Richard A. Friedman's Born To Be Happy, Through a Twist of Human Hard Wire: Article Analysis

Lyubomirsky focuses on social psychology and the “development of ‘sustainable’ happiness” (179). She brings the idea of genetics into happiness and different aspects of happiness. She determines that there are three factors to happiness, and she also has a Subjective Happiness Scale to measure happiness. According to Lyubomirsky, the three aspects of happiness are

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference” (Lyubomirsky, 194). There are certain things in life that are uncontrollable and there is nothing anyone can do to change that, however there is a handful of things that are by choice. In her essay, How Happy Are You and Why?, Sonja Lyubomirsky proposes that everyone has a “genetically determined predisposition for happiness (or unhappiness) accounts for the differences between” each person (186). Lyubomirsky theorizes that everyone has a “set point” that is predetermined by genetics which represents the level of happiness a person experiences. In an attempt to offer people a way to gauge their own “set point,” she suggests a questionnaire that she has created to determine this number. The problem with this theory is that the questionnaire is subjective and reliant on circumstances. Her argument is problematic because she does not account for both happiness and

She is an “award-winning staff writer at Newsweek” and “has written scores of articles that decode the complexities of science for lay readers” (554). In addition, Begley also “wrote for the ‘Science Journal’ column for the Wall Street Journal” which “first appeared on the Newsweek-affiliated Web site the Daily Beast” (554). These credentials are evidence that allow the reader to trust her as a reliable author. Begley’s article is also trustworthy because she introduces sources that have published research on happiness, are psychologists or psychiatrists, and support her argument. For example, Begley mentions Ed Diener, a psychologist “who has studied happiness for a quarter century” (555). She also mentions the global research that has concluded that the people with “the highest levels of happiness” tend to put in less effort into improving and changing their lives (556). Begley also supports her article by mentioning several examples of well-known people who used their “negative emotions, including sadness, to direct [their] thinking” (557). For example, Begley mentions that “Beethoven composed his later works in a melancholic funk” (557). Begley believes that the negative emotions that lead famous people to their critical thinking can also help people such as, college students (557).

Neurotic illnesses are mostly associated with experiences that are described as “normal”. By associating this type of illness with the word normal, what is meant is that neurotic disorders are that they are more common than that of which psychotic are. They can be any type of mental imbalance that causes grief or distress and to a certain extent; these disorders do not interfere in everyday life as psychotic disorders do. Common symptoms of this type of mental health problem can be depressive behaviour, anxiety or stress. Internally, within neurotic disorders there are higher and lower levels of severity in terms of the way people are affecting ranging from, for example, nausea at the lower levels to excessive vomiting at the higher levels as a result of anxiety or stress (Moore, 1978). World Health Organisation (1946) described mental health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”

First, if one is living in a healthy environment they are more likely to be happy than someone who is living in an unhealthy environment.The article, “9 Lifestyle Factors That Can Affect Your Mental Health” by Joel L. Young M.D. from Psychology Today is explaining how

Mark Kingwell, in his award winning book In Pursuit of Happiness, asserts that the pursuit of happiness is meaningful and that the benefits far outweigh the risks. In fact, Kingwell’s argument is centered on the idea that people who want to be happy will be happy if they would only pursue what is that brings them joy. For this reason, he disagrees with the idea that biology is the main indicator of a person’s happiness. The idea that “you are either happy or you’re not” (414). Though studies conducted by various universities and esteemed psychologists have reached the same conclusion. In a study conducted by Dr. Jerome Kagan, a prominent psychologist at Harvard University, he concludes that there is a clear connection between dopamine levels

Dr. Peter Whybrow is a psychologist who “is the Director of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. He is an international authority on the neuroscience of emotion, manic-depressive disease, and the effects of thyroid hormone on brain and human behavior” ("Experts Biography; Peter Whybrow, M.D."). He states that “We’ve been taught, especially in America, that happiness will be at the end of some sort of material road, where we have lots and lots of things that we want, … [and] we’ve set up all sorts of tricks to delude ourselves into thinking that it’s fine

To be depressed and joyless is just insupportable in today's society, happiness is becoming an argument in today's world. The article, “Happiness: Enough Already” by Sharon Begley, is to inform people that everyone undervalues the state of being happy; instead, they wanna push away the natural process of healing from melancholia. I believe this article can be directed to anybody who has suffered a maximum of happiness and sadness at least once, which almost every human being has or will experience once in their lifetime. The author makes valid statements throughout the article, an example would be everyone does not want to acknowledge that they are depressed, they either wanna “pop” a pill and forget about it or emotionally try to forget about it by just showing happy expressions. Even though everyone wants to have maximum happiness all the time, being depressed or heart

In the Eating Chapter of The Happiness Myth by Jennifer Hecht, she quotes the Ms. Lincoln’s Boston Cook Book of 1883. She introduces the site by describing the happiness that comes from a mother’s home cooked bread and uses the topic of baking in order to ease into the quote. Hecht quotes the phrase,“Nothing in the whole range of domestic life more affects the health and happiness of the family than the quality of its daily bread.” In response, she says, “what an extraordinary and bizarre claim.” (Hecht 186). Also, how she believes that households today do not depend their happiness and health on how good their bread is, contradicting the quote.

“Choose to be happy.” This is what mom has always said, since a very young age and still to this day she tells everyone. For so long, it was just “mom talk”, those things your mother says that is supposed to make you stop and think. Yet, being too young, dumb and full of it, to really understand what she means. Curiosity emerges and suddenly there is a need to understand what it really means to be happy, what constitutes Happiness? So follow up with some research, entering the bookstore, gliding in and out of the rows and rows in the self-help sections are others, asking the same question. What is happiness? Where does it come from, are we born with it or do we make it happen? Happiness is but a belief, an idea, a theory; but theories,

The short story “The Happy Man” by Naguib Mahfouz centers around a man haunted by his own happiness, something that would initially seem desirable but as the reader begins to discover; is anything but that. A similar example of something along the lines of this can be found in the TV-series by Justin Roiland; “Rick and Morty”, where main character Rick bears the burden of his vast intellect, further reinforcing the statement, “too much of something, is anything but a good thing”. Whether it be the shared themes of underlying depression, as well as the theme of absolute happiness, it is impossible to deny that both attempt to convey the message that the Goldilocks principle is applicable to human characteristics, and that the two respective

Psychologists have not located assured causes that lead people to well-being. David G. Myers in his article “The Funds, Friends, and Faith of Happy People” published in the American Psychologist (2000) and Michael Wiederman in “Why It's So Hard to Be Happy” published in the Scientific American Mind (2007), discuss the reasons which lead people to be happy, and the factors which contribute to unhappiness.

"A library of wisdom, is more precious than all wealth, and all things that are desirable cannot be compared to it." -- Plato

(A healthy dopamine system is also important when it comes to happiness. Check out the documentary Happy! to learn more.)

It is common sense that all the human beings would like to live a happy life and they will spare no efforts in order to realize the purpose of really living a happy life in the end. However, different people have different definitions toward what a happy life is and they tend to have different standards as for how a life is that can be regarded as a happy life. There is no doubt that people will then try different means in order to pursue a happy life based on their definition toward what a happy life is. Therefore, the following will talk about the pursuit of a happy life from the perspectives of both Dalai Lama in The Art of Happiness and Viktor E. Frankl in Man’s Searching for Meaning, during which the experiences of some characters from the film Forrest Gump will be applied as evidence. Generally speaking, the pursuit of a happy life in the minds of Dalai Lama and Viktor E. Frankl can be achieved via experiencing sufferings and adversity. It is hoped that this analysis can help people understand what a happy is from a different point of view.