Pursuing Happiness

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. 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