The Happiness Hypothesis Jonathan Haidt

The film The Pursuit of Happyness is a biography based on the life of Chris Gardner, who is played by the actor Will Smith. Will Smith portrays a hardworking father who is struggling to sale bone-density scanners to the local hospitals, while trying to make ends meet for his family. After his wife leaves, he is left to raise his 5-year-old son Christopher alone. Making it clear to those around him, it is obvious that he is among the working poor class and cannot meet the basic human needs (absolute), he can barely pay bills to keep his home, can hardly provide food, and has a rough time being able to keep his son in daycare. Being a part of the working poor class means that you have little power, income and prestige. There were many sociological

I don't know if I wanted to be a photographer, a graphic designer, an art director, or something else. It's really hard for me to pick one occupation that I like and I'm going to deal with it for the rest of my life. I really have a job that relates to art. I also want to draw more over the summer just for fun. In future during my high school years, I want to take ceramics when I'm a junior. For my senior year, I want too take advanced ceramics and

This third conflict is of Old vs. New but discusses the conflict of emotion and rationality. In patients with damage to orbitofrontal cortex, which regulates and produces emotions, they become very rational but also crumble in a real world setting, without having any personal, emotion drive (Haidt 12). This shows that reason and emotion are both necessary for the functioning of the human mind, the cooperation of both rider and elephant is necessary. The last conflict is that of the automatic and controlled processing of the human mind. Automatic processing is unconscious and handles many things at once, while controlled processing handles the things we consciously think about one at a time, and both of these processes are happening alongside each other continuously (Haidt 14). As I was reading a lot of this chapter I drew connections to even very simple things in my life, like when controlled processes let me see that I should get out of bed and go to work or start writing a paper for school, and so helps me overcome the urge to go right back to sleep. Controlled processes consciously perceive risks to not getting up, overcoming the automatic urge to sleep in.

A question many of us ask is, what can science tell us about how we can achieve happiness? Dan Gilbert, a Harvard Professor, answered to this on a Ted Talk called “The Surprising Science of Happiness.” Gilbert describes how the human brain has developed the capacity to predict how happy we will be in a given situation by simulating an experience. This is a capability that no animal has ever had and humans are the only ones unique to this ability. This ability, however, is not so perfect. Our predictions often restrict the human capacity to adapt to certain circumstances. Gilbert continues on to talk about experience simulators and he gives his audience a question showing two different scenarios. One of them is winning the lottery and the other

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.

The Merriam Webster dictionary describes happiness as a “state of well-being and contentment. Though there are multiple things that can make one happy. The Happiness Myth, by Jennifer Hecht and the article, Which One of These Food Will Stop Cancer? (Not so Fast) by Gina Kolata both discuss the category of bodies. Hecht has a whole section of the book dedicated to this, describing that when it comes to taking care of our bodies we often think of the extreme or nothing at all. Meanwhile, Kolata’s article talks about people who change their diets because they believe it can protect one from cancer and that even though there is little to no scientific proof it actually does. However, whether these measures make people happy is ideally up to the person. Therefore, if eating healthy or working out makes a person feel like they have control over themselves then who is to say that is not happiness.

The book I read was The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. This book was published by HarperCollins Publishers in the year of 2010. It is a non-fiction book that contains 320 pages. This book was about a woman who decided she wanted to increase her happiness. She set resolutions for each month that she thought would help her to achieve happiness and better her mental/emotional, social, and physical health.

There are many external conditions that can contribute to your level of happiness. Noise is the first condition that Haidt talks about. The noise of level around you when you are studying can affect how well you are able to concentrate and retain information. You will be annoyed at whatever or whoever is making so much noise that you can’t even hear yourself. If this a constant problem, then your level of happiness will decrease. The next is commuting. Haidt says that those who have to drive a long time to reach their job site never adjust to the commute, especially if they drive in heavy traffic and if they have previously had to drive a shorted amount of time. Although I do not drive to work because I do not have a job, I know long commutes

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:

Inspirational and uplifting films with dynamic characters and emotionally charged themes have always been a mainstay at the box-office. High quality drama films are the category of indie films that actually make money. The public has embraced films such as Lost in Translation, Juno, Slum Dog Millionaire, and Little Miss Sunshine. Each of these highly acclaimed motion-pictures are at their roots, strong character driven dramas. Happiness Attainable is such a piece, and deals with many prevalent social issues while retaining threads of romance, adventure and suspense. It also features a feminine protagonist; a valuable asset in attracting a strong female and couple-oriented audience base.

Beginning this paper with having to watch a movie brought me a lot of excuses on dreading to watch the movie because I am not a movie person. With it only being a few minutes into this movie I was hooked. Finally, after watching the movie I quickly learned that successful people do not make excuses in any manner. Watching a successful movie like this brings hope to a lot of people. Whether or not they will put that hope to use to among themselves we will never know, but everyone is set with the same chances as anyone else. Everyone has one specific talent in their life whether they know it or not. All men and women are created equally, whether or not people want to believe it, this documentary proves it all.

Happiness means many things to me, such as being content with my situation no matter how difficult or simply enjoying life. I have struggled at times and been unsure what the future holds for me, but I always have to look at the positives in my life and make the best out of the situation. During this time of my life, choosing a college and trying to figure out how to pay for it is very stressful. Instead of letting this stress get to me, I realize how I need to enjoy my last year with my closest friends. No matter how overwhelming senior year gets for me, I understand that there is more to being a successful and happy person than just doing well in school. My happiness depends on my outlook on the world, which is usually positive, because I

Happiness is fleeting. Or rather the instant gratification of achieving what we desire is a fleeting feeling as it creates only a temporary absence of unease. According to Buddha, happiness is simply the absence of dukkha. He believes that we must detach ourselves from the desires that we “believe” make us happy because desire is the root of all unhappiness and letting go of those desires will help us discover lasting happiness. The method to help us acquire this happiness includes the Four Noble Truths. The first three are diagnosis that we need to understand about life before reaching the fourth step about the “Middle Path” lived out according to the Eight-Fold Path.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi observes several theories of happiness which ranged from materialistic happiness to the self-contentment practices. He stated that being wealthy or having all the facilities don’t make you happy. Even forcing your body to become happy by practicing different spiritual rituals, yoga or drug consumptions won’t give the real happiness. Csikszentmihalyi did not agree with such solutions and proposes the autotelic experience or flow theory for happiness.

Happiness is something that everyone, regardless of their background and experiences, search for in life. This search for happiness is manifested in countless novels, theatrical plays, and films, and involves at least one character who struggles to find purpose and joy in their life. A common theme in these stories is the character’s impression that there is something missing or inadequate with aspects of their current identity. Thus, they believe that they must complete the missing piece of themselves to achieve happiness. This is best demonstrated by Amedeo/Ahmed in A Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio and Xavier in L’Auberge Espagnole. I believe that one’s conceptualization of their identity is actually an obstacle to happiness and that one can only be truly happy once they embrace their true identity, which is often much different from the one they imagine.