Themes of the Humanities: Happiness
Happiness is the very thing that gets us through life at any given moment. It is what motivates us to strive to do better while it feeds our self-interest and others around us. Some may say happiness is the amount of dopamine that transmits throughout our brain and body which leaves us feeling satisfied in a way only you can personally feel. Everyone finds happiness in different things, that’s what makes the explanation of it so broad and general. Personally, it’s shocking how when people ask me the question of “what makes you happy?” my mind goes completely blank in all honesty. For happiness to be an essential part of a healthy and prosperous life, it’s as if it is one of the harder things to achieve in my opinion. So, the question that comes to mind is, what exactly is happiness? As stated by the author “Is pleasure what makes life good, therefore happy? Or is it based on the observance of strict moral principles, obeyed even if it means a loss of pleasure? …Can we be happy without joy?” (385.12.5) My answer to all those questions is, happiness is what you decide you want it to be. It isn’t something that can just be simply bought or found in a mere second, it can come from one or several things we may come across in our life experiences, sometimes it may even be things we wouldn’t even think of.
Happiness has been viewed in different ways, for example, it can be seen as a sum of the total pleasure we experience in a lifetime, or it can just mean us not being in constant pain, mentally or physically. It can also be the very purpose in which we live for in our lives. As stated in the text “To find the roots of unhappiness, we must look inward. Nothing is under our control except the way we think about things.” (393.12.5). In order to be happy, we need to know how to respond to certain situations and determine what exactly makes us unhappy to avoid sadness and ultimate depression. Misfortune can be very misleading to the point where it makes people give up on the idea of having true happiness or leaves them curious to why it has not yet clicked for them. Whether or not they believe in God, Gods, or the universe they all ask themselves why? why them? why now? As found in the text, “There are always going to be limitations on happiness. Many millions have no choice but to wait and hope for a miraculous change of fortune.” (398.12.5) From this quote I feel as if it is trying to say that no matter how happy you can be or get, always make sure to keep the thought of unexpected happiness to come in play. Life isn’t easy so it will have moments in where you can find being happy to be difficult. This is why I believe in having a bad day, does not mean you have a bad life, so keep your head up and try to stay as “happy” as you can be, so carpe diem.
Janaro, R. P., & Althshuler, T. C. (2013). The art of being human: The humanities as a technique for living. Pearson Learning Solutions.
True Happiness. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://thejeannefiles.blogspot.com/2011/01/true-happiness.html
Want More Happiness? Read the Secret Society of Happy Peoples Thirty-O. (2013, March 01). Retrieved from http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/2/prweb10486353.htm
