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
Personal behaviors are largely shaped by social pressures—this statement holds more as fact than as theory. Evidently, communities pose as a positive. Why else would they exist if they were not believed to be advantageous? Communities stand as collective forces much stronger than individual forces and additionally, communities exist as oases of social comfort helping one another express emotions and gain acceptance. These positive aspects are blatantly obvious, and there really is no need to further investigate these pros within communities. Instead, there should lie more concern around the proponents of communities that are not obvious: their deleterious effects on the individual. As great as they are, communities also strip away individuality
Every person deserves the right to experience a sense of community amongst people who share a common characteristic. A sense of fellowship amongst similar people allows a person to become more comfortable with who they are through interactions with others who are going through—or have gone through—the same triumphs or hardships. Without this feeling of belonging, one could be driven into insanity. Anxiety due to isolation and desolation could run rampant through a person’s mind because of the loneliness that comes with a lack of community—making it an essential part of a humanhood. By definition however, community invites inimitability. Community can be defined as a group of unique individuals with shared characteristics. From that a
One day, Equality 7-2521 who was filled with joy, sang during dinner and was told off by a Council Member. He tells the Council Member the reason that he sings is because he is happy. The Council Member then retaliates that the reason he should be happy is because he lives with his fellow brothers. After that occurrence, while in his tunnel, Equality 7-2521 meditates on the meaning of happiness and realizes that it is forbidden to be unhappy and that his brothers are unhappy because they are afraid. What makes Equality 7-2521 happy is when he is in his tunnel performing experiments and pursuing his study of light, but in order to do so, he must sneak away because to his and everyone else’s knowledge, the society in which they live in reject an individual’s freedom to pursue individual happiness because true happiness should come from living beside/with your fellow brothers. When one is only able to achieve happiness through a group of people in a society, it is to be expected that its citizens will feel as if life is meaningless and painful. From what Equality 7-2521 has witnessed, it is evident that the flame of independence inside him is growing.
In Barbara Fredrickson’s Selections from “Love 2.0: How our Supreme Emotion Affects Everything We Feel, Think, Do and Become”, our conventional viewpoint on love is changed so that it can lead to a happier and healthier life. Similarly, in Karen Armstrong’s “Homo Religiosus”, she talks about religion and culture to explain the meaning of life and help people reach internal happiness. Both of these authors make sure that people forget about their previous beliefs so that they can reach Fredrickson’s system of “positivity resonance”, or Armstrong’s idea of internal happiness, or antta.
The world seems to be a dark and unforgiving place, but happiness is hidden within. It is found in a beautiful view, an uplifting song, or a compliment from a friend. According to the Ted Talk video, The Habits of Happiness, Matthieu Ricard claims that everyone “has a deep, profound desire for well-being or happiness”(Ricard 2:39). Ricard uses the three techniques of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos to captivate and move his audience. With the use of metaphors, personal experiences, and even graphs Matthieu explained to his audience the full force and perception of the bendable word that is happiness. This Ted Talk dove into philosophical meaning on just how to achieve well-being, without having everything in the world.
Mankind must by this time have acquired positive beliefs as to the effects of some actions on their happiness; and the beliefs which have thus come down are the rules of morality for the multitude, and for the philosopher until he has succeeded in finding better. That philosophers might easily do this, even now, on many subjects; that the received code of ethics is by no means of divine right; and that mankind have still much to learn as to the effects of actions on general happiness, I admit or rather earnestly maintain.
Humans in society are like musicians in an orchestra. Solo, their parts sound odd and out of place, lacking the harmonies mindfully composed for the rest of the orchestra. Humans are interdependent, social creatures by nature. We rely on each other to survive. We rely on each other to do jobs that might require a certain skill set or jobs that we might not have time to do ourselves. We even rely on each other to bring a sense of familiarity and security to our communities just by knowing one another. If we all remained anonymous, then we could not rely on each other to satisfy these vital societal needs. Scott Russell Sanders, in his essay “The Common Life”, states that the more people in a community who prefer to live isolated and reclusive lives, the more susceptible the community is to a division that impedes its ability to live together, interact synergistically, and thrive. He correctly believes that this division can lead to a total “breakdown” in society.
