The Quest For Happiness : The Four Pollars Of Happiness

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

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.

Have you ever truly sat and considered what makes you truly happy? Often times, people answer directly with the response of money. We say this without deeply considering all that we have to be grateful for. Happiness is not achieved through wealth instead through experiences, the family we love, and the nature that surrounds us, literature has created a great impact upon the ideals we consider to create our happiness.

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

Americans constantly find themselves desiring happiness. However, what is happiness and how does someone achieve it? According to Webster-Dictionary.org, happiness is “An agreeable feeling or condition of the soul arising from good fortune or propitious happening of any kind; the possession of those circumstances or that state of being which is attended with enjoyment”. Every American seeks happiness, but achieving it is the struggle. Americans search for fleeting happiness, therefore, we often find contentment in mediocre living.

Three Grand Essentials of Hapipiness for the Returning Citizens and Their families written by: odivick

A true basis of what it means to be an American can be thoroughly argued on the grounds of what constitutes an American, is an American born or is an American made. The collective identity of the American populace is the shared characteristics, the same drive, which ultimately results in oneness. The unique American cultural identity is the shared revolutionary nature, which drives Americans toward progressive social changes in the pursuit of personal happiness.

In the article In Pursuit of Unhappiness is declaring that you can have everything to be happy. My opinion on this is, I think that you don’t have to be happy to live a productive life. You can live a productive life and not be happy.

Greg Anderson once said, “Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it.” This statement could not be more true when it comes to experiencing true pleasure and satisfaction. Many people struggle to gain true happiness and end up going about it the wrong way. According to psychology, “Happiness is a state of well-being that encompasses living a good life” (Psychology today 1). The idea of happiness has become beyond corrupt over the years and will continue to do so unless it is set straight. It is now viewed as having great wealth or numerous material goods. People now believe that these things will give us the “deep satisfaction” everyone craves. Even though it feels great to receive an object one greatly desires, the best feeling of satisfaction comes from what a person does to obtain it.

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.

It is seemingly very difficult to pinpoint exactly where happiness comes from, or rather how one can achieve such a notoriously sought-after phenomenon. In fact, the philosophy of human happiness is such a complicated concept that two of the most established philosophers in history, Aristotle and Epicurus, are not even able to come to a concise formula for where it comes from and how one can obtain it. While both philosophers agree upon the idea that material items and goods that involve others, things such as money and fame, will not bring us any closer to a truly fulfilled life, Aristotle’s ideas rely on the active pursuit of happiness whereas Epicurus’s suggestions are based more on perhaps a more static, passive existence. Both conceptions of a self-fulfilled life have substantial merit, however they differ in approach. Aristotle’s studies teach us how to live, what to feel, and what to do while Epicurus instead decides to focus on how we can fix potentially harmful patterns that threaten our happiness in an accessible manner.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, an American poet, essayist, and lecturer once stated, “For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.” Time is limited, so during one’s time alive, obtaining happiness should be the ultimate goal. People are on a constant hunt for happiness. For some, happiness can be obtained through small gestures such as a simple “hello”. For others, they the prowl for a little taste of what being happy feels like. Happiness is an emotion one experiences by their attitude, living in the Zone, and doing what one loves.

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

Happiness could be described as the perception that the positive aspects of life outweigh the negative. With this definition, people could often attain ephemeral moments of happiness. When, for example, a man discovers that his favorite baseball team has won the championship, a woman is complimented on her dress, or a child discovers that school has been cancelled for the day, they feel happiness because at that moment some occurrence has caused them to feel that the good in the world exceeds the bad. Long-term, sustainable happiness, however, is more elusive. Given time to ponder the ratio of positive to negative in their lives and the world, many people find that happiness is not so easily achievable. The man soon remembers that he has to work a twelve-hour day in a factory; the woman returns home to an abusive husband; the child is bullied at school. Whenever possible, people compensate for these adversities with beneficial experiences and insights, so they can achieve happiness most often. Therefore, they tend to ignore the suffering and atrocities in the world that they perceive as not directly affecting themselves. They choose a happiness that is easily obtained and immediate, yet short-term and individual rather than one that is more difficult and time-consuming, yet enduring and widespread. Both the collective happiness of society and a person’s individual happiness are hindered in the long-term by selfish attitudes and conformity to unchallenged traditions, which

It is common sense that all the human beings would like to live a happy life and they will spare no efforts in order to realize the purpose of really living a happy life in the end. However, different people have different definitions toward what a happy life is and they tend to have different standards as for how a life is that can be regarded as a happy life. There is no doubt that people will then try different means in order to pursue a happy life based on their definition toward what a happy life is. Therefore, the following will talk about the pursuit of a happy life from the perspectives of both Dalai Lama in The Art of Happiness and Viktor E. Frankl in Man’s Searching for Meaning, during which the experiences of some characters from the film Forrest Gump will be applied as evidence. Generally speaking, the pursuit of a happy life in the minds of Dalai Lama and Viktor E. Frankl can be achieved via experiencing sufferings and adversity. It is hoped that this analysis can help people understand what a happy is from a different point of view.