Pursuing Happiness free essay sample

Don Lucas tells you about what is happiness and how you distinguish the positive emotions of happiness, pleasure and contentment from one another. What I believe is the purest form of happiness is when we’re infants and as we grow into a bias exotelic we feel the need to be content. Not being content causes society to constantly pursue happiness. For example, nothing is enough for us so we strive to be the best in our society by having the biggest house, the most friends and the highest paid, self-fulfilled career . When I was younger I had no worries, no responsibilities and it felt great not having to worry about bills, trying to fit in or even getting a job. It was just smooth sailing forward, playing with my toys and laughing with a carefree glee. Playing basketball with my peers, I realized that those moments were my happiest moments. We will write a custom essay sample on Pursuing Happiness or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page As I got older my life started to progress and change and the misconception is that I needed to be in control of my happiness by negating other people’s emotions. For example, when I was an adolescent I played basket ball for my middle school and my parents would scold me for not putting education my first priority. So one day my mom forced me to quit the team and by doing so it had a big impact on my emotions. So the way I see it, it’s really rare to find true happiness because I believe to be happy you have to find what you love and be happy doing so in any kind of situation or trials ahead. I wasn’t the type of person that needed money to be happy. I lived in Hawaii and the island was full of beaches and you don’t need money to go to the beach, so I didn’t the pressure of needing it. But I also learned through this chapter that everyone has their own unique misconceptions. It is related to how and in what environment they where raised. In the second chapter, Don Lucas tells us that behaviors play a big part in the pursuit of happiness. One of the most powerful behaviors is smiling because it shows our human emotion that we as a society all long for. How we behave shows an outcome of how people interact with you, and treat you. For example, if I was being mean to another person it could play a role in their happiness and vice versa. Everyone has a unique distinctive personality that tells us who we are and makes rational perspective in a social situation. There is also a good social comparison. Being good to another person can alter their emotion. When I was on the foot ball team I would be nice and motivated my other teammates to win the game, leading to victory. Therefore I reaped the benefits for my happiness since doing good deeds usually leads to good karma. But everyone wants positive feedback from everyone else but that is an impossible task. Everybody wants their needs met but not everyone is able to and that can lead them to be unhappy. It’s like the saying, â€Å"no pain no gain†. When I lived in Hawaii I had many friends with all sorts of personalities and when we all gathered everyone needed to feel like they fit in. So they would do things they usually would not do, disregarding their conscience, just simply seeking the approval of others. Most of the time in groups you can develop envious feelings towards your peers if they were doing well in one of your interest. You get the desire to become competitive. These are some examples of bad emotions that can lead to self satisfaction and also called being content. In chapter three, Lucas describes the ingredients of happiness or true happiness or even being content. I would have to say marriage would be in one of my top ingredients to happiness. That is because I believe a happy wife leads to a happy life because in most cases in our society, an unsuccessful marriage is a big problem that leads to a divorce then to just being plain miserable and not only you suffer in family the kids suffer as well. Not having a good marriage can also lead to substance abuse such as alcohol or even taking psych meds such as Zanex to hide your depression. The reason why I picked marriage as an essential ingredient to happiness is because I have seen it first hand; my parents love each other and they look like they reached the point of having true happiness. Never argued always smiling even though they were having misconceptions, they fought through their problems together and pretty much happily ever after. So by learning this information, it expanded my mind to other options and learning how people develop their emotions differently. For me I would say everyone can pursue true happiness. It’s not the future and the planning for the big picture; it’s the small ones that mostly counts and that can also lead to less stress and giving a sense that you can control your own happiness.