Living in community will expose selfishness, ambition, jealousy, dissension and impurity in ourselves, allowing us to experience loss, despair, and stress. Even so, all of this is important to our spiritual formation because we mature as Christians,
Community is built of two main elements. First, community requires communal caring. Members need to put themselves in positions where they are able to relate to other members and does everything “within reasonable limits of self-sacrifice” (65). The second is communal reciprocity. Individuals will serve other members of the community, not for exchange of goods, but to provide generosity and support. These elements of community appear in the lives of all individuals, even the most capitalist ones. Humans are entirely capable of these.
No one chooses to cross the border unless there are absolutely no other options. Many Mexicans choose to either downplay the event or not talk about it at all. The act of crossing the border is laden with powerful symbolism – to Americans, it represents a larger willingness of Mexicans to violate the law. However, if people knew the true story, of the risks, and what it takes to cross the border, then they would have a different perspective. For most people, when you cross the border, you have to pay thousands of dollars to the “coyote,” people who specialize in human trafficking and importing immigrants across the U.S.-Mexican border. If you are traveling with a child, there is a high chance that you will not be able to cross with them. Although
I believe that one of the ultimate questions that all members of the human species asks is ‘How can I find happiness?’ and reflected in this question is a desire to find a happy, fulfilling, quality life. Many people try to find such happiness through their careers, material possessions, and all manner of other pursuits. What a large portion of these people do not realize is that happiness and the elements necessary to achieve a quality life may not come from place, position, or possession but from attitude. In both Gilgamesh by Stephen Mitchell and Sunny Chernobyl by Andrew Blackwell, the reader can see these ideas explored in great detail.
In his Article, Jonathan Adler, who is the Memorial Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Business Law & Regulation, Case Western Reserve University School of Law notes that as of 1970, Marijuana is listed as Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), by act of Congress (506). However despite that, Dina Titus, a member of United States House of Representatives, mentions in her policy essay that back in 1996 California voters passed Proposition 215 making them the first to legalize the medical use of marijuana and then two years later, the voters of Washington and the Oregon legislature followed by passing both the Initiative 6924 and the Medical Marijuana Act which legalized the medical use of marijuana in both states (40).
Happiness is an essential goal for most people. From books and expensive classes that teach people how to achieve happiness to the fundamental right of “the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence, the importance of happiness is evident in society. This causes the rise to two fundamental questions: “How does one attain happiness?” and “,How does happiness create a meaningful life?” Both happiness and living a meaningful life are achieved simultaneously. The search for happiness and the factors that make it brings meaning to life. Happiness can stem from several factors such as wisdom and knowledge, savoring life and its experiences, and even suffering and pain. Analyzing these factors brings meaning to one’s life.
As human beings we are naturally wired to seek happiness wherever we can find it. When we don’t, we may enter a stage of anger, anxiety, or distress. That’s why it is our personal goal to look for happiness and preserve it once we acquire it. Many have explored ways to find what triggers this feeling of “happiness” and what we can do to keep it; nonetheless, the evidence found is hardly sufficient to make a public statement on how to find happiness. For this reason, most of the time we speculate what might provoke this feeling of contentment. “Happiness is a glass half empty,” an essay written by Oliver Burkeman, highlights the importance of happiness and discloses how we can find delight through unorthodox methods. The prime objective of this piece of writing is to inform the audience about the effect of happiness on their lives and how their usual attempts of becoming happier can sabotage achieving this feeling. Furthermore, he wants to promote the benefits of pessimism and describe how it can help us in the long run. The author utilizes pronouns, logos, and pathos in order to prove his point and draw the audience into his essay, in an attempt of making them reconsider the way they live their lives and adopt this new pessimistic way that would greatly boost their level of happiness.
Have you ever had a time in your life that changed you completely? Well, I have, and I’m going to give you some information on how my daily life had changed and how it completely changed my life. And that thing that had changed me the most in my life would have to be dance.