...Our brains naturally have this urge to chase happiness because of a little system in our brain called the "reward system." McGonigal proclaims in her book that Neuroscientists have discovered an area in our brain that promises happiness and encourages us to get whatever can make us happy(112). When our brain acknowledges a possibility for happiness, it releases a neurotransmitter called dopamine. Dopamine creates this feeling of alertness and excitement and just wants us to obtain anything that triggers anticipation. Kirkey also mentions in her article that the nucleus accumbens and the "reward center" propels us to pursue rewards. Our brains have evolved to keep us working and active through the promise of happiness. When we see something...
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...Santiago Psy101 May 3, 2015 1) My overall lesson from the movie is that everyone has the opportunity to be happy. Not just the people who are born into a rich family. Also, I learned that we have the opportunity to make us happy. That is, everyone can be happy and can continue to make themselves happy. 2) From the information that I gathered from the film, is that in most cases it is not necessarily about what you do that makes you happy but who you do it with. Socializing with others makes people happy. You could be doing anything kind of activity with others but as long as you are with others you could be happy. 3) One of the biggest misconceptions about what makes us happy is money. Most people think that money will make us happy but it does not. It is even suggested in the film for people with money to find meaningful work that will provide more than just money for us but an experience that will make us happy. 4) Most of our daily routines involve counteractive activities that people continue with to be happy. Many people work in a certain job that holds a promising future for them however the requirements on the job will not make you happy. People are blinded with what they should be doing to be successful since many people assume that being successful in their job will lead to happiness but that is not always true. 5) Two things I could do to make myself more happier is spending more time with loved ones and working on something that I actually...
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...About Sharing Happiness We can only share happiness with others when we ourselves know how to be happy and are happy. If we are not happy (it means we don't know how to be happy), then how can we share happiness with others and ask others to be happy, when we don't have happiness in ourselves? We can share our joy and happiness with all beings without any discrimination of human beings or non-human beings, good beings or bad beings, happy beings or unhappy beings, wise beings or ignorant beings, but we cannot give happiness to others nor can we make other beings to become happy. If one can give happiness to others or can make another being to become happy, then there shouldn't be any beings being unhappy in the world, because we can just give happiness to everyone and make everyone happy. But it doesn't work like that. Not even Buddha nor any enlightened beings can make another being to become happy or to become enlightened. If it is so easy, we can just ask for happiness or enlightenment and be happy forever and be enlightened. It is all come from within ourselves. Happiness or enlightenment, it is up to our own efforts to realize them within ourselves. It cannot be given or be bought from someone else. All the teachers and teachings are there to guide us to attain true happiness and enlightenment by our own effort. When beings are unhappy, have no peace in the heart, the mind is full of attachment, ignorance, anger, hatred, jealousy, arrogance, dissatisfaction, frustration...
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...What is happiness and do we cause our own happiness? What is happiness, how do we know when we have achieved happiness if it is not measured. If it is not profitable then why is it so important to so many people? And if it is not tradable then how do we achieve it, do we cause our own happiness. So what is happiness “The quality or state of being happy. Is the dictionary definition but then what does being happy mean? Happiness is arguably the strongest and most powerful feeling we can experience but, how do people understand happiness? Philosophers have an understanding of happiness and have boiled it down to two reasons hedonia and eudaimonia. Hedonia means happiness is the polar opposite of suffering; the presence of happiness indicates the absence of pain. Because of this, hedonists believe that the purpose of life is to maximize happiness, which minimizes misery. Eudemonia defines happiness as the pursuit of becoming a better person. Eudaimonists do this by challenging themselves intellectually or by engaging in activities that make them spiritually richer people. The main distinction between these two is that hedonia uses the idea that happiness is achieved by external things whereas eudaimonia believes that happiness comes from within us. Let’s take a closer look at the first idea. Hedonia which states that happiness is achieved by external things, such as things we want or already own. A flash car, a three story house or having lots of money, after all what person...
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...Most of the time, humans try to plan out lifestyles to make their future enjoyable. Many people look for jobs, places, or activities that will make them happy. In the essay, “Does Trying to Be Happy Make Us Unhappy?” by Adam Grant, we are shown that trying to be happy actually makes us unhappy. For the most part this is true because, we spent too much time searching, we are critical, and other experiences can make us feel like we need to aim higher. Overall, Grant’s essay explains about how we search too much for happiness. There is a story in the essay about a man named Tom who moves often and studies at different college, but he still could not find his happiness. The theory behind this is that we spend way too much time searching instead...
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...“Miswanting”, a professional article by Daniel T. Gilbert and Timothy D. Wilson address the issue of miswanting, Happy, a commercial documentary directed by Roko Belic, addresses the question of what makes people happy. Daniel T. Gilbert and Timothy D. Wilson refer to miswanting as a common mistake people do in liking certain things now but changing their feelings about it in the future. Happy on the other hand, allows Roko Belic to use human stories collected from around the world and have them define what it means for them to be happy. “Miswanting”, written by Daniel T. GIlbert and Timothy D. Wilson, uses a tone of enlightenment to make the peice effective. Enlightenment is the tone because the authors give the readers insightful information on what it means to be happy when wanting things. They do this through the developmental modes of definitions and...
