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For centuries, society has shaped these abstract ideas of what happiness means and how one could achieve happiness in their lives. However, in order to even understand what actions could lead to one’s happiness, one must be able to understand the definition of happiness itself. Having read Charles Dicken’s book Great Expectations, happiness persists as a pleasure or sense of a meaningful and rich psychosocial integration in a person’s understanding of himself or herself.…
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Happiness is the most ideal state of mind that any person can achieve in his life and which indicates complete physical and moral satisfaction of an individual. According to Freud, happiness is nothing but another synonym for sexual pleasure; in other words, following the pleasure principle, happiness can only be achieved by investing all of our libidinal energies in the aim of reaching genital satisfaction. But due to some obstacles that will never allow any human being from reaching the ultimate state of happiness, like the weakness of our own bodies, Freud, adopting the reality principle, came up with the theory of sublimation; which suggests that an individual can avoid the pain caused from not achieving complete happiness by deviating his libidinal energies towards other activities, like sports, gardening, painting… These activities will later cause the birth of human civilization. But note that when this sublimation exceeds its limits, and there are no more libidinal energies to be diverted, a more primitive instinct begins to show: the death drive, which can only be contained by the fund of libidinal energies that we possess.…
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On one day, after watching the movie named “Fahrenheit 451” in the English class, I started to thinking about what we are calling happiness . I browsed the web and came across this quotation “ Happiness is a positive range of emotions that we feel when we are content or full of joy” ,which is Cocacola ‘s definition . Then, I reminded of Beatty’s saying in the film ”Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full full of facts they feel stuffed…then they’ll get a sense of motion without moving, and they’ll be happy…”. I began to suspect our understanding about what called happiness, which seem to be only about pleasure, satisfaction, and full of nothing. After that, I have realized that the film predicted much of our reality in 2013, especially about definition of happiness. In this paper, I would like to base on the common points between “Fahrenheit 451” and our modern society, to prove that we are misunderstanding about definition of so-called happiness and then, to re-define happiness.…
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Instead, we will look to a second definition of happiness by Miriam-Webster presenting a definition that more reasonably proposes that happiness is one’s position on life rather than a transient feeling. Miriam-Webster states that happiness is “a state of well-being and contentment.” By introducing this idea of well-being to an explanation of the inspiration of happiness, Miriam-Webster’s definition suggests that different elements, such as health and comfort, are required to create happiness. Many people over the course of history have attempted to define happiness, and some definitions are quite interesting, however, who is to say that any of the definitions are correct or incorrect? To answer the original question asked, “What is happiness?” there is no definite way to define happiness, especially not a definition that will be valid for every person. Happiness is something that is achieved, and once achieved, that person knows that something is different. It is something strived towards in our society because there are so many people facing adversity that many are unable to find their happiness due to their worries. In his book, Brave New World, Aldous Huxley introduces a type of society quite different from our own in which happiness…
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As Jeff, one of our classmates has described in his posts, "\Freud's theories of human nature are inherently pessimistic. We are all doomed to anxiety, to the thwarting of impulses, and to tension and conflict.…
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We all have a different definition of happiness, and it seems like it is still unclear what happiness really means. In “the sources of happiness”, by Howard Cutler, he discuss where happiness comes from and how the comparing mind works. As for the second article “happiness and its discontents” by Daniel Haybron, he talks about how being happy is being satisfied. Another observations of his that overlaps with Culter point which is how we always seem to confuse happiness with pleasure. Which makes us question if Satisfaction brings us happiness? Is pleasure considered happiness? And will comparing ourselves to other people people bring us happiness or misery?. It is important to understand that happiness is not just one element. It is something that is built over time and rewarded to those who work for it.…
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Religion, art and science are also known as achievements of civilization, which fit into his theory of human happiness. Freud defines happiness in terms of the satisfaction of need or desire. Happiness is hard to achieve, which is where Freud’s pleasure principle is found. There are two parts of the pleasure principle, which are negative aim, that avoids pain and suffering and positive aim is getting pleasure. As a civilization, the more advancements we…
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The question of seeking ‘happiness’ is what every individual looks for in his or her life. This essay will weigh arguments whether the thesis for the identification of happiness is aligned with pleasure. I will be using Daniel Hybron and Wayne Davis’s ideas to support my arguments to answer the question presented. When trying to analyze and answer the question one must understand what the terms and definitions of pleasure and happiness really means. The first ideology to examine will be Wayne Davis’s. Davis’s claim is that happiness and pleasure comes from the same place. The way Davis distinct his claim is from the terms “dispositional” and “Occurent”. The term “dispositional” explains that happiness is a long-term act that it doesn’t go away and it isn’t temporary. On the other hand, his term “Occurent” explains that happiness is divided into parts. Like we say “carpe diem”, live in the moment. Therefore, Davis thinks that it is a momentary act of happiness. Davis thinks that getting pleasure equals to being happy. This theory that Davis has can be categorized in two two concepts “non epistemic” and “epistemic”. These two terms contain the definitions of where pleasure comes from. In the term ‘non-epistemic’ he argues that it happens in chains of events, which doesn’t bring happiness. However, the term ‘Epistemic’ is the…
