” explains that the brain, hormones, and nerves work in unison to build emotional fortitude, stimulate oneself, and express positivity resonance. Siebert’s ideas of elephant culture and trans-species psyche can put Frederickson’s theory of emotions into practice. The absence of certain hormones within elephants, provided their fragmented community, can explain their volatile outbreaks. Alternatively, the reinstitution of human parental roles into elephant culture can help reconstruct their broken emotional states of elephants and rebuild their resilience; this healing process can also extend to humans.

Love has many different meanings to different people. For a child, love is what he or she feels for his mommy and daddy. To teenage boy, love is what he should feel for his girlfriend of the moment, only because she says she loves him. But as we get older and "wiser," love becomes more and more confusing. Along with poets and philosophers, people have been trying to answer that age-old question for centuries: What is love?

“Thoughts become perception, perception becomes reality. Alter your thoughts, alter your reality” (James “William James Quote”). This sentiment from William James who was a leading philosopher and psychologist at the turn of the 19th Century inspires one to challenge their labeling of a current circumstance, suggesting happiness is a perception that can be manipulated. This mind over matter approach to life’s struggles has become commonplace in the repertoire of motivational speakers, close friends, coaches, and other well-meaning influencers alike. This ambiguous concept has the ability to produce very real consequences, even death. 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).

“Goleman persuasively argues for a new social model of intelligence drawn from the emerging field of social neuroscience. Describing what happens to our brains when we connect with others, Goleman demonstrates how relationships have the power to mold not only human experience but also human biology. In lucid prose he describes from a neurobiological perspective sexual attraction, marriage, parenting, psychopathic behaviors and the group dynamics of teachers and workers. Goleman frames his discussion in a critique of society 's creeping disconnection in the age of the iPod, constant digital connectivity and multitasking. Vividly evoking the power of social interaction to influence mood and brain chemistry, Goleman discusses the "toxicity" of insult and unpleasant social experience as he warns of the dangers of self-absorption and poor attention and reveals the positive effects of feel-good neurochemicals that are released in loving relationships and in caregiving. Drawing on numerous studies, Goleman illuminates new theories about attachment, bonding, and the making and remaking of memory as he examines how our brains are wired for altruism,

Love is a powerful feeling; it makes you do crazy thing. Many people spend years trying to find it, others give up thinking they’ll never find it. Love has been defined as an intensive feeling of a deep romantic or sexual attachment to someone. Of course, Love doesn 't have to romantic and/or sexual. People who are ace, as in asexual, aromantic and agender, can still be in relationships that are satisfying for them without the needs of a romantic relationship. Familial love is also non-romantic-sexual. However, in this paper, we will be talking about romantic-sexual love, what it is, and why I believe it’s so important to understand and experience.