Happiness : Helpful Or Harmful?

Its 5:00 p.m. on a Saturday evening and I’m patiently waiting at DiCicco’s, an Italian restaurant in Kingsburg California near CVS for my special guesses to arrive. As I patiently waited with a glass of water I saw Dalai Lama, C.S. Lewis, Gretchen Rubin, Daniel M. Haybron and Thomas Jefferson as the representative of the Founding Fathers walk through the door. We all gather at the dining table and we each got a glass of water, except for Mr. Thomas Jefferson he had a cup of tea. Few minutes later our dinner was served. I personally had Ruby salad, Dalai Lama had Giovanni’s Pasta, C.S. Lewis had Manicotti, Gretchen Rubin had the Italian green mixed salad, Daniel M. Haybron had Arianna’s Bella Pasta, and lastly Mr. Thomas Jefferson had Charbroiled Chicken Breast.

Looking at the bright side and noticing what is right as opposed to what is wrong is not normal for most people. It is commonly thought that being optimistic is not being realistic and even though that is true for some people, there are ways to be optimistic in a healthy manner that can help one see life’s challenges realistically even when times get tough. Being optimistic is a skill that takes effort and thought but spending the time to work on cultivating optimism can be life changing. Cultivating optimism is one of the happiness enhancing strategies that has been shown to increase happiness levels and positive thoughts about the future, which is the concept which I experimented with when I conducted the Best Possible Selves activity.

The feeling of happiness is ubiquitous. In the book of “Stumping on Happiness” states, “to choose or want one thing rather than another because it would be more pleasant,” which is to say that the pursuit of happiness is built the very definition of desire” (Gilbert 33). Happiness is a feeling because I can use my eyes to see all the lovely things in the world. I can use my ear to listen to the natural singing softly. I can use my hand to touch the delicate petals. I am happy I can use my nose to smell the scent of grass. Happiness can have endless memories. Unlike a blind man living in the shadowy world, he has to use walking sticks as a guide to precede the life of the road ahead of him. His main support is to touch a person to perceive

Many people ask why is there such thing as optimism, or why are there optimist? Well, many people believe that if you don’t think good about yourself or life, you won’t push yourself toward your goals. They are right, without optimism there won’t be any goal setting, people will just be doubting themselves.

What does happiness even mean? Does everything think the same when they hear happiness. I do not believe that happiness means the same thing to

A positive attitude will lead to a better life. Like saying the sky is blue or the sun rises in the east, this statement appears self-evident. Ingrained in the American identity is a sense of optimism. From countless self-help books to the quintessential southern prosperity gospel preacher, Americans truly believe that having an optimistic outlook improves life (Blumner 1). Chris Prentiss, New Age guru and co-founder of Passages, a well-known rehabilitation facility in Malibu, argues this very point in his book Zen and the Art of Happiness. Through a personal anecdote about his son’s journey to sobriety, Prentiss claims that “every event that befalls [a person] is the best possible event that could occur,” a mindset known as dispositional

What does the word happiness mean to us? To many the word happiness can be just a term but to others the word has a different meaning, a more valuable meaning. Happiness can be seen or expressed and it’s important because of how it keeps motivating individuals that good decisions can be made and noticed that they have support. Although, happiness is just an emotion, that is the act of kindness that opens an individual to realize what they have in there hands. And when there’s someone there for you when needed, noticing the positive side and just moving with the flow by doing the work or doing what’s best, and knowing happiness comes from ourselves it creates a tension that is amazing.

In Barbara Ehrenreich's book, Bright Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, she talks of people only focusing on the optimistic side of situations rather than seeing it as it is. Ehrenreich expresses how people think too brightly on dark situations, like cancer. In turn of not thinking rationally and sugar coating the bad things, she agrees with “...sociologist Karen Cerulo” when she “recounts a number of ways that the habit of positive thinking, or what she calls optimistic bias, undermined preparedness and invited disaster” (Ehrenreich,10). The bright side is blinding us from seeing the whole truth, and is, in turn, undermining us. Optimism is overvalued and embraced by society, whereas pessimism is often never talked about or thought of negatively. Pessimism is thrown aside like a pair of dirty

It’s no surprise that humans feel emotion. They can be angry, happy, and more importantly, they can feel sadness. Sadness is a hard thing to cope with. Whether you lost a loved one, or your favorite team losing a big game, people have all been through it. Sadness can also be dangerous, and can make you do unspeakable things. But this is where happiness comes in. happiness can help you get over your problem and be hopeful for the future. Happiness can be achieved by one of three things; focusing on what will make you happy in the future, appreciating what you already have, and just doing what you love.

Happiness is essential to human existence because it is human nature to desire to know the answer to insoluble questions like “where is my place and what is my purpose in the universe?”. In his work, Pensées, Pascal states, “. . . we burn with desire to find solid ground and an ultimate sure foundation whereon to build a tower reaching to the Infinite. But our whole groundwork cracks, and the earth opens to abysses. Let us, therefore, not look for certainty and stability. Our reason is always deceived by fickle shadows” (Pascal, 1). In this quote, he is clearly stating that the futile objective to find purpose is like a thirst that can never be quenched. As a realist, he recognizes that we are unable to give up our desire to understand our place and purpose in the universe, so we must distract ourselves with our passions and chase after material goods. We distract ourselves with the chase to subside fear of the unknown. Because the universe does not define us or offer a set of guidelines to do so, we often define ourselves by the aspects of life that displace us furthest from having to engage with knowing that our purpose can never be absolutely identified. In this essay, I will support Pascal’s account of human nature by arguing that we are motivated to find meaning and purpose and do so in the chase. We create artificial identities in the material things and passions we chase after, making our identities similar to a project and therefore illusory.

Americans can pursue happiness by achieving the things that they really want to accomplish in their life’s.

People do the thing they know that can make them happy, like going out on a Friday night or reading a good book. Happiness, for Sheenie Ambardar, MD, is a personal thing. “It’s something internal, it’s some kind of peace or contentedness, some kind of psychological well-being that you have inside of you, so it’s not related to any of those external things,” Dr. Ambradar added. But, many people think that external factors can be the cause of their happiness. You are chained to the idea that you have to have these set of things at this age in order for you to be happy. But Dr. Ambradar said, “That’s such an insidious, oppressive idea.”

The resistance people have to seeing the truth and reality of a situation the way it actually is usually belies an underlying negative thought of their own; what is it that is so inherently not okay with my life that I have to take an overly - unrealistically - optimistic approach to things? What is driving the desperate need for unrealistic over-optimism... ?

“Love is that condition in which happiness of another person is essential to your own”.

Human beings desire to be happy. What this happiness entails is subjective and may be different for each individual but it would be correct to state that for each us we seek some kind of end goal which results in us living in a state of peace and happiness. When certain needs and desires are not met, this is when we experience bouts of displeasure and unhappiness, and according to Freud this is due to both the wider society and the relations we have with those existing in this civilization with us.