In my search for a video to write over, I stumbled upon a title that struck me immediately. “There’s more to life than being happy” is a speech written by Emily Esfahani Smith which covers the most essential aspect of life. What makes people happy and how does that make life worth living? Smith created a speech that blends together many strategies for speech giving that all contribute to a worthwhile presentation and states an important lesson in life.
In Smith’s speech, she stated a decision to go to graduate school for positive psychology, which positively impacts the credibility she has with her audience. This aspect of ethos is called good sense. As for good sense, having a degree in a field highly related to the topic you are discussing is a huge asset when it comes to being considering a competent source of knowledge in that area. However, she never says she finished her degree (according to the personal biography on her website, she did finish her master's degree). She also fails to articulate what positive psychology actually is.
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For instance, she introduced the first pillar, which is belonging, and then exemplifies it with a friend named Jonathan. This friend of hers buys a newspaper from the same street vendor and built a connection with this vendor that went beyond a simple business transaction. One day, Jonathan didn't have the correct change and insisted on paying even though the street vendor said “Don’t worry about it.” The vendor wanted to do something kind for him, but Jonathan rejected this vendor. Smith reasons that these rejections devalue us. Additionally, after introducing the third pillar (Transcendence), she cited a study where students looked up at 200-foot tall eucalyptus trees for one minute. These students felt less self centered and even more generous after experiencing this
Psychiatrist, Robert Waldinger, in his inspiring talk, “What makes a good life?” declares the concept of the power of relations. Waldinger’s purpose, As the director of a 75-year-old study on adult development, is to pass three important lessons learned from the study to have a full-filling life with true happiness and satisfaction. He embraces an emotional, sage and motivational tone to appeal to all the audience at different ages. Waldinger begins to attract his audience by showing credibility at first as he shows a convincing survey, toward the end of his talk, he keeps the same tone employing his audience’s emotions to reach his point using plenty of surveys and research.
Mothers always want the best for their daughters, it’s a given feeling for a mother. Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom is written in her perspective as the mother. In The Joy Luck Club, Amy tan writes the novel through her eyes as the daughter of the relationship. Both passages portray the harsh emotions between the mother and her daughter. These emotions are caused by the mother pressuring her daughter to achieve expectations. The two excerpts have similar stressful tones but Amy Tan’s novel is much more intense and displays a uglier relationship.
Darrin M. McMahon author of In Pursuit of Unhappiness (December 29, 2005), McMahon's editorial. McMahon says that Americans should be happy,” in pursuing of Unhappiness,” we seek to bring one year to its natural happy conclusion... McMahon uses pathos, and logos to prove his point. In the 9th paragraph, he writes, “who have their minds fixed other things than their own happiness,but the happiness of others” he uses pathos as he speaks about happiness in when he says that people care about others than themselves he says, “their own” which makes the person feel that people don’t care about themselves as much as they think they do. The author uses appeals like happy New Year, Christmas and etc.
In Robert Waldinger’s What Makes a Good Life speech, he grabs the audience's attention by at the start of the speech by asking them a question, thus engaging them into what he about to say. The question is what makes they healthy and happy and where they would invest their time and energy as they go through life which is ultimately what his speech is about.
In the essay Why Happiness, Why Now? Sara Ahmed talks about how one’s goal in life is to find happiness. Ahmed begins her essay with skepticism and her disbeliefs in happiness. She shows her interest in how happiness is linked to a person’s life choices. Ahmed also tries to dig deeper, and instead of asking an unanswerable question, “what is Happiness?” she asks questions about the role of happiness in one’s life.
The writer asserts the idea that it makes sense to become a registered donor and, thus, attempts to persuade the readers to register as well by agreeing with him. The writer executes this by utilising a substantial amount of statistics, anecdotes, as well as a constant form of informal language in the essay, ‘Life: Pass It On’, for the purpose of creating a more personal and, thus, a closer, relatable, relationship between the writer and the reader. The facts used create a more persuading stance for organ donation registration as the writer’s own anecdotes begin to accentuate this necessity. Most importantly, the casual manner of approaching the reader provides the writer with the ability to connect with the readers in a way that makes them
The studies given as examples and discussion focuses on teenagers and young adults, but includes anyone is struggling to find happiness. Evidence to Support Thesis: Point 1: The level of well-being is emphasized as more people continue to lose track of what makes them happy. Shawn Anchor is reminding people to capture the essence of simple contentment and asking his audience to think about what they value. Anchor’s book provides seven principles that involve having an open mind to becoming happier. Anchor includes other research studies as evidence to his claims throughout the book.
