Freud on Happiness Essay

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

The purpose of this text is to demonstrate that if one tries to find happiness, they will be unable to do so. Also, to demonstrate that happiness can only be found with one’s mind set on an object other than happiness. I reached this conclusion by looking at the examples given in the final paragraph as shown.

This means that in order to actually attain happiness, a person must achieve psychological, as well as physical needs to the fullest extent of their capabilities.

Perhaps it is safe to say that most everyone in the deranged world that we live in today aims for happiness. Some would even say we are simply slaves to our primal passions, shackled in our endless pursuit of fulfillments and shaping our existence around them. Gravitating towards the things in life that bring us pleasure, and recoiling away from those that could cause us pain. A lot of individuals think of happiness as an overall end goal, while others consider happiness the starting point of being great. Nevertheless, happiness is drawn from different things based off the individual.

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

There are certain things that are in the control of the humans, at the same time there are several things, which are not under the human’s control. Thus, to persist a happy life, the humans are required to put an end their desire such that the satisfaction of

John Dupont grew up with an immeasurable amount of wealth. The story of his life justifies the fact that happiness doesn’t reside in fortune. After analyzing his behavior, the best way to explain it would be through the psychodynamic perspective. When John was very young his parents divorced and his father left, leaving him and his siblings to live with their mother. His father made it very known that he didn’t want to be apart of his son's life when he would require John to make appointments to see him. It is said that John never really had a childhood. He wasn’t good socially and ate his meals alone in his room until he was 13 years old, completely isolating himself from the world.

When it comes to happiness and striving for it, this can be a dangerous flaw in Nielsen’s argument.

Happiness is not a strange term to us. We usually use that word to express our feelings in every day. Additionally, more than a word, “happiness” is what we really need and always seek in life. However, finding and understanding deeply its meaning is not easy. The online dictionary, “vocabulary.com” defines, “Happiness is a sense of well-being, joy, or contentment. When people are successful, or safe, or lucky, they feel happiness.” Thus, we always wonder if we are happy or how could we be happier in our life. Happiness, therefore, becomes a goal for everybody.

Happiness is what all human beings/rational beings desire. It is always the end (goal) of our activities, it is an unconditional good.

In his work, Civilization and Disobedience, Sigmund Freud assesses that civilization and its individuals overall aim is to be happy. Throughout his work, Freud often points out the differences and disagreements that come about between the two. These disagreements often arise due to the limitations that are set on man both by himself and by the civilization of which he is part. This work was published in the 1930s, which is considered to be the Great Depression Era, otherwise known as the time between World War I and World War II. In his work, Freud often describes man as striving to have a happy life, but is often unsuccessful due to civilization and mans own aggression. In man’s strive to happy Freud also introduces his theory of instincts that give a person more insight as to what is going on in a person’s psyche and how they can become happier people. Sigmund Freud’s overall message was that happiness cannot be fully fulfilled due to civilization itself and everybody being individualistic and having a different idea of happiness.

On the contrary, the pursuit of happiness is not habitually good. Sometimes being too happy is not a good thing, others argue. To desperately want happiness is not healthy for one. “ Recent work has also argued that happiness should not always be desired. In fact, striving for happiness may actually cause more harm than good” (Gruber). The problem is that when one has too much happiness they become overwhelmed. Once one becomes overwhelmed they become depressed. Although, the Pursuit of Happiness is not necessarily finding happiness but allowing one to be

Many live attempting to decipher the riddle of life. What is life? What is the purpose? What makes? Even though we only seek happiness why can’t we ever seem to achieve it? When we do reach happiness why can’t we seem to grasp it and hold it for more than the few short hours that pass like seconds? The question we must answer first is “What makes happiness, true?”

He is unsatisfied with his life because he finds that life has a lack of meaning for him and finds himself depressed as a result of allowing civilization to suppress his innermost desires or instincts, “like so many others I had become a slave to the IKEA nesting instinct” (Fight Club). Freud asserts that the purpose of human life is the pursuit of what makes one happy (Freud 25), thus Freud implies that our perception of reality is built from the incline toward satisfying our natural instincts. Freud argues that even though civilization was initially developed to protect us it has turned to become one of the major obstacles for the individual to achieve the purpose of life which is satisfaction of natural needs; “our civilization is largely responsible for our misery, and that we should be much happier if we gave it up and returned to primitive conditions (Freud 38).

The pleasure principles goal is to avoid pain, which Freud later states it is not always a good thing because the longer things follow the pleasure principle the happiness received begins to decrease and no longer has the same affect. Overall, this makes it harder for individuals to stay happy. Along with the pleasure principle, Freud states there are three main things that also make us unhappy which are our body, the external world, and our relations with others. And out of all these three, the worst comes from our relations with others, we hurt one another more than anything else on earth.