Darrin Mcmahon's Argument Essay: The Pursuit Of Happiness

Happiness is an elusive concept. Mankind has been chasing this emotion for thousands of years yet are no closing to finding the key to living a fulfilled life. In recent years the pursuit of happiness has increased exponentially with thousands of books, lectures, and studies focusing on the subject each year. New fields of psychology and psychotherapy have even been created specifically to find the root of this obscure emotion. For all this work, however, has produced no fruit as happiness levels remain stagnant, or slightly below, what they always have been. With all this emphasis on the pursuit of being happy a small group of scientists have come out in opposition to this idea that everyone should be happy all the time. Darrin McMahon, a history professor at Dartmouth College, is one advocate against the happiness obsession. McMahon believes that the chasing of happiness can have more of a negative effect than positive saying, “The idea

The more someone pursues happiness the less likely they are to obtain it because the more they chase it, the higher they set the standard for what happiness is. I know that might seem a little confusing but bear with me. First it must be understood that happiness is not a tangible object. That seems like something obvious, but it plays a crucial role in examining why chasing happiness is a futile task. Happiness is an idea or a concept that each person creates for themselves. So when someone pursues happiness they are pursuing something that exists only in their mind. As they are attempting to track down this emotion they are continually setting and resetting the standard of what will make them happy. People set these bars in their lives saying, “As soon as I have [blank] I’ll be happy.” However by the time that point is reached the standard for happiness has been set a little bit higher. This is why actively chasing happiness is so