Cliff Oxford’s essay “High Performance Happy” evaluates the effect that an individual’s happiness has on their beneficiality to society and how you should always strive to be the happiest you can be. Oxford’s main point is that
Happiness is a rite of passage to everyone no matter what cost. It can be extremely difficult to take someone’s happiness away, but it can be done. For example, in the book “Anthem” by Ayn Rand, Prometheus’ happiness is stripped from him in a futuristic society focused around similarity and compliance. Similarly, this unfortunately can happen as we are currently witnessing in Communist countries. Rand describes taking away individuality by forcing everyone to use “we” instead of “I”. However, individuality is the root of happiness. When happiness or individuality is stripped from you, it becomes increasingly difficult to be considered healthy or thriving. When someone finds themselves, they can be truly happy. Although, “Anthem” describes total
The fact that happiness is a state of well-being pursued by humans since the beginning of humanity is not new. Since the ancient Greek philosophers, happiness has always been a goal for people. However, the definition of happiness is still subjective and controversial as Mark Kingwell, an award-winning social critic, essayist, and professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto, presents in his article “In pursuit of Happiness." The author begins to build his credibility by calling everyday facts and emotions, also by citing philosophers, researchers, and other authors. Using the sources effectively in a persuasive piece, Kingwell demonstrates, through examples and science researches, the difficulty in defining happiness, which can result in unhappiness.
A professor of history at Florida State , Darrin M. McMahon, in his New York Times article, “In Pursuit of Unhappiness”, (11-29-2005) he persuades that happiness is a relentless desire to achieve if you find it on your own. the article written by McMahon he quotes that ”Those only are happy who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness..”. He uses evidence to support his claim by using philosophers John Stuart mill and Carlyle quotes to prove that they all have similar views on how to achieve being happy and be cheerful.It's better to do something that makes you carefree rather than waiting for happiness to come “knocking at your door” as if you gain contentment as pure luck. Sometimes it is better to be bliss
Have you ever wondered what the fine line between egoism and self esteem is? What is the meaning of egoism? What makes you an egoist? How can someone be an egoist. I think that Prometheus is a perfect example of an egoist because he only cares about his happiness, he is miserable working for others, and because he thinks he owes nothing to everybody.
The purpose of this essay is to pick apart Mill’s essay and to give my own personal opinion about happiness. Stuart believed that you could achieve happiness by helping others achieve happiness and by finding things that you enjoy in life. I believe the key to happiness is helping other people achieve their happiness, do things that you enjoy doing, and looking at things in the brightest way possible.
I believe that pursuing happiness as a goal has detrimental effects. As a society, we tend to believe that we need to be full of joy at all times, but that isn't realistic - life happens. By attempting to be cheery all the time, you will never be genuinely content. You will always be searching for more and won't be satisfied with what you have, creating a permanent cycle of gloom rather than bliss.
Someone's happiness can be defined in a number of ways that differ from everyone else's definition of happiness. Some might say that they are truly happy because they have wealth or they can spend money on material things. Others might say activities and exercising can make someone feel happy, but not everyone does the same activities such as going out or working out. There are many different meanings of happiness for everyone whether it be money, exercising, taking vacations, or just going out. The happiness in my life comes from the people I choose to surround myself with such as spending time with my family and friends daily.
In Mark Kingwell’s excerpt, “In Pursuit of Happiness,” he discusses the challenge of defining happiness. This work serves to inform the audience on a topic they may never have considered while using evidence and support from philosophers, authors, and even scientists to contribute to various viewpoints on the subject. At the end of the excerpt, Kingwell discusses happiness, even unhappiness, and concludes with his own opinions on the subject.
he movie titled “The Pursuit of Happyness”, there was a problematic family living in San Francisco in 1981. The main character, Chris Gardner worked as a salesman invested his entire life savings in portable bone density scanner to support his family including his wife Linda and a five years old son Christopher. However, Chris’ business was not doing well and his wife was forced to work. Day after day, Linda was suffering and she always quarrelled with Chris and blamed him for didn’t play the role as a responsible father and a good husband. Luckily, this was not the end for Chris. One day, he met his turning point, Jay Twistle, a manager from Dean Witter. He offered Chris with a stockbroker at the end of a six-month unpaid training period.
Think of some favorite memories or objects: the first love, favorite pet, favorite foods, or maybe even a good
Throughout the course of one’s life, there is a constant search for some form of happiness. We may not always realize we are on the quest for it, but it’s part of human nature.
Based on what Byron Katie, she concluded the situation is hopeless if what causes your problem is always there but you think that anyone or anything is responsible for your suffering. It means that you are forever as a victim and suffering in paradise. As we know, people live in a society filled with a lot of challenges and troubles. No matter you are facing and dealing with any financial problem, family conflict or career issues, stress and struggles are hard to avoid or we say it is inevitable. Overwhelming life’s struggles are never easy to go through. Refer to the movie “Pursuit of happiness”, the main character, Chris Gardner, a man who hardworking and courage but loses everything and live with struggle in his life. Therefore, we are going to discuss about the factors that lead to life struggling.
Happiness might be in the smallest of the things but sometimes the material things won’t give you permanent feeling of joy, you might be happy with those things for a shorter time but it won’t be long lasting. Just as learning new skills requires effort, you will have to strive and work hard to achieve real, long lasting happiness.
A collection of philosophical, religious, psychological and biological approaches had attempted to define happiness and analyze its connections. Researchers have found that about 50% of people happiness depends on our genes, based on studies of identical twins, whose happiness was 50% correlated even when growing up in different houses. About 10% to 15% is a result of various measurable life circumstances variables, such as socioeconomic status, marital status, health, income, and others. The remaining 40% is a combination of intentional factors and the results of actions that individuals deliberately engage in to become happier. Studies have also found that most of us are born with a fixed “set point” of happiness that we fall in throughout our lives. We will tend to return to our set point despite whether good or bad things happen to