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...on Happiness 20 September 2013 Happiness Depends on Ourselves Happiness; the quality or state of being happy, having good fortune, pleasure and/or joy. That is what “happiness” is defined by Dictionary.com LLC. If that was the definition of the word, I would be done with this paper and I would be hitting print as we speak. Unfortunately it is not that simple to slap a universal definition to this word, or any word rather. The author of Stumbling on Happiness, Daniel Gilbert, attempts to define the word. With several factors being put into play such as the measuring of happiness, different memories and different feelings can vary Gilbert’s definition from mine. Writing a book with 263 pages based on the topic of happiness, Gilbert shows us his own definition of the word relatively early, “Happiness, then, is the you-know-what-I-mean feeling” (35). Do I even have to explain his quote? Because according to Gilbert we already “know what he means”. On the serious note, Gilbert is trying to make a point that it is extremely difficult to describe this word. He goes on to say that if we were to try and describe this word, we would most likely ditch the idea of using a definition and try and describe it by pointing out examples of what makes us happy. Well then if you go down that route, you are already looking at millions of different possibilities of what makes people happy. You can see why it is so difficult for Gilbert because everyone in this world is made completely different...
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...It enables you to profit from your highest: thoughts, wisdom, intelligence, common sense, emotions, health, and spiritual values in your life. What makes you happy and what makes me happy are different things. Whatever it is that gives you warm fuzzes is determined by you, and only you. This difference is what makes the world interesting. Most of the happiness that we experience comes from the feeling of love. So many people look to their love relationships,especially marriage to give them the happiness that they cannot find on their own. Love is not enough to provide happiness, then there must be many frustrated lovers in the world. The belief that love gurantess happiness is left over from the ideology of romantic love that tells us we will live happily ever after if we can only find the right person with whom to spend our life with. If we realize that love by itself will not bring happiness, then hopefully we will be more tolerant of the imperfections of those we love. If our relatioships have their problems and if those we love do not always meet our expectations it doesn't mean that we have lost our chance for happiness. When we do not expect love to give us the happiness we seen, there will be more room for forgiveness of the imperfections and problems that always accompany love. What makes us happy is so varied. To be happy is a fleeting thing,...
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...It enables you to profit from your highest: thoughts, wisdom, intelligence, common sense, emotions, health, and spiritual values in your life. What makes you happy and what makes me happy are different things. Whatever it is that gives you warm fuzzes is determined by you, and only you. This difference is what makes the world interesting. Most of the happiness that we experience comes from the feeling of love. So many people look to their love relationships,especially marriage to give them the happiness that they cannot find on their own. Love is not enough to provide happiness, then there must be many frustrated lovers in the world. The belief that love gurantess happiness is left over from the ideology of romantic love that tells us we will live happily ever after if we can only find the right person with whom to spend our life with. If we realize that love by itself will not bring happiness, then hopefully we will be more tolerant of the imperfections of those we love. If our relatioships have their problems and if those we love do not always meet our expectations it doesn't mean that we have lost our chance for happiness. When we do not expect love to give us the happiness we seen, there will be more room for forgiveness of the imperfections and problems that always accompany love. What makes us happy is so varied. To be happy is a fleeting thing,...
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...He has been practicing for years and believes that winning the title will make him happy and fulfil the emptiness he feels inside. Ben-Shahar wins the championship and feels happier that he ever thought was possible. But it only lasts for so long. Shortly after winning the championship the emptiness comes back and that makes him question what happiness is really about. He realizes that he has to rethink his perception of happiness and what makes us happy. He becomes obsessed, starts pursuing the true meaning of it and starts studying philosophers like Aristotle and Confucius. He discovers that emotions are fleeting, and while they are enjoyable and significant, he does not believe that they are the measure of happiness. 2) Everybody has different perceptions of what happiness is. Some believe that it is buying a new car while others think that helping other people is the key. In the three texts we get three different opinions on the matter. The first text is ‘The Question of Happiness’ by Tal Ben-Shahar. He has published a book called ‘Happier’, which is where the text is from and has been a teacher at Harvard University. Ben-Shahar has been wondering about happiness since he was sixteen years old. It all started when winning a squash title didn’t fulfil the emptiness inside him as he thought it would. This made him wonder how he could find lasting happiness and wondered if a person could be happy and successful at the same time. He started to investigate the matter and...
