Authentic Happiness Inventory, By Jennifer Senior

Money, riches, power, and fame are not true happiness. In life I learned that true happiness cannot be bought with those things. True happiness is what truly makes you happy. I have learned these things from celebrities, also from viewing people that I know. By viewing the lives of these people you can tell that they are not happy with their lives. Because they are not happy they feel a great load of depression in their lives, which can sometimes lead to suicide.

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

“Happiness Is A Warm Gun” is an extremely complex song with variety in both lyrical composure and musical functionality. In an interview with Howard Smith, John Lennon explains the complexity of the song derivative from the collage-like nature in which the song is formatted. Originally, “Happiness Is A Warm Gun” was not one song but rather four separate songs written by Lennon. In the development of “Happiness Is A Warm Gun”, Lennon combined aspects of all four songs to develop this complex song which he dubbed “It's sort of a history of rock 'n' roll” (Lennon 1972). The patch and sew nature of this song is important to understanding both meaning and composition of “Happiness Is A Warm Gun”.

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.

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

People travel through life with what seems like a single goal: to be happy. This may seem like a selfish way to live, however this lone objective is the motivation behind nearly all actions. Even seemingly selfless deeds make people feel better about themselves. That warm feeling experienced while doing charitable acts can be described as happiness. But what is authentic happiness? There is an endless possibility of answers to this question, and man seems to be always searching for the solution. Although one may reach his or her goals, there is always still something one strives for in order to be happy. In the book Stumbling on Happiness, Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert takes the reader through

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.

Based on Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi “Happiness Revisited” People have many different points of view about how to achieve happiness, it can be based on the type of life one is having, an experience, a way of living, culture, and religion. Happiness can be defined in many ways but happiness is not something we find or get just by magic. In “Happiness Revisited” by Csikszentmihalyi, the author emphasizes that “It is by being fully involved with every detail of our lives, whether good or bad, that we find happiness, not by trying to look for it directly.” And just as he stays that happiness is when someone is involved in everything that happens in live either good or bad, one example that I think Csikszentmihalyi will describe as an optimal experience

In an unofficial poll of students at State University, I found that of the fifty-eight students and one professor, males and females of several ethnic backgrounds and age groups, that I asked the question "What is happiness to you?", all of them had very different physical, intellectual, or emotional motivator for their happiness. Only the

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

The Happiness Equation is a great book that you should totally check out, and I wish I had read it earlier… hell, I wish I had listened to Michelle earlier! Being happy unfortunately takes effort, but it is so much better than living a life where you hate everything and you’re sad all the time. I just got out of a situation in my life where that was the case and it’s just, wow:

Taking part in the varying Happiness Assessment surveys was insightful in many ways. My results showed that I am typically in alignment with the rest of the population on the happiness scale. Upon examining the overall graphed data, I found that the spread of the distributions were close to being symmetrical and contained no outliers. Most of my scores gave the interpretation that I was just slightly above average compared to others on the well-being scale. However, my general satisfaction with life interpretation was slightly below average. I found that the results of each test were relatively consistent with each other and provided fairly accurate feedback, however, the use of one test alone would not allow someone to make an accurate assessment.

Our internal world governs our happiness, not conditions put upon us from our external environment or conditions we place on ourselves. To put it another way, our search for happiness is the very reason we’re unhappy (McLeod, 2007). Psychology considers happiness an emotion or mental state and a predictor of how well one’s life is going. Some say that happiness is a choice, and therefore a behavior that one chooses. Happiness is a way of interpreting the world, since while it may be difficult to change the world, it is always possible to change the way we look at it (McLeod, 2007).