One Important standard of living is being able to be happy. Happiness can be found in many different types of forms. It can be found by the purchasing of specific objects that can improve our living styles, it can be found with someone else that we communicate with, or it can be achieved by doing actions that we choose to do. The latter is the more imperative of the designs of happiness. Happiness is a thing that everyone is striving for. Rich, poor, young, or old, everyone wants to be happy. That may be easy for someone to get but hard for someone else. A lot of documentaries attempt to create an impression of and explain a subject that most people are interested in. One of the documentaries I watched that talk about and explain happiness is 'Happy’ by the filmmaker Roko Belic, a documentary that argues that everyone can become happier.
In contrast to Aristotle, Roko Belic’s documentary “Happy” provides a fresh perspective that takes place far more recently. The film sets out to similar goals of Aristotle in defining the nature of happiness and exploring what makes different people happy in general. Unlike Aristotle, however, the film’s main argument refers to makes people happier. In this case, the film argues that merely “doing what you love” is what leads to happiness (Belic). The argument itself appears oddly self-serving, considering that message is what underlines the foundation of happiness, yet there is a subliminal message that a simpler lifestyle is what leads to what the film is trying to convince you of. The message itself is obviously addressed to Americans, considering
"The Futile Pursuit of Happiness" by Jon Gertner was published in September of 2003. It is an essay that discusses the difference between how happy we believe we will be with a particular outcome or decision, and how happy we actually are with the outcome. The essay is based on experiments done by two professors: Daniel Gilbert and George Loewenstein. The experiments show that humans are never as happy as we think we will be with an outcome because affective forecasting and miswanting cause false excitement and disappointment in our search for true happiness.
Are you more of a glass half-empty type of person or a glass half-full? In the essay “Happiness is a glass half empty” writer Oliver Burkeman would say he is a glass half empty type of person. In his essay he writes, “Be positive, look on the bright side, stay focused on success: so goes our modern mantra. But perhaps the true path to contentment is to learn to be a loser” (Burkeman). I think what he means in this statement is people nowadays are taught to always look on the brighter side of life. When in actuality people should be looking on the negative side of life to realize how great their lives really are. In this essay writer Oliver Burkeman uses rhetorical devices such ethos, pathos, and logos to prove that maybe being negative
Stiendl, David. "Want to be happy? Be grateful." Ted Talks. Ted. Ted Talk, Edinburgh. 1 June 2013. Lecture.
From the moment of birth, to the moment of death, humans are flooded with emotions both good and bad. Individuals are continuously seeking fulfillment, some failing to find it while others succeed. Many seek adoration; love, accomplishment and greatness. In literature, authors take the readers on journeys that allow imagination, granting the possibility for the reader to grasp inner desires and decide what is truly important in life. Literature allows readers to dive into a different world where happiness and fulfillment is plentiful and eternal, also described as a utopia, while other pieces of literature direct the reader into a world of dissatisfaction which is a dystopia. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is in 26th century England. With the help of advanced technology and drugs, happiness fills the lives of the people living at that time period. But, the people are missing out on one of the most important feelings of life. That is sorrow or unhappiness. The society in Brave New World is very different from modern-day society; many aspects of life are removed such as family, monogamy, and religion. The citizens of Brave New World live in false happiness with all the necessities of life provided for them but have the lack of an inferred deeper satisfaction. In Brave New World happiness is the lack of unhappiness because the inhabitants can never truly know what happiness is without experiencing true unhappiness. The lifestyle in Brave New World is built on the notion that happiness is the only thing necessary in one’s life. This novel suggest that the reader should seek things besides happiness because the citizens in the World State live bleak and monotonous lives which show the faults in this so-called ‘perfect’ society. In thi...
Smith believing that I would not want a fancy Smart Board or an iPad to help me in my lessons. This opinion came from the facts on Smart Boards I was hearing in my classes. The only facts I heard were all the benefits of a Smart Board and I did not like how the teachers made it sound like technology was now the best route to go because of so many opportunities that came with it. I knew that there were other ways to be able to teach students depending on the student’s learning style. Technology would cost money and I was afraid that students would be discouraged from dreaming and learning big because technology could do everything for them.
The movie Pursuit of Happyness shows how a person became a homeless then eventually how he survived from being a homeless. Then, to being a multi millionaire. Even though he experienced how hard life can be he still pursued to reach his goals in his life for his son. This movie shows how a homeless person stand up and pursue to be successful.