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The pursuit of happiness subject
The pursuit of happiness subject
The pursuit of happiness subject
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What does happiness mean to you? How do you know you are happy or not? In today’s
world, happiness is an ambiguous word. Dan Buettner is a New York Times best-selling
author. In his article, “Excerpt from Thrive: Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way”, he aims
to inform people different levels of happiness and where is the happiness come from.
“Through …experimentation…, they’ve …, focusing not only on the nature of human
happiness, but also on discovering ways to improve our chances for personal well-being.”
(5) As all people have different views and meanings toward happiness, it motivates Buettner
to write the essay and giving a sense of what is happiness to other people. By gathering
experts’ opinions, the essay can be concluded as there are no ways to measure happiness.
Every one’s meaning towards happiness is different. It is possible that people can control
happiness. Buettner uses the technique of personal anecdote, organization, diction and
contrast to point out how people have ability to control happiness.
Buettner starts his essay with a personal anecdote to tell the readers that people’s
meaning toward happiness is based on ones’ behaviors and perspectives. Personal anecdote
means a short account of personal event. He brings out three different people cases to test
readers that who is the happiest person. The way of Buettner doing this can arouse readers’
interest to keep reading the story. “Jan Hammer, a 42- year-old father, has to wake up earlier
at each morning and do his job as a garbage man.”(1) “Norridah Yusoh, a
43-year-old-housewife, has to cover her hair as religious requirement and show respect to
his husband by kissing his hand every night.”(1) “Manuel Uribe, a 45-year-old...
... middle of paper ...
...bring people with happiness, but it will not continued for a
long time.
Buettner’s essay is mainly focused on using rhetorical analysis strategies to point out
the different definitions of happiness and how do people get happiness. The writing
strategies that he is using help to enrich the content of the essay and consolidate his ideas
towards happiness as he cited several experts’ opinions in his writing. Also, he bought
several life cases with dialogue to explain what happiness is. And the word choice is mostly
understandable for the public people to read. Thus, it can prove that the Buettner’s writing
is informal. Informal essay is good for not making the readers get bored but arousing their
interests in the essay. Buettner is successful to catch readers’ attention to the essay. Readers
will be more willing to explore deeper about happiness.
Happiness is a feeling that everyone tries to accomplish, yet some people sometimes only capture portions of it. In Brian Doyle essay, “Irreconcilable Dissonance,” he explains that divorce is becoming common among many couples today. Most couples are putting less effort into making a relationship/marriage work. There are many couples who get married, and most of them know that if the marriage does not work that divorce is always an option. With divorce in their back of their mind they lack the true meaning of having a happy marriage. In Eduardo Porter essay, “What Is Happiness,” Porter states that happiness is determined by people’s qualities in their life. People who experience a positive viewpoint on life and about others are overall to
One might compare this to the grueling, tiresome and back-breaking efforts of writing a good essay. Many of us have been writing essays for a long time now. Some of them are A papers, and well some them not as good as we thought they were. Throughout the years, teachers have shown us the proper technique and several examples of papers,
A powerful influence over happiness is how people perceive situations and how they choose to engage with others. Life may change within an instant and have a spiraling spin of high and low points, but the positive state of mind and the value of social relationships determine the
Essay is a piece of art that everybody can create. Every rule given here is not important than genuine experiences. No template. No pattern. Writing an essay needs just attempts to pass the ideas from our brain to readers’ minds. Writing an essay helps us develop our ideas. Essays contain everything of humankind. Essays never died from this world.
In the book, The How of Happiness, author and researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky sets her book apart from other self-awareness books by being the first to utilize empirical studies. She uses data gained through scientific method to provide support for her hypothesis. This hypothesis consists mainly of the idea that we have the ability to overcome genetic predisposition and circumstantial barriers to happiness by how we think and what we do. She emphasizes that being happier benefits ourselves, our family and our community. “The How of Happiness is science, and the happiness-increasing strategies that [she] and other social psychologists have developed are its key supporting players” (3).
Happiness plays an important and necessary role in the lives of people around the world. In America, happiness has been engrained in our national consciousness since Thomas Jefferson penned these famous words in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” (Jefferson). Since then, Americans have been engaged in that act: pursuing happiness. The problem however, as Ray Bradbury demonstrates in his novel Fahrenheit 451, is that those things which make us happy initially may eventually lead to our downfall. By examining Guy Montag, the protagonist in Fahrenheit 451, and the world he lives in we can gain valuable insights to direct us in our own pursuit of happiness. From Montag and other characters we will learn how physical, emotional, and spiritual happiness can drastically affect our lives. We must ask ourselves what our lives, words, and actions are worth. We should hope that our words are not meaningless, “as wind in dried grass” (Eliot).
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.
Happiness can be easily defined as the state of well-being and contentment gained by personal life experiences through either direct or indirect connections with the world around us. The people we meet and the trails we go through in life add together to create a hopefully happy life. To be happy in life is indeed the only way to enjoy it. Therefore it’s no wonder that we all strive to achieve this idea of happiness. This interest in the search for true happiness has become a major factor in our modern age. Looking back at our history, the moods of many Americans have seemed to become stagnate even when we experience a rise in salaries and overall life expectance. This begs the question as to what then
feeling of exhilaration. Happiness is enduring satisfaction with one’s life as a whole. It is an overall evaluation of the quality of the individual’s authentic experience. It calls for balance and positive affectivity over a long period of time. In a similar assertion given by Fordyce, it is accounted to all the pleasant and unpleasant experiences in the recent past. Bentham (1789) and Kahneman (2000) supported the idea of Fordyce that happiness is the sum of pleasure and pains and it underlies with the overall evaluation of life. The qualities of life and kinds of satisfaction pertain to the diverse sources or determinants of happiness of an individual. These put in a nutshell the various sources which are included in the development of the
But in this debate, one question still raises its head - What is happiness? Happiness is not actually leading a luxurious life, but the luxury of living a life. Happiness is not actually about expanding your business, but it lies in expanding the horizons of life. Happiness is not having a meal in the most famous restaurant, but having it with your most beloved family. It does not lie in attending honorable parties, but to attend a party with honor.
Stearns, Peter N. “The History of Happiness. (Cover Story).” Harvard Business Review 90.1/2 (2012): 104-109. Business Source Complete. Web. 6 June 2015.
Happiness is not easy to define. A good life has one characteristic – happiness. Happiness can be defined as pleasure, joy, contentment and satisfaction. Understandings of how to be happy were changing throughout the history. Aristotle who lived in 4th century BC in Athens and Schopenhauer who is19th century philosopher from Germany have contrasting understanding of happiness. In this essay I will argue that Aristotle and Schopenhauer provide accounts of happiness that are useful to contemporary society. The reason for this is that happiness is universal and people’s ways to achieve it did not changed tremendously over times.
This essay will begin by discussing how an individual 's attitude is often scrutinised as being either positive or negative, how this can be damaging to their happiness and how realistic thinking can be more helpful.
Throughout history, philosophers and scientists of various kinds have been trying to define happiness, identify its causes and the obstacles to reaching it. According to Jon Gertner, psychologist Gilbert and economist Loewenstein have succeeded in pointing out several reasons why people are unhappy (pp: 444-6). It is important to note that according to Gilbert, it is not that people cannot g...
For example, for one person, happiness is a sense of satisfaction from success in a career, whereas for others, it may be a feeling of being loved by other people. Meanwhile, philosophers indicate that happiness has two senses. The first one is psychological sense related to a state of mind (Haybron). The other sense is “a value term, synonymous with well-being” (Haybron). First observation may be in our daily lives.