I Am A Woman, And My Head Down

Happiness, an elusive eight letter word with a mighty punch! Many have sought to define happiness, but found it a difficult task to do. While reading an article published in the New Yorker by Will Sorr on July 07, 2017 titled “A Better Kind of Happiness”, I was informed that happiness is more than just a word, happiness is essential to the well-being of human health. Dating back nearly two and half million years ago an ancient Greek Philosopher and scientist, Aristotle, proposed the idea of eudaemonic happiness. He stated that “happiness was not merely a feeling, or a golden promise, but a

As human beings we are naturally wired to seek happiness wherever we can find it. When we don’t, we may enter a stage of anger, anxiety, or distress. That’s why it is our personal goal to look for happiness and preserve it once we acquire it. Many have explored ways to find what triggers this feeling of “happiness” and what we can do to keep it; nonetheless, the evidence found is hardly sufficient to make a public statement on how to find happiness. For this reason, most of the time we speculate what might provoke this feeling of contentment. “Happiness is a glass half empty,” an essay written by Oliver Burkeman, highlights the importance of happiness and discloses how we can find delight through unorthodox methods. The prime objective of this piece of writing is to inform the audience about the effect of happiness on their lives and how their usual attempts of becoming happier can sabotage achieving this feeling. Furthermore, he wants to promote the benefits of pessimism and describe how it can help us in the long run. The author utilizes pronouns, logos, and pathos in order to prove his point and draw the audience into his essay, in an attempt of making them reconsider the way they live their lives and adopt this new pessimistic way that would greatly boost their level of happiness.

Jennifer Senior discusses her research concerning positive psychology and whether or not happiness is teachable and highlights some of the darker sides of happiness. To start the article, Senior reveals her score on her test from the Authentic Happiness Inventory. The test designed by Chris Peterson of the positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania. This test is intended to numerically score ones level of happiness. In a scale of 1 to 5, Jennifer got a grade of 2.88. This indicated she was below average for most rankings such as “age, education level, gender and occupation” (422). Senior states she is at the 50 percent mark for her given zip code. She stated that liking her

In “Happiness: Enough Already,” Sharon Begley argues that happiness is overrated and it should not always be a priority in your life.

We cannot let our work and living conditions limit our success, we must take control of the situations in our lives. As much as we have all heard it, we need to keep a positive attitude and mindset, or at least try to. This is probably the easiest way to take control of the situations you are in; keeping a positive attitude has been known to increase your physical and mental health, which can really only benefit you. In a study performed by the University of California, Riverside, in which productivity, happiness, and overall physical and mental well-being were analyzed in working individuals, it was concluded that a positive attitude and outlook has a great effect on one’s life. Generally positive, or “happy people,” were found to be more satisfied with their jobs, to perform tasks better, and less likely to be unemployed and more likely to be physically healthier and live longer than their less happy peers (Joy). Positive people being less likely to be unemployed allows these individuals to accumulate more money, which makes the general public happier nowadays, and this ultimately makes the dream of having success more easily attainable. Happy individuals being found to be healthier and to therefore live longer than less happy individuals gives these happy individuals more time to attain the “American Dream” as well. Keeping

That afternoon I said “no more” to my self deprivation of happiness. I began to shed my passive aggressive side, which lives in the rice and the beans, and reincarnate my assertive soul. Nothing stopped me from enjoying my chicken while it was warm and tender; there is no reason I can’t enjoy my life without feeling guilty for the happiness that lacked precedented, superfluous struggle. I have seemed to learn, now, that success and reward shouldn’t bring guilt upon receival; I am allowed joy and enthusiasm without having to endure some sort of discomfort. I have already started practicing this simple change in perspective, and it has brought upon me a great deal of happiness, a word I recognize is cliche but difficult to replace with any other qualifier that accurately communicates what I am emanating. With assertiveness comes the quality of being proactive, which is a word that definitely triggers the shivers down my spine as I recall my mother scolding me with that same

