Definition Essay: What Does Happiness Means To Me

Happiness can be defined in many different ways depending on who you are talking to. To me, it can be found listening to my favorite music with the volume turned all the way up. Through this experience I am able to immerse myself in something I truly love and be a be a better, lighter version of myself. For some, happiness is living in the moment and experiencing life as it passes, but for others it means living a life of virtue. Though happiness may look different for everyone, it is something that everyone is striving for. The definition of happiness incorporates different aspects of religion, science, and philosophy. To me, being happy means that someone has discovered who they truly are and what they believe in.

A study on the Jewish

Being a Christian I feel inclined to believe that there was a time that happiness could be found without having to feel the opposite. Before the fall of Adam and Eve they experienced happiness and true friendship with God. While they were in the Garden of Eden everything was perfect, they experienced nothing but God’s love until original sin. But now that we are living with original sin, I do think pain and sadness emphasizes the happiness we do feel. I personally think that suffering helps us to notice and appreciate true happiness. If we did not feel pain, we would not realize how great life is. Aristotle implies we are able to control our happiness in this way. Once we have experienced suffering we know it eventually passes and life carries

For adults, happiness requires more calculation and reasoning which agrees with both my definition and Aristotle’s definition of happiness. The happiness experienced by adults is more sophisticated. Adults tend to make themselves happy with what they have. Dan Gilbert, a Harvard psychologist and happiness expert, calls this synthetic happiness. He defines synthetic happiness as, “what we make when we don’t get what we wanted.” Children, on the other hand, experience natural happiness because they have not yet developed the ability to train their minds and control what makes them happy. Natural happiness is when you get what you want, but Gilbert still argues that each form of happiness is every bit real and enduring as the