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Everyone has different ideas about whether happiness is a state of being or a process. Arthur Schopenhauer claims that happiness is a state of mind that one must strive for, while Friedrich Nietzsche claims that happiness is the process of pursuing one’s desires. Martin Seligman’s concept of the three lives explains that happiness can be both a state of being and a process depending on which of the three lives one is experiencing. Both Schopenhauer’s and Nietzsche’s ideas on happiness relate to Seligman’s concepts of the three lives: the Pleasant Life, the Good Life, and the Meaningful Life. Martin Seligman is a renowned psychologist who studies in the field of positive psychology.…
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What is happiness? Marketing and media have brainwashed people’s brain into believing that happiness means to own possessions such as cars, big houses, or brand new devices among others. Unfortunately, this overstated fable is far from real. In fact, most people misunderstand that happiness is a choice that lies inside them. Weather to be happy or not, is up to any individual to choose as they please. Namely, true happiness is no more than a positive attitude, a good healthy habit, and life meaning.…
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Man wants happiness, basically. There’s 2 ways to go about it: the absence of pain, or pleasure. However, it seems that man’s plan to be happy has “not been included in the plan of ‘Creation’”. Happiness comes from the satisfaction of needs, but humans are made in a way that we can only derive intense enjoyment from things being contrasted and not from the state of things. For example, if you take a test, and you get a C, you are sad. If the next time you take a test you get an A, you are happy. This is a contrast. If you were to get A’s all the time, it wouldn’t make a difference to you, and so it wouldn’t produce happiness. Thus, “our possibilities of happiness are already restricted by our constitution”. Freud basically states that when any situation that is desired by the pleasure principle is prolonged, and then it creates a feeling of mild contentment in our lives. Therefore, possibilities of happiness is restricted by the law. Many of humankind's primitive instincts (for example, the desire to kill and the craving for sexual gratification) are clearly harmful to the well being of a human community. As a result, civilization creates laws that prohibit killing, rape, and adultery, and it implements severe punishments if its rules are broken. This process, Freud argues, is an inherent quality of civilization that instills perpetual feelings of discontent in its citizens.…
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Sharon Begley in “Happiness: Enough Already” argues that being extremely happy may be a goal of anybody but it also can be “the end of the drive for ever-greater heights of happiness” (455). Begley claims that “being happier is not always better” (455) and an excessive happiness may affect badly to people’s life. She points out that people who reach the highest level of happiness don’t feel motivated to move forward since they are already satisfied. The author goes on insists that happiness does not last long because “negative emotion evolved for a reason” (456). She presents many cases of famous people who experienced negative emotions to create their well-known works showing the need of sadness in every lifetime. Furthermore, people desire to gain more and more happiness causing them the fear to experience sadness. Therefore, what they once considered normal sadness is regarded as a psychiatric illness now. The author then concludes that everything would be much better if “the single-minded pursuit of happiness as an end in itself” (458).…
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needs which have been dammed up to a high degree, and it is from its nature only…
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In Book I of Neomachean Ethics Aristotle explores the issue of happiness in order to determine the nature of the experience and its effects on the way people live their lives. He talks about the success and fulfillment of happiness and how it is our highest goal. However, Aristotle does not say that we should aim for happiness, but we do aim at happiness. His point is not to say that we should live happy lives, but to show us what a happy life consists of. He states a number of concepts relating to the term happiness that shocks everyone who hears. Nevertheless, his outstanding proclamations add to the understanding of the term happiness.…
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In our current world, as we all regard, money is the tool for getting things we need and want. Everyone uses it and suprisingly the money is both tangible and intangible. We work for months and years to have money to buy specific things. ‘’A man wants to earn money in order to be happy, and his whole effort and the best of a life are devoted to the earning of that money’’. (‘’The Myth of Sisyphus ‘’,1942) Lots of human beings are spending their money to buy some products and services because they believe having these stuffs will make them happy. But what if they wrong? What if there is no real happiness come from money? As far as I am concerned, money is only tool not a purpose while achieving the happiness. Some say ‘ You can’t be happy without money because it unlocks everydoor’. According to them life offers every kind of opportunity and happiness to the wealthy people. Unfortunately, money can only buy temporary happiness. For reaching more permanent joy and felicity, you need values that are more important than money.…
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