Feeling thwarted in every effort to set circumstances right, in my life - not between us, becomes intense with patterns and connections. Illuminating my mind, emulating the strings from ballistics in a crime scene, or worse, a schizophrenic’s garage, complete with wall covered newspaper clippings and red marker lines that model no reality but chaos. My connections are evidence based, empirically proven models of physical systems; my subjective realizations were at least based on such arrangements and configurations, architectures and harmonies. Between the visits to the women trying to help me I have assignments. The next two weeks include writing my strengths, progress in the past year, and compliments. One of those is your supportive, wonderful email that doling out strokes for learning proper grammar. That felt

“The Yellow Wallpaper”, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “The Chrysanthemums”, by John Steinbeck, are two inspirational stories about the limitations and stereotypical roles of a woman in the early 1900’s. The reader can easily conclude that in both of the stories, the women feel like they are underappreciated by their husbands. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the woman keeps describing herself as “one’s self”, as she feels that she is not her own person. The viewers notice this woman has a husband, John, whom is her caretaker and believes he shows his love in a very dysfunctional way. In order for her to remain stable, she relies on writing, which John does not like and has in his head that she is sick. This

Authored by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, “Happiness Revisited” is a study on happiness and creativity. Csikszentmihalyi defines happiness in terms of how we achieve it. He suggests that people achieve happiness “not by trying to look for it directly” (609) but by looking for it directly. He also added that by “achieving control over the contents of our consciousness” (609), a circuitous path begins, thus the beginning of achieving happiness. Further, Csikszentmihalyi stated that just like happiness, success is not to be pursued but ensued. This statement is ideally illustrated by Viktor Frankl’s book on Man’s Search for meaning: “Don’t aim at success - the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it”(609).

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.

In finding happiness at work, there is a large but limited set of values or factors; the key is determining how much of each value is needed. The individual is the only one who can make the determination of how much of each value is needed. What makes one person happy at work is not the same combination for the next guy. One guy may value a big salary to be happy while another could be just as happy with a little less pay and a little more involvement. The right mix of variables is personal because priorities need to be set. Rare is the job that provides all the values that you need in the exactly right proportions. Because of the rarity of the perfect job, we need to decide on what values we could be content with upholding.

I write about the simple beauty I see every day, that others take for granted; such as a frost flower just as it pops out after the first cold harsh frost of winter. Or the sound of the sunshine in the south, (the dulcet tones of a southern woman, greeting her loved ones), and the solutions I formed that helped me overcome trauma and a rare

What then is happiness? Perhaps happiness is a basic and familiar concept, yet it may occur to be perplexing when one has to convey it through the medium of words. Lyubomirsky defines the term as “the experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile” (Lyubomirsky 32). It is often subjective, personal, and can stem from a myriad of activities: some may experience similar feelings by engaging in sports, spending time with family and friends, others while reading or simply being in solitude. Due to the personal nature and subjectivity of happiness, a handful of myths pertaining to this concept has emerged. Three happiness myths were presented within the chapter: 1. Happiness must be found. 2. Happiness lies in changing our circumstances. 3. You either have it or you don’t. The first myth greatly piqued my interest, since I, too, have once externalized happiness and assumed that it would be found outside.

There is nothing like the feeling of accomplishment after successfully achieving a goal or task without encountering failure. Many may say that happiness is success without having to deal with the problem of disappointment. But what if that idea of happiness is the exact opposite of what it really is? What if the true path to contentment is learning how to be a failure? In the article Happiness is a glass half empty, the author establishes the misconception of how happiness is portrayed by society through irony, antithesis, and by using analogies in order to get the reader thinking about the idea of how failure is the main step to reaching success.

Our emotions and feelings play a major part in how we feel and think. Most of us are conditioned to believe that positive events, such as a raise or a financial windfall will increase our happiness, and it does but majority of us will fall back to the level of happiness we were before the positive events. Authentic happiness teaches us that in order to sustain lasting happiness, we must savor life’s joys, reflect on past accomplishments, and be grateful for everything and everyone in our life. If we commit ourselves to our goals and values we can all achieve authentic happiness.