I'M on the Pursuit of Happiness
For many the ultimate goal in life is to be happy, at least for me it is. Happiness is very different for everyone. My idea of happiness can potentially devastate to someone else’s life. Why It’s So Hard To Be Happy, by Michael Wiederman tried to explain the reasons why such a simple feeling of happiness is so difficult to attain. Are we just never satisfied? According to Wiederman we are creatures of habit and adaptation. We adapt to the good as well as the bad. We seek happiness in objects and goals but don’t look for it in front of us. Happiness is always ahead of us. The author looks into various explanations as to why we struggle to reach happiness. He explores the idea of economical burdens, genetic predisposition and goal setting. The idea that most people have in their heads of what being happy would be like usually involves money, lots of it too. As far statistics show we have tripled our buying power from 1050 to 2000 but our happiness has stayed the same. On the contrary, anxiety levels in children have gone up since 1950. So we can conclude that money does not buy happiness. Natural selection and adaptation is partly to blame for our lack of conformity. We seek happiness but once we achieve it we become inured to it. It also happens that we tend to notice what is wrong with our lives more than what is right. We are inheritably prone to notice the harm or threat to ourselves before we notice the good. We are basically never satisfied; we are always going to want that more, little by little. More money, more cars, more clothes, more space, you name it we always want more. Essentially we are insatiable. The ability to be happy can also derive from each person’s personality. Some may just never be capable of the feeling; others are easily stimulated and satisfied. These who desire less and appreciate more are usually the ones who experience happiness in life. It’s in their personality. That’s not saying that others are incapable of it but it takes