During this project, we were tasked with studying the emotion that is happiness in order to find its "truth" and create a philosophy of our own that may guide us into the future in a world that is so easily weighed down by trivial problems and/ or difficulties. In pursuit of said truth we studied all aspects of happiness, from the chemical reactions that occur in the brain, such as the releasing of dopamine into neural receptors, to the words of well known philosophers from all aspects of time (to name a few: Aristotle, Buddha, Lao Tzu Tao, and Sonja Lyubomirsky) as they looked at the purely metaphysical and easily observable side of happiness and created there own observations, much as I was tasked to do during this project. My final observations resulted in the small insight into what I believe happiness ought to be defined as, which can be see below.
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There is something to be said about the nature of happiness. It is the feeling of joy that you experience at the thought of going somewhere new. It represents the feeling of laughing with your friends and the moment when the beauty of the world takes your breath away. Negative emotions have so many names: anger, sadness, envy, greed. Meanwhile, positive emotions have only one name that all others stem from this being happiness. The definition of happiness is, as stated by Meriam Webster Dictionary, "a feeling or state of well-being or contentment." Yet to attempt to define happiness in purely hedonic terms seems to miss something. It misses the romance, the discovery, the excitement, and the laughter. The long days spent with friends and time spent making things with your hands. With this in mind, we need to reimagine the definition of happiness. 'Happiness, noun- The feeling that purveys the fact that life is worth living.' If this is the definition of happiness, then we can use it as a guiding hand in bleak times. When the emotion of happiness means the fact that life is worth living, we can understand that those things which make you happy, your friends, your family, or even just a beautiful view are worth seeking out. You have a choice as to how you perceive the world. If you believe that that the world is against you, it will be, but if you choose to find happiness wherever you go, the world will be a much more beautiful and forgiving place because of it. Two people can look at the same thing and see something different, whether you look out and see the dark, or the light is entirely up to you. In my ideal life, I would live in a small town up north with a view of the ocean. I would have a job that challenged me, allowed me to help people, and gave me the freedom to travel. I would be free to do as I wished, but I recognize that no matter where I end up, I have the choice to be either happy or miserable, and I know which one I want to choose.
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There is something to be said about the nature of happiness. It is the feeling of joy that you experience at the thought of going somewhere new. It represents the feeling of laughing with your friends and the moment when the beauty of the world takes your breath away. Negative emotions have so many names: anger, sadness, envy, greed. Meanwhile, positive emotions have only one name that all others stem from this being happiness. The definition of happiness is, as stated by Meriam Webster Dictionary, "a feeling or state of well-being or contentment." Yet to attempt to define happiness in purely hedonic terms seems to miss something. It misses the romance, the discovery, the excitement, and the laughter. The long days spent with friends and time spent making things with your hands. With this in mind, we need to reimagine the definition of happiness. 'Happiness, noun- The feeling that purveys the fact that life is worth living.' If this is the definition of happiness, then we can use it as a guiding hand in bleak times. When the emotion of happiness means the fact that life is worth living, we can understand that those things which make you happy, your friends, your family, or even just a beautiful view are worth seeking out. You have a choice as to how you perceive the world. If you believe that that the world is against you, it will be, but if you choose to find happiness wherever you go, the world will be a much more beautiful and forgiving place because of it. Two people can look at the same thing and see something different, whether you look out and see the dark, or the light is entirely up to you. In my ideal life, I would live in a small town up north with a view of the ocean. I would have a job that challenged me, allowed me to help people, and gave me the freedom to travel. I would be free to do as I wished, but I recognize that no matter where I end up, I have the choice to be either happy or miserable, and I know which one I want to choose.
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