How Of Happiness Book Report

A powerful quote said by pre-socratic philosopher named Democritus says “Happiness resides not in possessions, and not in gold, happiness dwells in the soul”. In other words, happiness does not come from materialism but instead from the things money can’t buy. In the article The Secret of Happiness the author David Myers writes directly to Americans about how he believes we need to obtain a new “American Dream” that emphasizes personal happiness instead of materialistic happiness. Myers also believes happiness resides in the soul and he says people that think money is the key to happiness are actually less content with themselves and he uses various ways to prove this point. With that being said materialistic happiness vs personal happiness is an important issue, and Myers made a strong use of Logos by showing surveys and studies, Ethos by showing credibility in his argument but he could have used more Pathos by using more emotion and enthusiasm in his argument.

Within The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt, he mentions that there are two ancient truths concerning how the mind works. The first truth is the foundational idea of the book: the mind is divided into parts that sometimes conflict with each other. The second truth is Shakespeare’s idea about how “thinking makes it so.” (or, as Buddha said, “Our life is the creation of our mind.”) Like a rider, on the back of an elephant, the conscious, reasoning part of the mind has only limited control of what the elephant does. Nowadays, we know the cause of these divisions, and a few ways to help the rider and the elephant work as a better team. We can improve this ancient idea today by explaining why most people’s minds have a bias toward seeing threats and engaging in useless worry. To change this bias, we can use three techniques to increase happiness, one ancient, and two very new.

In society there are still differences in classes such as higher class, middle class, and lower class. In sociology, we observed a film called The Pursuit Happyness, where we witnessed the struggles a father went through to succeed. Chris Gardner, who was played by Will Smith, is living in his apartment with his wife and his son. Due to their struggles, the mother walks out on and leaves Chris struggling alone with his son. In the film Chris Gardner applies for an unpaid internship for a competitive stockbroker company where out of twenty men, only one gets the job. While he is on his internship, we see the hardships of getting kicked out of his apartment to staying at a shelter home to then sleeping in a subway bathroom with his son. Viewing the movie through a sociological lens, The Pursuit of Happyness will be analyzed according to the major three sociological paradigms: structural functionalism, social conflict theory, and symbolic interactionalism.

Mahatma Gandhi one defined happiness as “when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” Barring any better definition of happiness from either positive psychologists, self-help gurus, or any other academic source, I tend to think this is a great summation of the definition of happiness. Gandhi doesn’t say anything about how these things make you feel, rather looks at it from a point of view of harmony between thoughts, expressions, and actions. Since one single accepted definition of happiness doesn’t seem to exist, and happiness is different for everyone, this begs the question; how can you increase your own personal level of happiness?

Being happy in life is an important feeling for everybody. Happiness is shown by somebody being satisfied, blissful and overall in a state of pleasure. In the novel Fahrenheit 451, Many characters such as Mildred, Montag and Faber all show different forms of happiness and freedom. Mildred, a cold, distant and dull character demonstrates without knowledge, freedom is impossible and real happiness is unreachable. She seems to be in great pain throughout her life, and her obsession and attachment to her “family” on the television is what causes her to not confront her own life problems. Montag who begins the book having a passion for his profession, burning books, changes quickly. After being faced

In “Happiness 101,” Harvard professor Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar presents his ideas pertaining to the achievability of happiness. He begins by discussing how individuals must give themselves permission to be human, so that they can feel the negative feelings before they reach the positive feelings. If negative feelings are held back without release, then they only intensify eventually blocking out the positive feelings. Ben-Shahar continues his presentation to the topic of managing stress on the micro, mezza, and macro levels. These levels include the ideas of meditation, sleep, taking time off, vacations, and the “three deep breaths.” Simplifying agendas and practicing quality over quantity has a positive effect on stress levels as well. At the conclusion of his presentation, Ben-Shahar discusses the positive effect of practicing gratitude on health, happiness, and well-being. After listening to Tal Ben-Shahar’s presentation, I completely agree with every point that Ben-Shahar uses over the topics of giving permission to be human, stress management, and practicing gratitude covered throughout his presentation over happiness.

The most universal goal every human has in common is the pursuit of happiness or “creation or construction of happiness” (Achor, 78). To be able to fulfill this wish of becoming happy, people often think the key to achieving happiness is success. In the book, The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor, he debunks this theory of success leading to happiness by illustrating the reverse theory of success. Through dozens of studies and experiments as forms of evidence, the author argues that an individual needs to achieve happiness in order to be truly successful. Achor 's argument is valid in that happiness should come before success because there is a clear advantage to being successful in an individual’s work life, personal sphere, and liveliness if they are happy first and foremost.

Happiness: a Human Disease -- An Examination of the Allegorical Theme of Existentialism in the Happy Man

In Stumbling on Happiness, Daniel Gilbert explores the question of why humans fail to know what will make them happy in the future. In chapter 5 Gilbert explains how we imagine in more detail for the near future experiences rather than long term because out brains have a lot more filling in of information to do; however I disagree. In terms of making plans 2 weeks in advance he might be right, but in terms of the far future, for example 20 years, I feel as if I have many significant goals and expectations that I see in my future, and I feel as if they are more thought out than my journey to those goals or my actions in my near future. This may be because I am what one might consider a “dreamer,” but I feel as if I spend a lot of time thinking

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.

The human personality is made up of two parts, Jonathan Haidt, author of The Happiness Hypothesis describes this as “the rider” and “the elephant”. The rider represents our conscious, reasonable thoughts and decisions, and “the elephant” represents all our emotions and gut reactions. Without the elephant, the rider would not be able to make rational decisions, likewise, without the rider, the elephant will become ill advised and its emotions will run rampant. When the rider and elephant work together, it creates characteristics in humans, which Haidt describes as the “inner lawyer”, the “rose-colored mirror”, naïve realism, and the “myth of pure evil”. Every person on Earth has these personality characteristics, and they help us progress through

In the essay “How to Choose Happiness,” Marie Kondo describes “tokimeku” as aspects of our life that helps us determine happiness. Kondo defines “to spark joy” is a way we find happiness through energy and devotion. She says as individuals we value more on buying new things and focusing on technologies. Consequently, Kondo says there are standards that don’t fulfill our happiness, such as earnings from our jobs, caring about our weight, and consuming different calories each day. Time is used to show own goals to please ourselves from determining our identity and showing determination in a way we want. Kondo proposes a concept to describe how “tokimeku” can help us with our lives by facing problems then seeking for solutions. For example, Kondo

Cognitive psychology is based on the interaction between thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Every mind has to process events and decide how to react; conflict management helps to evaluate situations and move forward in the best way. In order to manage conflicts, one must step back and assess what makes him feel this certain way. In the article Happiness is an Inside Job, Robert Puff elaborates on how to present and happy to rid of the suffering.

I found this reading excerpt to be one that really made me think! Towards the beginning of the reading, Kazez said that “happiness is good, period.” I found myself disagreeing with this statement. Many different things make different people happy, and the discussions we have had in class seem to be relevant to this topic. When it comes to serial killers or murderers, killing or torturing people makes them happy. So, because it is happiness, it is good? If killing people makes me happy, that means I should continue killing people because all happiness is good. Something about that doesn’t sit right with me. Happiness in life is great, but if that takes happiness away from other people, then is it truly happiness? I agree with the author that

“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.” -- Denis Waitley