Gretchen Rubin had a sudden realization one rainy day as she rode a city bus. "The days are long, but the years are short," she realized. "Time is passing, and I'm not focusing enough on the things that really matter." At that moment, she came to the decision to dedicate a year to her happiness. Thus began the Happiness project. She plunged into the principles established by all sorts of experts, from Epicurus to Thoreau to Oprah to Martin Seligman to the Dalai Lama to see which helped her become a happier person and which didn't.…
Throughout history and especially during the industrial revolution we have seen children work out in factories and fields. Factory owners hired children to work in factories because they were small enough to fit in places that were too tight for a grown adult to fit into and kids were cheaper for factory owners to pay. In the Ayn Rand’s novel Anthem babies are taken away from their birth mothers and put in a home with other children to be raised as a group.…
It is illegal to say “I” because there is only we. The government has stripped the individual of anything that made them special and forces them into a collective hive mind with everyone else. This world of full conformity is from a book named Anthem by Ayn Rand. Anthem was written in 1938 but today the country of North Korea strongly resembles how the citizens in the book act and how their government rules them. From limiting them to better ways of living and using technology, brainwashing the entire population to think in a certain way for the benefit of the government and imprisoning those who object to the laws set forth by the government Anthem and North Korea are eerily similar. Even though they have a lot of similarities they aren't completely alike; in North Korea they worship their leaders and they do not care about the citizens relationships.…
One of the many things readers notice as they begenan reading Anthem by Ayn Rand is the lack of the word “I”. Anthem is a masterpiece that portrays what collectivism truly is through the eyes of a young man: Equality 7-2521. In the story the characters are given numbers rather than names to make them equal as a whole. Everything is done to make sure that the people are all alike and not unique. As the story goes Equality finds a tunnel and starts writing a diary there. He soon discovers that he prefers the solitude that he gets there and solitude is something that is not allowed by the council. This is because they fear time along gives you time to think. In a collectivist society people are all to think the same and most…
Anthem, by Ayn Rand, depicts an era in the future where altruism is required, and everyone’s purpose in life is to be useful to others. The City, where Equality lives, is not any different in this idea. A citizen growing up in the City lives under rules that strip away any form of distinction from other people. The City has these controls in order to maintain a state of stability and order over the population. Officials will go through any length to keep a person from breaking order. All citizens must be valued exactly the same as one another. Considering that Equality 7-2521 absolutely hates the City’s regulations that strip people of their individuality, suppress the human nature for the conquest of knowledge, and stamp out the idea of favoritism,…
In order the answer the question of what happiness is and where to find it the Dalai Lama suggests an optimistic spiritual path to find it to introduce readers to the subject in his article, “New Ethic for a Small Planet”, while Andrew Guest’s “Pursuing the Science of Happiness” reviews different findings of researches in several fields as well as his own. Reading these two together, with the Dalai Lama’s article first and Guest second, readers can gain a holistic view of the topic and a tangible method for achieving both individualist happiness and a collaborative wellbeing for the global society.…
Happiness can be defined as pleasure, joy, exhilaration, bliss, contentedness, delight, enjoyment, and satisfaction. All these words mean the same thing yet can be very difficult to understand while it can be even more difficult to attain the full feeling behind these words. Many people think that having their cars, or skis, or whatever other material possessions they want will make them happy. Others believe there must be some sort of deeper connections in order to achieve true happiness. “The New Science of Happiness,” an article in Time Magazine by Claudia Wallis, argues that the largest contributing factor for one’s levels of happiness are feelings of gratitude and their ties to family and friends. However a peer-reviewed journal titled “Orientations to Happiness and Life Satisfaction: The Full Life Versus the Empty Life,” by Christopher Peterson, Nansook Park, and Martin E.P. Seligman, argues that there are three distinguishable orientations to happiness.…
Sometimes I wonder, if happiness has not become a harder thing to achieve in our modern society, where we want to do so much, so many different things, achieve so much and contribute to society…While also feeling happy and fulfilled with our lives.…
The everlasting question of "What is Happiness?" has been inquired since the creation of men. Unfortunately, the only agreed answer that humanity came up with is that all the creatures seek happiness, but no one has the concrete directions for achieving it. Our libraries are overwhelmed with books about happiness, but no dictionary definition explains which path men must take to be happy. No mathematician gave us the axiom which we could use to solve the problem of living in bliss. No scientist brought up the formula of fusing certain ingredients to produce the "drink of happiness". Still almost all the people consider that their ultimate purport in life is to achieve happiness. Ironically, very few of us can say, with certainty, that he/she is absolutely happy.…
People have diverse definitions of happiness. Psychologists relate happiness to emotions and feelings of gratification. Economists define happiness in terms of wealth of individuals. Some people attribute happiness to attainment of desires. Some others believe that satisfaction lies in accepting the fact that human life is miserable and expectations just betray men. But where does real happiness and satisfaction lie? Although attainment is the objective of every pursuit and sense of accomplishment is an ingredient for further progress but still desires and destinations don’t completely satisfy humans yet it is the pursuit which instills a positive attitude towards life and struggle, makes the process enjoyable, it explores ones capabilities and eventually enables humans to transcend from petty pleasures to the higher purposes of their life. Happiness is not something to be derived from achievements as such; rather it comes after the pursuer who knuckles down for his desires.…
The life of an individual and the society is in the sphere of the abstract category ‘happiness’. In spite of the fact that the problem of ‘happiness’ is considered to be one of the ‘eternal’ issues the solution to it should be found by people living today.…
“Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond our grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you” is what Nathaniel Hawthorne once said. (Palha) Unfortunately there is no handbook that one may purchase to achieve happiness, because no one is the same. Therefore, it is nearly impossible for one to obtain happiness through someone else’s viewpoints and research, but there are in my opinion, basic needs that will jumpstart the road to happiness. In contemplation and also through research I have come to the conclusion that people in our lives, experiences, privileges, and attitudes are the key components to achieve happiness.…
Happiness is one of many human emotions. Life events, including both external and internal stimuli often elicit a state of emotional happiness. Individual’s natural temperament, age, gender, culture, and religious affiliation are all mitigating factors in the way individual’s respond to life’s circumstances and in turn the changes in their happiness levels. Furthermore, the need to find happiness, fulfilment and overcome obstacles in life is an inherent human trait.…
The journey of life is a trying one. It is filled with twists and turns that can not always be anticipated or expected. Add the pursuit of happiness, and the already daunting navigating nightmare has become even more elusive and difficult. Many have tried to capture the equation for happiness. However, Aristotle and Epicurus are two philosophers that have realized that happiness or eudaimonia (the flourishing life), is the major byproduct of a self-sufficient and morally good life. In essence, long-lasting happiness is not found directly; it is the result from living a morally just life.…
Since the creation of men the question of, “what is happiness?” has been asked. Unfortunately, the only agreed answer that humanity has come up with is that all creatures seek happiness but no one has the concrete directions for achieving it. Libraries are overwhelmed with books about happiness, but no dictionary definition explains which path men must take to be happy. Freud describes happiness understood by us as pleasure, as everyone’s main goal in life. According to Freud, all humans strive after happiness, they want to become happy and remain so, I unlike many critics agree with Freud’s way of thinking, I believe there’s a time for happiness as well as a time for sorrow so there for happiness is temporarily.…