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...Imagine the world we live in today versus a flawless fantasy world, what are the differences, what are the similarities? Many people have described the world we live in today as a dystopia because it is flawed and filled with imperfections. A fantasy world is what’s called a utopia because it’s a perfect world. The dystopic world versus a utopic world, what are the similarities? What are the differences? The legal definition of dystopia “an imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one” (Webster). A dystopia is the world we currently live in because in certain parts of the world it can be very degrading and dark. Watching the news alone will give anybody a sense of despair because it’s filled with wars, people dying, and tragedy; whether it’s human induced or natural. The media is constantly buzzing with various scandals, such as corruption by people in high places. Violence has become normal and a part of everyday life, people are immune to violence and bad news. This is the real world definition of a dystopia because it does give you a sense of despair and watching the news will make you think that the world is bad and unpleasant. A utopia is the complete opposite of the dark world. It’s a place where everything is peaceful, there are no deaths, no wars, no corruption scandals, no clergy, rulers, king, or army(s). It is a completely peaceful and beautiful world; there is no need for weapons or violence...
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...Consumerism in America Our economy is based off of consumerism and therefore we have been persuaded by our culture to believe purchasing entities will make us happy. We are trapped in the idea that the more we consume the happier we will become. Many Americans are waking up from this disillusionment through their realization that happiness is not derived from stuff but from a positive perspective on the coexistence of people and experiences. Material possessions on their own do not make people happy. Alex Honnold, a free soloist who lives a simple life devoted only to climbing, insists that what makes people happy is their concentration on community, family and their own tight nit little web. Family and friend groups are ultimately where people find the most satisfaction because there they feel they belong and are accepted. Yet simple experiences such as eating at a dinner table with family are becoming more and more rare. Instead, family members are often focused on their iPhones, laptops or eat completely removed from the table in front of a television. These material objects that are believed to make a person happy instead inhibit the simplest of enjoyable experiences like a family dinner. Outside the family, young people are not experiencing the happiness that is the present moment and the people in front of them. They are constantly connected with everyone they know through services like facebook and texting which offer quick jolts of shallow happiness but remove people...
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...they are brought up as children and what they are taught to believe at an early age. In America we are continually told about the American Dream which is the portrait of the perfect family in a Norman Rockwell painting, the perfect job, the house with the white picket fence and no problems where everybody looks happy and acts as if they are happy; this would be a stereotype of what happiness looks like. Is this true happiness? Not really for very few of us ever achieve all of these things and I am 48 years old and if I waited to be happy until I had these things I never would be happy. Happiness is a state of mind of little things that make us happy with our lives each and every day. For some of us like myself it is just waking up in the morning and thanking god that I have another day to see this beautiful world we live in and the chance to spend another day on this earth clean and sober. This is a perfect example of the American culture, which is more self- determination, looking out for our wellbeing, getting to know ourselves and reaching for our own goals, and positive self-esteem and confidence. In recent years American children have now been encouraged to show their emotions and take pride in their accomplishments. We see this in our everyday lives especially when it comes to sports, and school. We are so caught up in our own lives that sometimes it takes a tragic catastrophe for us to come together as a nation, and even then many of us will talk about it but we don’t do...
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...The Truth about Happiness As human beings we all want to be happy and free from misery. We have learned that the key to happiness is inner peace. The greatest obstacles to inner peace are disturbing emotions such as anger and attachment, fear and suspicion, while love and compassion, a sense of universal responsibility are the sources of peace and happiness. (Dalai Lama) When we are first arrive in this world, our mind is pure form the concept of happiness. But as we grow, our thinking got infected with the outside world. We learned what the society has considered to be the sources of happiness. We believe it completely and make a lifelong mission to achieve those things. The society has falsely taught us that the exterior things, beauty, money and fame, would make us happy, and we keep chasing and chasing, and still got empty handed. It is in fact that what we have thought will bring us happiness are actually the source of our suffering. The image of physical beauty is everywhere nowadays from signs on the street to TV at home. Many people, majorly females, especially young girls, got the wrong idea that people with good look are better in life. Even Daniel Gilbert has agreed that “a lot of the advice we receive from others is bad advice that we foolishly accepted” (171), in “Reporting Live from Tomorrow,” a chapter form Stumbling on Happiness. Thus, they automatically assumed that beauty is a path to happiness. In fact, that is the widespread belief;...
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...Pleasure and Satisfaction It is natural for us to be happy. We want to compliment or do the cool thing and share to each other. When you feel joy to the world is brilliant but you have to ask yourself that what is happiness? What the factors that determine happiness are or something that makes people happy, why different people one were happy, but the other people were not happy though they both have everything equally. What to do to make yourself happy. I firmly believe that the attainment of our desires makes us happy. Pleasure and satisfaction is kind of feeling or emotion and has several levels, a little comfort or satisfaction or the full enjoyment of fun and when it a matter of emotion is and measurements that are happy or not. The answer it depends on the individual's sense of the moment that how much they look at life satisfaction, when we are very satisfied in life we’ll very happy with it so the people that have everything equally, they might be have different happy if they had the satisfaction in life different. Incentives as a tool to encourage individual satisfaction the first thing is a material inducement including goods or money to the state of physical activities. Second, desirable physical condition is the environment in which the activity is one important aspect that contributes to physical health. Third, ideal benefaction refers to the various needs of the individual. Forth, association attractiveness is a friendly relationship with the participants. This...
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