The Happiness Myth

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.

Within The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt, he mentions that there are two ancient truths concerning how the mind works. The first truth is the foundational idea of the book: the mind is divided into parts that sometimes conflict with each other. The second truth is Shakespeare’s idea about how “thinking makes it so.” (or, as Buddha said, “Our life is the creation of our mind.”) Like a rider, on the back of an elephant, the conscious, reasoning part of the mind has only limited control of what the elephant does. Nowadays, we know the cause of these divisions, and a few ways to help the rider and the elephant work as a better team. We can improve this ancient idea today by explaining why most people’s minds have a bias toward seeing threats and engaging in useless worry. To change this bias, we can use three techniques to increase happiness, one ancient, and two very new.

Mankind must by this time have acquired positive beliefs as to the effects of some actions on their happiness; and the beliefs which have thus come down are the rules of morality for the multitude, and for the philosopher until he has succeeded in finding better. That philosophers might easily do this, even now, on many subjects; that the received code of ethics is by no means of divine right; and that mankind have still much to learn as to the effects of actions on general happiness, I admit or rather earnestly maintain.

According to the Dictionary, “happiness is the mental or emotional state of well being which can be defined by others. A pleasurable or satisfying experience.”. Of course that’s true, the feeling of happiness is what it’s scientifically defined as, but happiness is much more than that. Happiness could be a certain sound, a smell, even feeling a certain piece of clothing or a thick warm blanket. People spend hours even years trying to work for what they think is happiness. They work for hours to get large amounts of money, but they never find the happiness their looking for. That’s because happiness isn't materialistic, happiness isn't something you can buy with expensive items. Even though some people believe you can buy happiness, that’s

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.

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 The Happiness Hypothesis Jonathan Haidt talks about how our brains work and how best to find happiness with the different ways it works. Haidt describes the different ways a positive and negative person’s brain works and how each can find happiness through various and different methods. He also discusses different aspects of society that can affect our level of happiness. All of these things can be considered to find the best way to raise your level of happiness.

The story of the movie The Pursuit of Happyness directed by Gabriele Muccino portrays a family who struggles with finding enough money to pay taxes and afford living expenses. The movie takes a place in San Francisco during the 80s. The two main characters are the father Chris Gardner and his son Christopher, Will Smith and Jaden Smith respectively. Gardner tries to support his family. But every time he attempts to make things better, they always end up worse. Gardner in the story wonders on "how to be happy?" He earns his money by selling the bone density

Happiness is something that does not just appear happiness is something we desire, it is something we feel we need, happiness is something we hunt for our entire lives. When we are babies we play with our mom’s hair and it makes us laugh and smile; when we are kids we play on playgrounds and played sports; and as adults we seek happiness through our work, spouses, and children. However, we still choose to convince ourselves of our happiness. Why? The answer is unknown; maybe it is because we do not want to hurt someone’s feelings, we are scared to try new things, or we are scared to get outside of our “box”. I learned in an anatomy and physiology class, happiness is there release of a chemical response in the brain called endorphins. Endorphins are the “pleasure center” in the brain, when the “pleasure center lights up” it releases endorphins. Endorphins gives the same feeling a sedative, it is the feel good hormone, in response to things like food, exercise, and sex. Endorphins are released with food because food can be very satisfying; which is why when taking a bite of chocolate cake, we respond with, yum! Exercise releases endorphins because it priory’s the body to feel good and not feel pain so you can therefore push your body further. Endorphins are released before, during, a and even after sex because it taps into every pleasure center in the brain, endorphins released with sex are referred to as the love

The passage gives the analogy of carrying a spoon of oil around a castle. If we are tasked with not allowing any oil to drop from the spoon, we may become too focused and find ourselves ignoring the beauty and wonders surrounding the castle. However, when we become to focused on he wonders around the castle, we drop the oil from the spoon, defeating the purpose of carrying the spoon. We can apply this teaching to the world when we focus on our life goals. If we try to fulfill our desires while we appreciate what the world has too offer, we will feel joy and happiness. When we become infatuated with our goals and desires we tend to push aside wonders and reasons to be happy that the world has already given us, and vice versa. When we push aside the world’s wonder we may become discouraged when achieving our goals, because it may take too long to find happiness. Little reasons to be happy may encourage us to persist our pursuit to achieve goals and discover true happiness

The person’s genetics and childhood or the person’s family and culture are things that influence a person’s happiness. Happiness is a mindset that is created by a person’s surroundings and their origins.

Happiness… It could be said that there is no one in this whole wide world who does not want to be happy. We live every single day in hope to find happiness, which also known as pursuit of happiness. We strive to bring happiness in our life. Nonetheless, along the journey to find happiness, some people stumble and find themselves unhappy instead. One might question why, but actually we all have different value and understanding to describe happiness. Therefore, we have our own unique approach to pursue happiness and there is no telling to the exact cause of our wrongs and errors in the process. What might have been the cause, which most people hardly notice, is their perception of happiness. There are three most common misconception of happiness that lead to unhappy life.

In the Declaration of Independence, it states that all men, being equal by nature, have the equal right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is interesting from Thomas Jefferson’s point of view that he says that we have the right to pursue happiness. When he said this, what did he mean in ways of understanding it and pursing this happiness? To live, as we have experienced, is itself a means to living well. The same applies to freedom. We cannot pursue happiness if we cannot freely carry out the choices we make. “If everything is determined for us, if the pattern of our life is imposed upon us, there would be no sense in talking about planning our lives or about adopting a plan for living well.” We need to stay and be

The World State is the place everyone wants to change America into because it is so peaceful and there is hardly ever rebellion. Is it because people have just had mutual agreements on how a society should behave, but because their lives are controlled down to every aspect. The truth can hold some pain and that’s what The World State is not used to. The problem with truth and happiness is not the truth’s content,but a person 's ability to understand and maintain a real level of happiness.

When you hear the word happiness, what is the first thing that comes to mind? Do you think of material possessions like designer clothes and accessories, the newest iPhone with the highest possible storage capacity, or a shiny red supercar? Do you think the amount of money you have or your current financial status has an effect on how happy you are? Plenty of college students, myself included, would associate happiness with possessing items like these or just having a lot of money in general. In today’s society, one common belief about social class is that the richer and more money or things that one has, the happier this will make them. This belief is reinforced by countless advertisements we see and hear everywhere, whether that be on