Is Schadenfreude A Biological Evolution?

The works “Somnambulist”, “How not to get into College: The Preoccupation with Preparation”, and “Enjoying the so-called "Iced cream": Mr. Burns, Satan, and Happiness” imply that in today’s society, individuals are valuing extrinsic happiness to a greater scale compared to their value of intrinsic happiness. Authors Heron Jones, Alfie Kohn, and Daniel Barwick suggest that individuals need to place a greater value on intrinsic achievements rather than extrinsic achievements within their lives as extrinsic fulfilment leads to momentary happiness, compared to the positive long-term effects of intrinsic fulfillment. The problem begins with individuals focusing and making decisions based on extrinsic rewards such as: grades or a paycheck. Secondly,

Lyubomirsky defines happiness as the “experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile” (184). She challenges the myths that people can find happiness by changing their circumstances and that people either are “born happy or unhappy” (186). Happiness is not something that can be found or something that not everyone can have. People make their own happiness, despite the difficulties they may face. Happiness comes by “choosing to change and manage your state of mind” (185). Lyubomirsky gives cases of people who are happy even though they suffer from losses and setbacks. These are the people whose circumstances should make them unhappy, but their intentional actions bring them joy. She also gives cases of people who have not suffered any major losses but are still unhappy because they may see events negatively and feel helpless before them. Lyubomirsky asserts that “changes in our circumstances, no matter how positive and stunning, actually have little bearing on our well-being” (186). Even though a person’s circumstances may be positive, those circumstances do not make them happy. Lyubomirsky uses a Subjective Happiness Scale to measure happiness, which takes the average of numerical answers to four questions. She argues that in order to become happier, “you need to determine your present personal happiness level, which will provide your first estimate of your happiness

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.

Senior compares what people think about people in other states and locations happiness, finding that usually these comparisons are untrue. Different studies and polls found that the Swiss and Canadians rank themselves among the happiest, while the Japanese are less happy. European countries tend to rank themselves the least happy, with Russia coming in last. Is happiness really based on location? I find that just because people don’t like the snowy weather doesn’t mean that they are unhappy during the holiday season. Families seem to come together and rejoice in each other’s company during this bad weather season. “And no matter where they live, human beings are terrible predictors of what will make them happy” (426). Senior discusses how we fill in the gaps, where we tend to remember only happy events and feelings and phase out bad ones. She discuss how our imaginations work in rationalizing situations and feelings, setting ourselves up for big disappointments, but deal with the successfully at the

The Article “Love People, Not Pleasure,” written by Arthur C. Brooks argues that many people assume the things we are attracted to will relieve suffering and bring happiness. In the article Brooks questions what unhappiness is, Brooks states that Happiness and unhappiness are related and they are not actually opposites. In the article Brooks mentions people assume that fame, money, material things and pleasure will relieve suffering and bring happiness. Brooks offers many ways that people actually are increasing their suffering and making their selves unhappy because they are assuming those things we are attracted to will help them.

Ben-Shahar speaks correctly while discussing how individuals must give themselves permission to experience negative feelings before they reach the point where they can completely experience the positive feelings. Therefore, positive feelings are inadvertently blocked by negative feelings. Dr. Mathieu (2011) from Psychology Today, discusses how “providing so many positive solutions can inadvertently blame people for their suffering” (para. 3). Henceforth, whenever people see articles on being happy and social media posts where everyone has their happiest face on, they do not accept the it is okay to have negative feelings as well. Ben-Shahar discusses how many people feel inferior while experiencing negative feelings, but in reality every person except the dead and psychopathic experience the same feelings. Counseling Directory (2016) identifies that “we are continually setting ourselves up to fail” (para. 5). Furthermore, acting as part of the human race means that individuals are imperfect. Striving to reach perfection is the beginning of failure because of the impossibility forever block the

