Work: A Story of Experience by Louisa May Alcott

Life is not something that can be defined by any single person. Everyone sees life as having a different purpose.

The meaning of life is to find the meaning of life. Is it not? We all go through each day trying to figure out which road out the infinite amount of paths will lead us in a better direction where happiness is prominent and society is flawless. However, not every single human being is going to fit on that narrow, one-lane highway to success. Bad choices, accidents, fate, family matters, society, temptation, anger, rage, addiction, and loss of hope can all be deciding factors in opting to choose that wrong path to self-destruction. The adverse thing is, once you've traveled so far down the road, you get so discouraged that you feel like you can never turn back or make up for the "lost time."

In sum, life is supposed to be about more than happiness. We are supposed to do something important, adhere to some ethic, and serve a greater good. We live for a goal, a principle, or a destiny—not just for pleasure.1

Perhaps it is safe to say that most everyone in the deranged world that we live in today aims for happiness. Some would even say we are simply slaves to our primal passions, shackled in our endless pursuit of fulfillments and shaping our existence around them. Gravitating towards the things in life that bring us pleasure, and recoiling away from those that could cause us pain. A lot of individuals think of happiness as an overall end goal, while others consider happiness the starting point of being great. Nevertheless, happiness is drawn from different things based off the individual.

What is the meaning of life? According to Chris McCandless living free and not conforming to the natural way of life is the meaning to life, as shown in the book Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. Similar to Chris McCandless, Ralph Emerson believes that following your dreams and making your own trail is the meaning of life according to his short story “Self-Reliance” by Ralph Emerson. The purpose of man's existence is to avoid conformity and following one's own instincts and ideas.

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

In life, there are many ways you can live, however, the manner in which you live is your choice. In most peoples’ lives, they want to leave this world and say that they were happy and enjoyed every single moment of it. People feel like if they lived a happy life, then that is all that matters. But what if life has more to do than just being happy, what if it was meant for you to change the world or the lives of others? If you changed the life of another person and made them happy, you made a difference. A happy life is a good one, but a meaningful life is fruitful.

As stated by intellectual Joseph Wong, “influence is our inner ability to lift people up to our perspectives” (Young Ch. 6). Throughout history, numerous writers have utilized their ability to impact their readers to encourage their audience to follow the author’s principles and beliefs. Louisa May Alcott, born in Pennsylvania in 1832, was the type of writer to use her power to influence her lectors’ views on the topics and issues that she was passionate about. Alcott’s father, Amos Bronson Alcott, was a writer, lecturer, and educator, and her mother, Abba May, was a strong-willed and independent woman and bright educator. Her brilliant parents helped Alcott grow to be an intellectual, an independent female, and, as mentioned by Clark Moreland in one of his lectures, “…a dark headed, volatile, and energetic child” (“Lecture 3.4…”). After her parents fell into deep debt, Alcott began to work to support her family. She served as a seamstress, teacher, and, of course, a writer. As an open-minded individual, Alcott was an advocate of many causes and policies, and, through her compositions, she shared her beliefs to guide her readers towards integrating her ideals into their lives. For instance, in 1863, Alcott released her work “My Contraband,” first titled “The Brothers.” The piece featured a Civil War nurse, Faith Dane, in the Union side who was in charge of caring for a captured, dying Confederate captain and

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.

Louisa May Alcott is an American Novelist best known as the author of the novel “Little Women”. Louisa was born in November 1982, grew up in Germantown- Washington D.C and was known to be an abolitionist, feminist and also a naturalist. Being a naturalist meant that she believed that nothing existed beyond the natural earth i.e. no such thing as spirituality or the supernatural. Her family suffered from financial difficulties and so Alcott had to work to support her family in an early age. She penned the story “My Contraband” (1869) which was formerly known as “The Brothers” (1863). Contraband was a black slave who escaped to or was brought within union lines (Alcott 759). In “My Contraband”, Louisa

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.

Authors often use their writing to express their journey trying to find happiness, the writing about life experiences is to teach others the best way to achieve happiness. The first text written by “Carl Sandburg”, is about a man trying to find the meaning of happiness. However, Emily Smith defines happiness in the meaning not the actual happiness, all of this can be used to understand Clarisse’s family from Fahrenheit 451. According to these texts happiness is in a thing you study or can earn with money, it’s the feeling you gain from living life while appreciating one another, and appreciating life.

Life has a different meaning to every individual. For most, life is precious and contains so much value. However, for others life may possess a different value, and have a different meaning. Some live life to the fullest, take risks and have no regerts. Others, may value life in ways such as, being close with family and friends or achieving their wildest dreams because life is to short.

Throughout the year, I have learned multiple things and gained a whole new perspective about the pursuit of happiness from our exploration of American Literature this year. From every piece of literature we read, the overall goal was to have someone pursue their happiness in their own way. I learned that someone’s happiness might be different than another person’s happiness and that’s okay. Each individual has their own dreams and goals, but overall, everyone has one goal in mind.

Essentially, seeking happiness is necessary in life. We often hope to find happiness from other people, other things around us and forget that we can create it by ourselves. The novel “The happiness project” by Gretchen Rubin is sufficient evidence. The author states, “I am happy – but I’m not as happy as I should be.”(13) Then she started a project within a year to change her life and seek for a happier life. By making a list of things she has to do in the next twelve months, the author have done many things which affects her “Vitality” (1), her “Marriage” (38), her “Leisure” (112), her “Friendship” (141),etc. positively so that she can achieve her goal, which is a life full filed of happiness as she dreamed before. We can also do that. We know that if everyone of us set a goal and live purposely, we are all happy. However, we can be happier if we know how to change ourselves on the right way. We can make ourselves happy by doing simple things in our everyday life.