The Alchemist And Paulo Coelho's Sonnet 29

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.

Happiness comes in many forms. Depending on what type of happiness one is pursuing, they will either face endless obstacles or nothing at all; when facing hardship, one must learn to think optimistically in order to overcome the pain that has been induced. For instance, one can relieve their mind with the nature’s healing power as long as they have the ability to identify the beauty in even the simplest concepts. In addition, the pursuit of knowledge will also bring one’s happiness if it is executed carefully; if not, the individual shall fall for the other side of knowledge, since knowledge itself is a double-edged sword. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Frankenstein’s Creature demonstrates that an individual may pursue happiness through observing the beauty in life, which allow them to reflect their self-image. This could lead to the corruption of the individual, as they would realize that they are unfitting into the society; thus, resulting in a compromised happiness.

The poem “Happiness” does not fulfill the question of what happiness truly is, but does provide some good incite on certain parts of what happiness is. The poem focuses on how happiness has a nature “like a prodigal” (Kenyon 2). This shows that happiness comes and goes with no specific pattern just like the prodigal son came back to his father after blowing all of his money.

Happiness is seen in many ways in the novel, but happiness is prominently seen in the novel through rivalry and to see one side thrive more than the other. Gaining happiness from competing seems

The pursuit of happiness is an endless journey that we all experience during our lifetime. This search for satisfaction in life is made up of actions and choices that we make to benefit our lives for the better, even if done subconsciously. Many people try to end this lifelong journey short by reaching a practically unachievable “true happiness”, and some even get so caught up in trying to reach this ultimate fulfillment in life, that they begin to forget about the great things currently in their lives because they spend so much time and energy focusing on what they want rather than what they have. Life is about enjoying living in the moment, because it only happens once.

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

71 Metaphor - "The desert is a capricious Lady". The desert is always changing and has no solid form. He senses that he is close to his destination but the sands make it feel far away. Pg. 137 Simile - "The Alchemist fell as silent as the desert. "The desert is such a peaceful, but so quiet that it almost seems like it's not even there. When Coelho says the Alchemist becomes as "silent as the desert" he means that he falls so quiet he blends in with the land consumed with his own thoughts. Pg. 103 Alliteration - "If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it. "This is an alliteration because present and pay are the same sounding. Present and pay sound similar. Pg. 140 Idiom - "The boy was shaking with fear. Santiago was so fearful of what might happen to him if he doesn't turn himself into the wind. You can’t be practically shaking with fear. Pg. 151 Personification - "the wind screamed with delight". The wind and the sun speak to Santiago when he asks for their help to turn himself into wind. The wind found that the sun had its limitation of knowledge so he got very happy and wanted to tell everyone that the sun had its limits. Pg. 100 Symbolism -“Suddenly, one of the hawks made a flashing dive through the sky, attacking the other. As it did so, a sudden, fleeting image came to the boy: an army, with swords at the ready, riding into the oasis. ”This indicates that he read the sign of the hawks. The sign was an army attacking the oasis so he

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.

Often having happiness is finding the key to life. Happiness is the ability to make one’s life full of joy and success. In the “Death of a Salesman”, “The Great Gatsby”, and “The Devil’s Advocate”, the protagonists in the movies seem to yearn for happiness and success in their lives. Although success may be the ultimate goal to achieving happiness, it does not always lead us there. There are many obstacles people have to overcome, and sometimes happiness is not enough for some people. It is why I believe more people should enjoy life and live it to the fullest extent as possible. Happiness allows people to live their lives and look at the good despite all their flaws and as they are happy they look back at what it took for them to achieve

The philosopher Aristotle once wrote, “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” This famous quote compels people to question the significance of their joy, and whether it truly represents purposeful lives they want to live. Ray Bradbury, a contemporary author, also tackles this question in his book, Fahrenheit 451, which deals heavily with society's view of happiness in the future. Through several main characters, Bradbury portrays the two branches of happiness: one as a lifeless path, heading nowhere, seeking no worry, while the other embraces pure human experience intertwined together to reveal truth and knowledge.

Everyone defines happiness differently, but everyone needs happiness. The book Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse talks about how Siddhartha finds happiness through many ways. He leaves home and his friend, Govinda, to find enlightenment. He starves himself, he learns love, he even thinks of suicide… Fortunately, he meets a ferryman, who becomes his best friend, also his “teacher”, and helps him find the ultimate way to achieve enlightenment. Siddhartha abandons his relationships, money, and education which bring him happiness, and in the twenty first century, these still bring happiness as the essential steps to take.

Happiness is a reprise from the many trials and turmoil of life, and so it is natural that we should actively seek it. Ironically though, in our naïve belief that we can somehow augment the amount of happiness in our world, we are actually making our world more depressing to live in. Both John F. Schumaker, in The Happiness Conspiracy, and Ray Bradbury, in Fahrenheit 451, argue that our myopic pursuit of happiness is actually counterproductive. The two authors attempt to persuade the reader that happiness is, and should be, an almost-serendipitous byproduct of a truly fulfilling life, and therefore should not be an explicit objective.

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.

   Happiness is defined as enjoying, showing, or characterized by pleasure; joyous; contented. Based on this definition we all search for happiness our entire lives. Two very different stories address this idea of the quest for happiness. M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang is the story of a man named Gallimard who is longing for his love "Butterfly" to return to him. John Deeney describes it as him, clinging to his idea of a "Perfect Woman" to the end by costuming himself into the victimized Butterfly though his final suicide. Although Gallimard’s infatuation with Song sometimes makes him cut a rather ridiculous figure, his dead seriousness at the end evokes a certain amount of pathos and