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Happiness
Relationship Between Materialism, Religion and Happiness

1. Definition of Happiness
A.Difficulties of pursuing happiness
B. Different levels of happiness needed in different stages
2. Relationship between happiness and materialism
A. Definition of materialism
B. Materialism is negatively related to happiness
3. Relationship between happiness and religion A. Definition of religion
B. Reasons why religious people are happier (Christian and Buddhist)
C. Religion is positively related to happiness
4.Conclusion

Relationship Between Materialism, Religion and Happiness
Happiness is a mental or emotional state of well-being characterized by positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. Happiness is something we’ve learned to strive for and there are different levels of happiness needed in different stages during our life journey. However, sometimes even if we can find happiness, we are too exhausted to enjoy. According to the article “ the pursuit of happiness”, it mentions that there are two difficulties when we are pursuing happiness. One of the difficulties is to know we’re happy as it is not possible to gauge happiness while we are experiencing it. Another difficult is that we’ve stereotyped happiness. Only good feelings are indicator of happiness. (Artel LiLi, 2004)Pursuing happiness may be the purpose of our life, but the most important thing we should bear in mind is that we should know joy. There are many factors that may affect happiness. This paper reports two factor which most people may think it gives an impact on happiness---Materialism and religion. And also it will focus on analyzing the reasons why less-materially-oriented people and religious people are much happier than others.
Materialism
Materialism is the interest in and desire for money, possessions rather than spiritual or ethical values. “Materialism as an orientation that emphasizes possessions and money for personal happiness and social
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