Summary Of Happy Like God By Simon Critchley

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.

The society’s happiness is very artificial and many pretend to be joyful. The way they express happiness is very synthetic and fake. Montag expresses his feelings like

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.

Many theorist believe that happiness is the only important in people's life, and all that should matter to a person is being happy. The standard of assessing a good life is how much or quantity of happiness it contains. This openness of happiness, its generosity of spirit and width of appreciation, gets warped and constricted by the claim pretending to be its greatest friend—that only happiness matters, nothing else. Robert Nozick does not on the side of hedonistic utilitarianism, he gives several examples to show that there are other elements of reality we may strive for, even at the expense of pleasure. In this essay, I will focus on Nozick's opinion of the direction of happiness and the experience

Happiness is something that all people, no matter what race, gender, or social class, strive for. Based on lifestyle or perspective each person has their independent idea of what happiness is, but everyone shares an end goal to live their definition of a happy life. Many people, though, struggle in finding their way to this goal. They face hardships and challenges that test their happiness every day. Happiness, though somewhat indirectly, does take learning and training to discover and maintain.

“Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” –Abraham Lincoln.

John Dupont grew up with an immeasurable amount of wealth. The story of his life justifies the fact that happiness doesn’t reside in fortune. After analyzing his behavior, the best way to explain it would be through the psychodynamic perspective. When John was very young his parents divorced and his father left, leaving him and his siblings to live with their mother. His father made it very known that he didn’t want to be apart of his son's life when he would require John to make appointments to see him. It is said that John never really had a childhood. He wasn’t good socially and ate his meals alone in his room until he was 13 years old, completely isolating himself from the world.

Have you ever wondered when society breaks down and there is no such thing as happiness? In Fahrenheit 451 firemen don’t put out fires, they are the ones that make the fires. Books in their society are banned and when people are found with books they are burned and are thrown into the asylum. Though people think they are happy they really aren’t. They are actually just numb to pain.

People tend to feel the most happiness in their daily lives rather than happiness over all. For instance, if someone opens the door for you, does something outrageous, tells a funny story or simply reacts kindly to you, you can experience happiness. Laughing at someones joke can cause you to feel happy even for just a moment. Another definition of happiness in our daily lives is self appreciation such as, getting that new raise, getting an A on a test or even getting into the college you want. These examples all cause happiness in different but still rather large ways. We seem to think that happiness is so difficult to come by, we focus so hard on what happiness is that we don't even realize the simple things in life that are truly making a difference. We can become significantly happy without even noticing. Although happiness seems like it’s hard to find it’s not all that difficult. What’s hard to come by is the feeling of genuine happiness ; genuine happiness is what people truly look for.

Ray Bradbury defines happiness as intelligence and portrays this in his book Fahrenheit 451 through the main character, Montag, and his experiences on his quest for knowledge. Since most people have so little knowledge in the beginning of the book, the overall happiness in the world is minimal. After coming home from work, he finds his wife, Mildred, overdosed on sleeping pills and he has to bring her to the hospital. While he is there the highly unqualified “doctors” explain to him that they “‘get these cases nine or ten a night. Got so many, starting a few years ago, we had these special machines built” (13). This is one of the first events in the book which makes Montag realize how unhappy the world is because even with so little knowledge,

Everyone has their own way to find happiness. As it is a feeling, each of us has our own range and different definitions about this term. We know that there are many joyful things

The world seems to be a dark and unforgiving place, but happiness is hidden within. It is found in a beautiful view, an uplifting song, or a compliment from a friend. According to the Ted Talk video, The Habits of Happiness, Matthieu Ricard claims that everyone “has a deep, profound desire for well-being or happiness”(Ricard 2:39). Ricard uses the three techniques of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos to captivate and move his audience. With the use of metaphors, personal experiences, and even graphs Matthieu explained to his audience the full force and perception of the bendable word that is happiness. This Ted Talk dove into philosophical meaning on just how to achieve well-being, without having everything in the world.

“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.” -- Denis Waitley

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

Happiness may have diverse meanings to diverse individuals. But regardless of how we define happiness, our distinct passions and life experiences contribute in making each one of us cheerful. Undoubtedly, the secrets on how to live a happy and healthy life depends on how we sort out all the factors that play an imperative role in accomplishing the level of happiness we desire for ourselves.