• Riding the Bus Chris Gardner, a salesman who sells bone density scanners, struggled to support his family financially but it proved to be an arduous task as most hospitals considered the scanners to be an unnecessary and expensive luxury. Being unable to sell the bone density scanners, Chris ran into hardships in paying for rent, parking tickets, and daycare fees for their son, which caused his wife to become emotionally distressed. On one of his trips to sell the scanner in town, he encountered a person owning a red Ferrari and several happy successful people in front of an office building, which inspired his determination in becoming a stockbroker. He had the ability to work well with people and calculate numbers, and college education wasn’t required, hence this seemed to be a feasible goal even if his wife did not support the idea. • Being Stupid Chris attempted to apply for a six-month internship program in becoming a stockbroker and before doing so, he asked a hippie lady to watch over his scanner, not wanting to bring in a huge piece of junk into a refined building. H...
The search for happiness and contentment is a driving force in the hearts and lives of many people. In the book, The Razor’s Edge, by W. Somerset Maugham, the author narrates this conquest in the lives of the main characters within the book. Elliot Templeton, Isabel Bradley, and Sophie MacDonald are each in search of that one thing that will bring them contentment and utter happiness. Through a series of tragic events in their lives, these individuals learn the harsh reality that putting one’s entire hope on solely one thing in order to find happiness, will only end in despair and dissatisfaction. On the contrary, the character, Larry Darrell is open to the different avenues, environments, and experiences that help in his search to the
“No, I 'm going to lunch. I 'll save you a seat,” she responded as we parted ways. As I turned the corner going into the lobby, people were everywhere, handing out free items like pencils, key chains and coozies. This is awesome, I thought. I first stop at a sharply dressed man standing next to a black cloth Table with a poster reading Bank of America. I listen as he begins speaking to me and some other students. “Working in the banking industry is all about math and dealing with people. If you have those skills, this brochure will interest you” the man says. On that note, I continue to the next table. “Not interested... skip, eh?” I think to myself. Across the room was a woman wearing a candy covered top with red scrub pants. I walk towards her table that reads WakeMed Trauma Center. The women immediately greets me. “Hi darling! My name is Jenny. I am a trauma care nurse over in Cary. I see very cruel things and it can be traumatizing,” she rambled on. “Have you ever thought about a career In the medical field?” Jenny asked me. “I 'd sure like to look into it,” I responded. She begins again, saying “I started out as a nurse and it is the most rewarding job, if you enjoy helping people I’d consider looking more into it.” While I 'm exploring the rest of the career fair talking about the medical field with Jenny has me interested to find out which medical
From the beginning of time, humans have always endeavored to be happy. During this time, thousands of different people have given their interpretation of the term happiness. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the simplified definition of happiness is feeling pleasure or joy because of a certain situation. In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, Controller, Mustapha Mond, conceals the truth in order to keep everyone happy. He gives people drugs and brainwashes them into believing that life is good. Satisfying. When John the Savage is introduced to the World State, he questions all things pertaining to “civilization.” The civilized people are willing to do everything in their power to hide from the truth. Throughout the story of Brave New World, every character craves happiness in some way, shape, or form; similarly, our society today concentrates and will
What is a perfect world? This is a question that Aldous Huxley attempts to answer in his 1932 novel, Brave New World. Within the novel, Huxley paints a futuristic dystopian world in which people are mechanically produced and controlled through the use of drugs and psychological conditioning. Throughout the novel, Huxley often touches on topics related to morality and free will and the nature of happiness. Using these topics, Huxley explains how happiness comes at a cost of other emotions such as anger or sadness, in addition to the fact that without free will there cannot be morality. He does this by using John the Savage as his messenger, using John’s doctrines to oppose the beliefs of the World State that lead to a lack of free will in addition to the loss of morality. Through Brave New World, Huxley shows his readers what it means to
A Brave New World is a thrilling combination of both malicious and brilliant morals and symbols. This “Brave New World” is a dystopian society set in 2540 A.D. or 632 A.F. (After Ford). It is a novel about how happiness cannot be artificially grown or taught, it is one’s own and is different for everyone. Bernard and Helmholtz are the only people in their dystopian society to really think for their selves. The most significant characters in the book are Bernard Marx, John the Savage, Lenina Crowne, Mustafa Mond, and Helmholtz Watson. The setting of this novel is primarily in London, England, but changes to New Mexico as well. Huxley’s Brave New World incorporates characteristics of his childhood, critical
Candide by French novelist Voltaire, a master of literary satire, portrays a young man by the name of Candide who goes from a lavish, sheltered lifestyle to the real world and experiences all the hardships life has to offer. Through the story, the title character tries to acquire money and get back to his girl because he believes that is the key to his eternal happiness. He’s searching for what could make him happy but nothing seems to be the answer. Candide has many important themes such as the folly of optimism, the uselessness of philosophical speculation, and the hypocritical nature of religions. While each theme helps develop the plotline and no one is more important than the others, the principal reoccurring theme I observed was the human desire to seek and obtain happiness and how often that fails catastrophically.
