Happiness And Well-Being Reflection Paper

Introduction

In this reflective essay, a number of aspects of happiness and well-being, as well as questions relating to this topic (Positive Psychology) will be examined. Firstly, two views on happiness will be looked at and compared. Then the relation between fun and the philanthropy will be discussed. To sum up, the question whether happiness is everything.

The doctrines of happiness

There are different perspectives when looking at happiness, two of which are the hedonic and the eudaimonic views. Both views have roots in philosophy, going back to the times of philosophers such as Aristotle and Aristippus. Despite their ancient origins, these views on human well-being are relevant even today. Simply put, the hedonic view encompasses the idea that people are happiest when their life is full of positive experiences and emotions, without negative ones. According to Fredrickson et al. (2013), hedonism can be also defined as “representing an individual’s pleasurable experiences”. Aristotle, in contrast, thought the idea that wellbeing depended on a life of pleasure with no pain was vulgar Aristotle’s view seems fair; after all,

This ties in with Maslow’s (2010) hierarchy of needs, where, once primary needs have been met, such as adequate food and feeling safe, one can get closer to what he calls self-actualization. In another paper (1950) he wrote ‘self-actualizing people are, without one single exception, involved in a cause outside their own skin, in something outside of themselves’. This is much closer to the eudaimonic perspective on happiness and is the ‘ultimate’ in self-development. Heading to self-actualization, there are a number of values, all selfless ones, which he calls meta-needs. These are not the same needs that must be met for hedonic well-being. These needs require all the things that eudaimonism has at its core- challenging and improving oneself. Other differences between the two perspectives are the ways they are