Happiness And Happiness : Suffering And The Perspective Of Happiness

Lazy fall days, colorful leaves, cooler weather, birds singing, frogs croaking, crickets chirping, relaxing to the sounds of the outdoors. Waves of water crashing upon each other, fishing, telling stories around a campfire, making s’mores, memories with family and friends; this is what happiness is to me. Happiness is in the eye of the beholder, what brings happiness to one person may not bring happiness to another person. When I think of the word happiness, I think of descriptive words like Contentment, enjoyment, satisfaction, delightfulness, something that makes a person smile. I have always looked at the word happiness as a feeling, an action, never have I thought of happiness as an overall affect. However, it is a proven fact, that happiness can affect the over-all health and longevity of human life. Happy people live longer than those that are lonely, stressed, or depressed.

In the movie The Pursuit of Happyness [sic], Will Smith talks about how Thomas Jefferson used the word "pursuit" in the Declaration of Independence. He goes on to explain “that it is there because a person can pursue happiness, but can never obtain it.” A level of happiness may be experienced as a result of hard work and dedication. Most people have problems and setbacks striving to reach happiness; even ideas of what constitutes happiness vary from person to person. People cope and overcome extremely complex problems in order to reach an acceptable level of happiness.

Based on Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi “Happiness Revisited” People have many different points of view about how to achieve happiness, it can be based on the type of life one is having, an experience, a way of living, culture, and religion. Happiness can be defined in many ways but happiness is not something we find or get just by magic. In “Happiness Revisited” by Csikszentmihalyi, the author emphasizes that “It is by being fully involved with every detail of our lives, whether good or bad, that we find happiness, not by trying to look for it directly.” And just as he stays that happiness is when someone is involved in everything that happens in live either good or bad, one example that I think Csikszentmihalyi will describe as an optimal experience

In The Happiness Hypothesis Jonathan Haidt talks about how our brains work and how best to find happiness with the different ways it works. Haidt describes the different ways a positive and negative person’s brain works and how each can find happiness through various and different methods. He also discusses different aspects of society that can affect our level of happiness. All of these things can be considered to find the best way to raise your level of happiness.

In Steven Donoso’s essay Beyond Happiness and Unhappiness, Ekhart Tolle makes his views concerning how individuals attempt to establish and define their personality clear. He constantly emphasizes the points that “life and Now are one” (6) and that “we live in a world of mental abstraction, conceptualization, and image making – a world of thought” (6). Essentially, what Tolle states is that one usually do not have much say in who they are or who they are becoming, people are merely conditioned by external forces such as family and the past, society, technology, and religion to think the way they do and unless they can see the conditioning in themselves they will be unable to get free of it. According to Tolle, one of the biggest influences that help to define who we are is our family.

In “On The Sufferings of the World,” Arthur Schopenhauer has a pessimistic outlook on life. He believes that suffering is a part of life and that without suffering, the world would be an even more miserable place. As many people may assume, life gets better as you grow older. Schopenhauer however disagrees with this statement and claims that life continually deteriorates. Before reading this piece I strongly believed that I was an optimist. I always like to see the bright side of situations but, Schopenhauer really gave me a different outlook on life, a pessimistic view, and I surprisingly agreed with many of his ideas. Although this is true, at the end of the reading, I disagreed with more ideas than not. Therefore, I do not think that Schopenhauer’s account on life is a good proposal to live by because not everyone is continuously miserable in their life and it is perfectly reasonable to have a positive outlook on life.

“Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present.” wise words spoken by Jim Rohn. Happiness is the state of being happy. It is a simple as that. Being happy is feeling or showing pleasure or contentment. For some of people happiness doesn't come easily, but I believe that it could. I believe that people can be and make their own happiness.

Happiness and sadness are the destiny given by God Almighty, the Creator. Where, man was created to be happy and enjoy every phase of life without remorse by nature. However, there are some people who invite grief and limit their life with a negative mind.

For Schopenhauer, the will-to-live demands an infinite amount of desires to be fulfilled, which always results in frustration. Schopenhauer holds that desire is essentially acquisitive; we exist in a state of lack that is painful until the object desired is acquired. Once the object desired is acquired, the result is pleasure, but this is only short lived. One either begins to desire a new object or becomes bored, which results in suffering either way. The totality of this frustration always outweighs the pleasure of its' release, as this pleasure is only fleeting and quickly replaced with more pain. The individual continues to suffer until death and may continue for the species for an infinite amount of time. The more that an individual affirms the will-to-live, the more she suffers. By affirming the will-to-live we further involve ourselves in this blind worldliness that always produces

Happiness is not always easy to achieve. Life throws curve balls and it’s hard to swing at all of them. I try to stay happy all the time or I fake it. I don’t want ruin other people’s happiness by being upset. I am blessed to say I have a happy life but there is plenty of ways I could increase my own happiness. Sleeping more than I do right now would increase my happiness. Doing more for others and spreading kindness is another way I could have a happier life. Lastly, planning events or activities beforehand would not only make me happier but also less stressed. I would love to be happier, but I need to be committed to make changes in my life.

People constantly have the desire to want more and often believe that by fulfilling those desires, it will increase their happiness. One problem is, people do not just live with simplicity in their lives, which is a direct reflection of their environment and societal factors that influence these continuous desires. Happiness is a very pertinent goal for people to reach. Today’s society has the misconception of happiness as being blinded by monetary and materialistic gains such as wealth, power, social media, and success. The “Mental Health Foundation's survey illustrating that 76 per cent of respondents think society is becoming more materialistic and selfish” (Buggey). Many people contemplate on whether or not it is even possible for individuals to attain happiness, which has driven researchers to neglect to study happiness because some believe that we would be better off by simply accepting our current happiness. However, we believe another reason for this neglect is the pessimistic view “over whether it is even possible to achieve sustainable increases in happiness” (Sheldon, K. & Lyubomirsky, S. (2006). With several different aspects of if happiness is even achievable, there are still individuals who believe there are.

The first type of happiness can be achieved through simple actions “being happy is easily taken to be feeling happy…a kind of smiley-face feeling.” Annas pg. 45

Happiness is a major key to a person’s overall well-being and self-confidence in their everyday life. In order to maintain happiness, most people have daily routines and or hobbies that they do on a regular basis that brings them joy and happiness. Without happiness the important activities that people take part in could be missing its full potential due to lack of happiness and self-esteem. The following 10 activities can create daily joy and happiness and suspend daily hardships: basketball (sports), music, television, working out, sleeping, day dreaming/ future planning, video games, relaxation, family time and cleaning.  As Kast says, “The emotion of joy suspends gravity” (44). What Kast means is that when a person is

Money. It can determine a lot of things for people; social ranking, how others think of you, and even happiness. Many people think that when you have money you also have happiness. Yes that can be true, but just how true is it? Money can be the cause of happiness and also sadness, needless to say money have a huge impact on every single person. Everyone wants money I think it's safe to say, everyone wants to feel stable. Yes its great to have money; you can do more things, travel more, and make family and friends happy with gifts you could buy them. But after all the toys and material things are gone can you say that you're happy, or that something's missing still?

When you hear the word happiness, what is the first thing that comes to mind? Do you think of material possessions like designer clothes and accessories, the newest iPhone with the highest possible storage capacity, or a shiny red supercar? Do you think the amount of money you have or your current financial status has an effect on how happy you are? Plenty of college students, myself included, would associate happiness with possessing items like these or just having a lot of money in general. In today’s society, one common belief about social class is that the richer and more money or things that one has, the happier this will make them. This belief is reinforced by countless advertisements we see and hear everywhere, whether that be on