Thomas Szasz states in his writing that “ happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly often attributed to the living to the dead, now attributed by adults to children and children to adults.” I do not agree that happiness is an imaginary state of mind.
“I now walk into the wild” (3). It was April 1992 a young man from a rather wealthy family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness. His name was Christopher McCandless. He gave all of his savings to a charity, abandoned his car in the desert, left all his possessions, burned his money and wallet, and invented an alter ego all to shun society. Four months after his adventure, his decomposing body was found in bus 142 by a moose hunter. Into the Wild is a riveting novel about one man’s journey to find himself and live as an individual. Although, Chris McCandless may come as an ill-prepared idiot, his reasons for leaving society are rational. He wanted to leave the conformist society and blossom into his own person, he wanted to create his own story not have his story written for him, and he wanted to be happy not the world’s form of happiness.
”The greatest misery in adverse fortune is once to have been happy.” The idea that happiness was once attained and lost is a bitter sweet realization for any human who has experienced it. Fortune is acquired but it will be snatched away as quickly as it was bestowed upon one. When Boethius mourns the loss of his own fortune Lady Philosophy tries to reconcile with him. Attempting to “cure” Boethius of his ailments, she tells him that his current predicament is actually an act of good fortune. With Boethius sitting in prison awaiting his execution, it is understandable to see why he would have a tough time accepting it as good fortune. However, Philosophy has a way with words.
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).
The word happiness comes from the word happy, which means to feel or show pleasure or contentment. In the novel, “The Joy Luck Club”, two daughters of the mothers in Joy Luck Club begin to compete with each other. Waverly Jong, is a child chess prodigy. June Woo, struggles to master the piano. The rivalry reflects values of success and worth depicted in the novel, “The Joy Luck Club”. In this novel, happiness does not truly come from the word happy.
In “In Pursuit of Happiness” by Mark Kingwell, Kingwell really questions the reader about is it better to pursue happiness if it’s risking to never truly find it or just by simply letting happiness come to them naturally. He really tries to figure out the question himself by reading insights or stories from other philosophers and authors with similar interests only to come to find out that there seems to be an underlying theme that relates to a lot of “self-help” happiness. Kingwill also writes about the nature of happiness and the idea of “better living” simply saying that it seems that rich or poor it seems that no one can ever truly win in the”mug’s game”. But yet, he still question what might really be the true definition of happiness and
In the book “Think and Grow Rich,” the author, Napoleon Hill, provides a set of principles that he calls the key to financial success. The idea at the center of these principles is that one becomes what he or she frequently thinks about, in this case success (i.e. rich). Hill lays out a method he created to translate one’s thoughts into reality, creating an insatiable hunger and drive within an individual to succeed. Using the examples of his son and some of America’s legendary iconic business leaders, of which Hill studied and interviewed, including Edwin C. Barnes, he demonstrates that anything one puts his or her mind to can be produced and conceived.
"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.
OPTION 1-ETHICS-MONEY AND HAPPINESS 2 Option 1-Money and Happiness What is happiness and how is it achieved? This question has been debated in the past and will continue to be the focus of discussions far into the future. In particular, the significance of money in achieving happiness has been of particular interest. One foundation of our wealth is our employment earnings. A 2011 study by a collaboration of five major universities revealed that there exists a complex relationship between our level of happiness and our pay (Wyld, 2011).