The Pursuit of Happiness

The Pursuit of Happiness

Andrew Roberts

PSY/220

June 9, 2013

The Pursuit of Happiness

The Pursuit of Happiness for one person is different for that of another person. The same goes for those of different cultures. It could be the traditions in how they are brought up as children and what they are taught to believe at an early age. In America we are continually told about the American Dream which is the portrait of the perfect family in a Norman Rockwell painting, the perfect job, the house with the white picket fence and no problems where everybody looks happy and acts as if they are happy; this would be a stereotype of what happiness looks like. Is this true happiness? Not really for very few of us ever achieve all of these...show more content... Happiness is based on what is going on around the culture as a whole and not the individual. Asian cultures and traditions do not look at happiness as a major experience in the realm of life experiences. They regard happiness and all emotions as temporary states of the mind and continue on with their day as if nothing happened. Asian cultures are more apt to view well being by how they are seen as a family or country by those around them in their community which is very critical for the Asian cultures. Whereas Americans are more individualistic in this sense for we are always looking to be better than the next person. A good example of the difference between Asian cultures and America would be the Olympic Games. Children from most other countries than the USA are literally taken from homes at early ages and it is their job to bring home thegold medal for their country. It is put in their heads at an early age that this is their meaning in life and that if they don't succeed that they will be bringing failure not only to themselves but to their family and country if they don't succeed. This is why when America took the gold in women's gymnastics this past summer, and China took the silver that the Chinese women looked so down like it was the end of the world. Where as in the diving competition when the Chinese women would win Gold they looked like it was expected. With the American diver there was so

Zakaria El Amrani El Idrissi THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer thinks that real happiness does not exist. In his view, the best a person can achieve is to reduce misery. Through his book The wisdom of life, he explains that for true happiness we need the complete absence of all pain and the complete satisfaction of all desires. For Schopenhauer, a bearable life consists of having very low expectations. Following this logic, to live a less miserable life we can only allow our desires and goals grow in a low steady rate, because the more we expect from life the more chances to be disappointed and thus to be unhappy. In other words, we feel melancholy if our desires are blocked and boredom if they are satisfied. We are condemned to swing between pain and boredom. Through the character of Lester, the film American Beauty argues thathappiness is attainable; I would argue that it is an illusion. (add details from the movie).

In the film American Beauty Carolyn Burnham, the wife of Lester, is obsessed with materialism and others' opinions. She is trapped by the ideology of the American Dream. According to Schopenhauer property is not significant at all. He does not believe that wealth is important for happiness and states that satisfaction with one's salary is strongly related to subjective factors. A person might be satisfied with a small income whereas another would not be satisfied with twice the amount. If more wealth does not

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Success is extremely coveted in the society, however on the path to success, obstacles will stand in the way. Failure is inevitable and the response of an individual towards these obstacles and the failures in their lives determines whether or not they will have success. Failure gives allowance to learn from mistakes and motivates to do better the next time. The Pursuit of Happyness uses lighting, music and camera angles to give viewers an insight into Chris' journey through the film demonstrating his resiliency, optimism and loving personality. Filmmaker, Gabriele Muccino, uses the protagonist, Chris' final triumph to illustrate the significance of failure in achieving success. Resiliency can be best described as the ability to recover...show more content...

The mood of the film during these times were always sad and seemingly hopeless; the sound was always slow and solemn to represent all the various circumstances that he faced. Though things were challenging for him at night, he put on a brave face during the day and he did not allow those circumstances to weigh him down. With all the problems, he was facing during the night he was able to overcome it the next day. These actions were only possible with his optimistic spirit. With everything Chris and his son went through it would seem almost impossible to be optimistic in that situation. Optimism was a crucial factor in his successes. It brought him to a place where life was better, allowing him to overcome dire circumstances despite the doubts of others. When his wife left him, it seemed it would be impossible to survive with the internship that gave no salary. It seemed like their life would take a turn for the worse. However, the optimism and belief that Chris had in his abilities led to him finally being able to defeat the negative outlook of others on his choices. His positive outlook on his situation gave him the strength to beat the odds against him. His chances to get into the internship seemed very little, but he had hopes to make it in. The day of his interview, he did not have time to dress appropriately, but he took his bad situation and turn it into a positive

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Is the pursuit of happiness the most important goal in life or is it just selfish?

I once was told that the average person thinks about happiness at least twice a day. It's only 9pm and I can already tell you that I've been happy and unhappy many times today. If I asked a group of people what they wanted most out of their lives for themselves or their family, whether for tomorrow or the rest of your life, most people would say happiness. Some might say money, but only because they think money will make them happy. Yes, money can buy things that will provide you with brief happiness, but for true happiness, I believe, you have to be focused on it for the majority of your life. Aristotle once said, "Human happiness is so important it...show more content...

Sometimes people have a degree and end up working in a lower level position because even though the money is less, they are happy with the job at hand and I think that money gets in the way with a lot of happiness for some people. Pursuit of happiness is just setting yourself up for failure. You cannot be happy every single day of your life because it is inedible that bad things happen. Yes, bad things happen and people can handle them different but in all reality deep down inside everybody gets hurt even when they do not like to admit it. I also think that if you just try to pursue happiness all the time you may think too much about being happy. When you think too much about being happy you end up missing out on the things that would make you happy because your thinking about your every move instead of just going day by day. Some use the excuse: "providing as well as we could for our families". This, however, is nothing more than showing a reluctance to change our state of affairs onto our families. Instead of determining the real reason we don't chase our dreams, possibly fear or lack of self–confidence, it is easier to use a socially satisfactory justification such as "family". Using ones family as the basis for staying in a job which makes one unhappy is effectively saying that one's family is the reason for one's unhappiness. "I hate working for this company but I continue with it because of my family."

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