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Relationship Between Community And Happiness

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Almost everybody seeks happiness in life, but nearly everyone, including myself, finds the journey to become happy daunting and all consuming. As life, including my own as I enter harder classes, increases in difficulty, people discover that many factors play a role in one’s success on this journey; among these is the community that one lives in. From one’s birth onward, he or she is surrounded by a community. This ubiquitous body, which includes friends, family, and acquaintances, has a great deal of influence on a person throughout his or her life. Especially in the modern age, this influence has become increasingly difficult to avoid, and as a result, some, such as the transcendentalist thinkers, have tried to escape their communities and live free of others’ influence in order to find happiness. In their attempts, these thinkers have discovered a great deal about themselves and the relationship between community and happiness, ultimately realizing that community is not a prerequisite for happiness. In fact, community is, in large part, unessential and even antithetical to happiness. To begin, community often causes conflict between people, which prevents individuals from feeling content and makes community unessential to happiness. The system of authority inherent in practically all communities leads to conflict and makes community irrelevant to happiness. Jon Krakauer agrees, noting that his relationship with his father brought him “no pleasure,” and was filled with

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