What is being happy actually like? With the money, school, work, friends, family, etc. issues, how is it possible to become fully happy if there is always something that could be interfering with it? We live in America that promises us to to be all equal and can experience the “life, liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” But every news show that’s turned on, we hear about a 13 year old “entertaining” child who’s trending on every social media network about her disrespecting her mother more often than the issue on two American adults making terrorist threats and waving a confederate flag at a black child’s birthday party. We Americans get the free education until we graduate to find out that we actually don’t know what
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.
The authors of the article believe that there are three things that form happiness as a whole, “pleasure (or positive emotion); engagement; and meaning” (Seligman 540). In order to increase happiness, there needs to be a way to increase these three constituents in the lives of people. With this being said most people in the world cannot increase all three constituents, but a person can live a full life when “A person uses all three routes to happiness” (541). The main goal of people is to increase all three paths or constituents because through living a full life a person can have more satisfaction. This article gives many interesting facts about happiness and gives a very direct definition of what happiness is. This definition of what happiness is might match what some other people might think, but it cannot satisfy the definition that every one in the world
In the U.S. Declaration of Independence the pursuit of happiness is a fundamental right, but what exactly is happiness? According to Webster 's happiness is defined as a mental or emotional state of well being by positive emotions ranging from contentment to joy. But if we considered happiness as a trait rather than a transient state of being, than happiness wouldn’t be considered “joyful” or even feeling content with life. Instead happiness would perhaps include a sense of hopefulness and serenity and would be looked at as more of a contributor to one’s happiness. Ed Diener is a psychologist and a professor at University of Illinois and was the first person to identify the contributing factors to happiness and speaks about it in his book Happiness. Diener explains that happiness does matter in many different ways and uses three decades of research to explain happiness, suggesting that,“There is preliminary evidence that people who score higher on the well-being scales have better social and work relationships; make more money, live longer, healthier lives, and are more contributory societal citizens”(Conkle). Happiness comes in many different forms depending on the person. Family, friends, health, peace and values can all mean something to someone 's happiness but that doesn 't necessarily mean it’s a contributing factor(Tamayo). The extent of happiness is determined on not only actions but contributions, therefore if these
"Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today" (Richardson 382). One of the most amazing things people have dreamt to obtain is the “American Dream”. It is so profound in all the things it can symbolize. It is freedom, justice, but most of all, it is a hope for a better way of life. The immigrants who made the long and dangerous voyage to America wanted their children to have experiences that they never got to experience, one of those things being to have an education. Education has been so important and cherished for many years now. Without it, usually meant a mediocre job was imminent. Without it, people will not be using their full potential. Without it, the American Dream is not
America is viewed as the most advanced and developed country in the world. It owns some of the largest businesses and companies known to man. It is on top of every new technological advancement that has touched the Earth. It is the country that boasts of having the best and most efficient military in the world. The list goes on and on. And although a lot these claims made by America is true, none can doubt that this country has its fair share of flaws. A flaw in the American system is the lack of education many people receive. I am making this claim because the number of people I see in the street that are poor. These people don’t have access to quality education which prevents them from getting jobs. In the essay, I will dissect this issue
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.
Education…beyond all other devices of human origin, is a great equalizer of the conditions of men—the balance wheel of the social machinery. I do not here mean that it so elevates the moral nature as to make men disdain and abhor the oppression of their fellow men…But I mean that it gives each man the independence and the means by which he can resist the selfishness of other men. It does better than to disarm the poor of their hostility toward the rich: it prevents being poor. –Horace Mann, 1848
Happiness is that intangible “something” that all human beings seem to long for from the time they are born. As Thomas Jefferson proclaimed in America’s Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” With the birth of a nation that was founded on the promise of a better life through individual achievement, regardless of social class, the pursuit of happiness has perhaps become synonymous with securing “the American Dream.” The pursuit of happiness and achieving “the American Dream” are entirely different from one person to another. The dream is what
There are no pure states of mankind. Whatever else happiness may be, it is neither in having nor in being, but in becoming. What the Founding Fathers declared for us as an inherent right, we should do well to remember, was not happiness but the pursuit of happiness. What they might have underlined, could they have foreseen the happiness-market, is the cardinal fact that happiness is in the pursuit itself, in the meaningful pursuit of what is life-engaging and life-revealing, which is to say, in the idea of becoming. A nation is not measured by what it possesses or wants to possess, but by what it wants to become” (Ciardi, par. 10). Even though I disagree most part of his article because it seems like only the Americans always un-happy, and don't know what happiness is. I think not only americans but other country can be un-happy in my own opinion. Despite the article, I really like the last paragraph because it “is not measured by what it possesses or wants to possess, but what it want to become” to be happy. Meanwhile, choosing Aristotle theory to help define happiness to support Dalai Lama and John Ciardi's
From the beginning of our lives, our parents, for the most part, want us to be happy. Pursuing that happiness becomes a goal that we strive for on an everyday basis. In America, it’s the American Dream. People come to this country in search of that elusive happiness. Ever since Thomas Jefferson wrote a very important sentence in our Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” (Jefferson), our goals have been the same; searching for that happiness no matter what. However, as Ray Bradbury writes, if we focus too much on those aspects that make us
The pursuit of happiness has an interesting collection of meanings behind it. Americans are free to become whatever they want to be. To study what interests a person is what makes them happy. Once something deeply interests a person, he or she is drawn in to want to learn more about it. Pursuing a career that is related to someone’s likes is the essence of what can make a person content. To choose to or not to have a family is a personal decision that Americans are allowed to make. One person might enjoy living alone while another likes having the company of family. Creating a family is a pursuit of happiness for certain people, but for others, living alone is peaceful and a comfortable way of living. How one chooses to live is a choice made pertaining to the normal routine of daily life. One might watch television with dinner or sit his or her family down to have a meal together. While one person enjoys exercising regularly, another could be perfectly happy with the use of electronic devices daily. A home might be clean and organized or messy and scattered; it is the choice of the home owner. The pursuit of happiness is made up of different components depending on the
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
Education is an enormous factor in future opportunities, and our education system truly closes multiple doors to opportunity for some, rather than open them for all. This plays a big role in the lack of the American Dream’s presence, and why it truly no longer exists. In Nicholas Kristof’s article “The American Dream Is Leaving America,” he breaks down the education system, how it works, and addresses the flaws in the American educational system across the country. “A new Pew survey finds that Americans consider the greatest threat to our country to be the growing gap between the rich and poor. Yet we have constructed an education system, dependent on local property taxes, that provides great schools for the rich kids in the suburbs who need the least help, and broken, dangerous schools for inner-city children who desperately need a helping hand. Too often, America’s education system amplifies not opportunity but inequality.” (Kristof, 2014). Education allows for many opportunities, whether it is a better career to pursue, or knowledge and skills required for the daily life of an American citizen. However, in the article it was made evident that there was a prodigious amount of opportunity lacking in our education system. Education was being funded and supported in more places that needed less help, than those that needed it most. The education system was growing and improving in areas that were already at an advantage, as opposed to those who were disadvantaged and had less. Equal opportunity for all is impossible if there aren’t an equal amount of support for events and things that lead to opportunity. Only a specific group of people were being targeted to increase and improve education, which means that same specific group are truly the only ones