In a society where the concept of ‘self’ is removed and ‘selflessness’ is the moral good, the pursuit and attainment of personal happiness is evil. Individuals seeking happiness live a tortured existence; filled with persecution and guilt. “We, Equality 7-2521, were not happy in those years in the Home of the Students. It was not that the learning was too hard for us. It was that the learning was too easy. This is a great sin, to be born with a head which is too quick. It is not good to be different from our brothers, but it is evil to be superior to them. The Teachers told us so, and they frowned when they looked upon us.” (Rand 4) Equality 7-2521 struggles with the fact that he has attributes that set him aside from the rest of the collective. In a society of equals, there

In America and other countries of similar and contrasting cultures, we like to be right, we like to be on top, and we want to be recognized for both respectively. Competition is an underlying theme in so much of what we do in our daily lives. Whether it’s getting a better grade on a test than your friend, winning a football game or even speeding up faster than the car next to you when the light turns green. Competition, whether we like it or not, surrounds us and we participate in it willingly. We all want to stand on that podium and receive the gold medal, for then we are better than someone else and we can look down upon him or her because we have achieved something they have not. This competition and trying to be better than the person

One study that Eric Wilson did was he bought a book that would try to make him happier. Wilson tried several different activities to try to become happier, those activities included putting on a smile everyday, jogging, and even end every conversation he had with kind words such as “Great” and “Wonderful!”. None of these activities made him happier, and he wrote his opinion on it by saying “a craven disregard for the value of sadness.” (Begley 3). What he means by that is everyone is ignoring the value of sadness, which is becoming a very solid argument in today's conversations. Wilson also argues that we once need to experience sadness to create new ways of understanding ourselves and how we view other things. Wilson made very solid points and tries to persuade you that sadness should be socially acceptable in today's society because everyone is going to experience it one way or

As the son of impoverished Mexican immigrants, I never experienced the luxuries and everyday joys of other children my age. For instance, while other children worried about missing their favorite television shows, I spent a majority of my time concerned about whether my parents would be home in time to say goodnight, or if we would have enough money to buy groceries. With that being said, although my childhood was not ideal, I am contempt because those experiences are responsible for molding me into the person I am today. Somewhere along the road, witnessing my parents make endless sacrifices and watching those around me suffer through hard times, I was instilled with an undying urge to help others.

in world centered on happiness in which there is no despair. However, this is not the case when it

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.

Rulers and superior people are capable of benefiting themselves more than weaker people, and thus are happier than weaker people.

Hello everybody. I'm going to show you some pictures and I want you to think about the first emotion that comes to mind. Now I'm sure these pictures made you feel sad, negative, depressed, pity,and a lot of other negative emotions. Now i'm going to show you another set of pictures and I want you to do same thing as you did with the last pictures. These pictures have been voted on and determined that these are the happiest pictures on the internet. Why you may ask? Because genetically we are all wired to like cute things such as babies or cute animals. We can use this genetic wiring to our advantage, just looking at these pictures improves your efficiency, your short-term happiness, and caught your attention better than just looking at a picture of a carrot or say one of zak’s many selfies. (Martinez-Conde). Now that i've got you attention I want you to raise your hand if you ever been taught what causes happiness, the benefits being happy has, or how to become happier.. The fact that *if everyone raises their hand pivot to something else* almost no one in this room has been taught these things is insane to me. This is telling of the ideas that we have as a society concerning happiness. What I'm trying to say is that as a culture we need to redefine happiness as something that needs to be constantly worked towards and is not something easily attainable. I'm going to start off with with talking about the problem we have with happiness. Next we're going to talk about what effects are caused by being unhappy and finally we're going to talk about ways you can become happier.

Negativity is everywhere in your daily life like school, work place, or just in public. It is a disease and it’s contagious which is why you need to cut it out of your life. I used to be the happiest person, but the negativity got to me and just took it away from me. I didn’t do anything about it nor took control of my own happiness. Which is why I know negativity is contagious and there is people out there who want to bring you down with them. In a sense that they aren’t happy, so they don’t want to see anyone else happy. They usually lack self-esteem, aren’t happy, or feel trapped with their feelings. They want to manipulative people to get what they want.