International Differences Of Well Being

Happiness is a state of existence that Americans have perused since the founding of this great country. It’s such an important part of American life that “The pursuit of Happiness” is even “laid out in our nation’s Declaration of Independence” (McMahon 783). Happiness is something that may come from many aspects of life: one’s children, employment, financial wellbeing, sports, hobbies, and many other things. Ruth Whippman tells us that "Americans as a whole invest more time and money and emotional energy in the explicit pursuit of happiness than any other nation on earth". Are Americans happier today than they were three centuries ago? Does modern technology, social economic status, religious freedoms, and/or the

As human beings we are very diverse. We vary from numerous backgrounds, ethnicities, morals, and cultures. However, as much as we are unique, we all share one common goal in life. Everyone has a desire for happiness. I found that throughout my daily life I based my decision off of what would make me happy, whether it was for a long or short period of time. Often happiness is associated with successfulness and achievement. Though, like the saying, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”, happiness can be found in different ways by different people. This along with reading The Driest Season by Meghan Kenny, is what influenced me to want to find out more about happiness, if it is truly attainable, and how people achieve it.

Sonja Lyubomirsky, well known author and psychologists once said, “Happiness is not out there for us to find. The reason that it’s not out there is that it’s inside us.” The reason I believe she said this is because so many people are out there looking for happiness in a place they won’t find it because little do they know, happiness lies within in them. This means that your own level of happiness depends solely on who you are. But what is happiness? According to Lyubomirsky, happiness is, “the experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile.” One may wonder though, just how is happiness determined? Lyubomirsky conducted a study to

In her article “How Happy Are You and Why?,” Sonja Lyubomirsky argues that people have control over their own happiness. Lyubomirsky supports her claims with her interviews with happy people and scientific studies. Her purpose is to consider steps that people can take in order to become happier. She establishes an informal relationship with her audience of unhappy people.

There are different factors that affect happiness and it is rooted from the country you were born in. “We are shaped not only by our current geography, but by our ancestral one as well" (Weiner 112). Most countries have different culture that contributes to people 's happiness. People who live in America will not be as happy as the one who lived in Moldova. In Eric Weiner 's, book The Geography of Bliss. He was searching for data on happiness. He conducts a study on how people in different countries understand and measure their happiness. The biggest factors that affect people 's happiness are the environment and cultural differences. Where you live is a big factor of who you are. People find happiness when they feel comfortable and

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.

Although there are a number of different nuances and qualifications for this particular term, happiness actually can be defined. In fact, it usually helps to best define happiness in terms of what it is and what it is not. Happiness is certainly a state of fluctuation there is no consistent, prolonged state of felicity. If so, it then becomes normal, the normal becomes boring, and the result a sort of benign content becomes a bland, meaningless state devoid of any significant stimulus. Instead, what is needed for happiness is the vicissitudes of life. Were there no unhappiness, there could not be happiness. Happiness, therefore, is a function of rebounding from and considering the unhappiness that is a potential for virtually almost everyone, although the unhappiness for a particular individual is most relevant to him or her. With that in mind one of the most essential qualities regarding happiness is the fact that it is extremely relative, much like motion, and is best defined as the feeling of satisfaction (ideally punctuated by elation) one gets after achievement or averting the negative vicissitudes on might have encountered.

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

Happiness is a popular topic that is constantly being discussed by experts around the world. In the article “Happy Like God”, written by Simon Critchley, Critchley proposes his view on happiness and its inability to be measured or found through sources outside of ones-self. In another piece written by Richard Schoch, titled “A Crtique of Positive Psychology”, Schoch also discusses the topic through a process of critiquing studies and experiments that claim to have the answer to happiness. Both of these texts not only make claims that happiness cannot be measured, but they also bring questions to the table that provide valuable insights on the wrong answers in order for us to find the right ones.

I started to question about happiness in America after I saw a pattern in high school that students are often confused or stressed. I started out with the question, “why is it hard to be happy when being happy shouldn’t be that hard?” To answer these questions, I found Sophie Chan’s 2011 study, “Hong Kong Chinese community leaders’ perspectives on family health, happiness and harmony: a qualitative study.” This study would help answer questions on my audience’s curiosity about other countries happiness compared to the United States. Then I started to think that there were also other issues that friction with happiness in America and

Ecstasy, nirvana, and joy. Three of just many words for the emotion of happiness. However, is there any universal definition of happiness? What is happiness? I believe there is no universal definition. I believe this because I believe happiness is relative and open for interpretation by different groups of people because of culture, socioeconomic background, and gender. Obviously when comparing two different parts of the world, say Asia and Western Europe, the value and definition will not be the same as there are cultural and religious differences in these parts of the world. Diving even deeper into that comparison is the examination of the society itself. Different socioeconomic backgrounds can have a great effect on how happiness

Science, Religion, and Philosophy have all thrown their rocks in the pond of this ever complex question. We as a species have pondered this thought for thousands of years. Oddly enough, we still have to ask each other what happiness is. After thousands of years of talking and studying happiness, we still have no answer. When taking a look at religion, each religion has a different definition. Similar to the friend group mentioned earlier, western and eastern regilions work in much the same way. Within eastern religious schools of though, happiness is defined in a similiar way. Same goes for western religious schools of thought. Yet, there are minuet differences in the way each

However, what state they are in will affect what they believe happiness is. For example if they are sick they think happiness is health and when they are poor they believe being wealthy is happiness. Being happy is conceived as the good life or doing well but “what constitutes happiness is a matter of dispute” and what many people believe happiness is differs from what philosophers believe.

According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, two senses of “happiness” exists—one being “a state of mind”, and the other being “a life that goes well for the person

As human beings, we all have the capability of experiencing emotions and feelings. People can experience happiness,