Happiness In John Steinbeck's 'Reality Is Broken'

In the reading “Reality is broken” the author writes about happiness and how one can create happiness based on the idea that happiness can’t be reached; it can only be created by working hard and continuing to constantly strive to be the best and pushing the boundaries of success. The writing also describes how we as Americans have a false sense of happiness also known as the “American Dream” and in order to be truly happy we must not think from a materialistic perspective. And lastly the writing discusses how games play an important role in happiness. The reading takes a psychological view on happiness by stating the brains chemical actions for example when the brain releases dopamine, serotonin, etc. which forces the reader to really think about what they are reading because there is scientific proof behind what the writer is stating and; therefore, backs up the writers message the they are trying to deliver to the reader. The author grabbed my attention when they listed the facts about the brain because it proved that the author actually knew what they were writing about instead of just blindly writing about their opinion on the topic. The main idea to get from the story is in order to achieve happiness people must do
what they truly want to do in life; which means that even if what I want to do doesn’t make a lot of money that’s what I need to do because just because someone has a lot of money or has a really nice car doesn’t mean they are really happy. These ideas go against the ideas that are traditionally accepted which are that in order to really be happy I would need a fancy car, a big house, and a lot of money, in other words the “American Dream is all about the money someone makes. The key to happiness as the author describes in the reading is to have survival needs met like food, safety, and sex as stated in the reading; also everyone has social needs that need to be met, even the people who are shy need human interaction or they will be unhappy.
Also everyone needs something to strive for, a goal, people need the feeling that they are constantly improving themselves or other people around them in order to truly be happy. As the author states in the informative writing “when you make others laugh dopamine and serotonin are released in the brain” causing you to feel good and ergo be happy; the same thing happens when someone make you laugh or smile the brain releases the dopamine and serotonin and which makes you
happy. The author did an extremely good job keeping my interest throughout the entire reading she had scientific evidence to back up her thesis, her title was intriguing, she had very compelling arguments, and she also debunked the myth that money is the only way to be happy. I believed in the statement the if I didn’t have money then I would never be really happy no matter what I did, who my friends were, or how smart I was I could not be happy unless I had money; after I read the reading; however, I thought about that statement and realized that whether I had money or not didn’t matter when it came to my personal happiness. It doesn’t matter if I have one dollar to my name or one million dollars I can be happy or unhappy either way.