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Week 12 [18.06-24.06.18] What is happiness?

What is happiness? According to Wikipedia - is a mental or emotional state of well-being which can be defined by, among others, positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy but how do you get it that state?
A question everybody asks at least once in life. Mass media loves to show “American dream” life of celebrities and luxury life of newly baked milliners trying to persuade us that is how you can reach happiness. American dream means different things for different people but it is always means “being wealthy” and work hard towards your dream.
Here is a small info picture of how the American dream has changed throughout generations:

http://www.generations.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/american-dream-infographic.jpg
On the other hand there is a lot of reach people telling that you can’t buy happiness with money. In addition, what about those who don’t recognize tangible goods due to different reasons like monks in monastery, altruists or just people who don’t need any more unnecessary, as they call it “junk” like a bigger TV-set or a faster car.
Well, all of them might be happy disregard of what they do in life. Happiness is not the final destination like 1mil/year income or a huge house. The first step towards being happy is to see your life as a journey and happiness as a part of it rather than some mark on income or career you have to reach in order to be happy.
You can be happy by doing anything in life starting from building a career you dreamed of or leaving abandoning civilization in the middle of nowhere. ?? Everybody is different and humans during all the history of humankind have not had more choice and opportunities to do what you want.
The point is find activity in life that would make your Monday morning filled with joy of a new day and not cursing your life choice of work and pray for coffee to make your day a little bit less miserable. Advice is to try as many activities as you possibly can while you are young to find you what you are passion about. It might be some small hobby as gluing together match houses or playing some board game like “dungeons and dragons” in the evening with you friends or on the contrary during some voluntary work you realize that work in an office is not for you and joining an African aid mission is much more fulfilling for you than an air-conditioned office.

Questions:

  1. Do you believe in the American dream?
  2. How often do you try new activities and what was the last one you tried?
  3. What makes your life satisfying?


Sources:
  • http://www.generations.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/american-dream-infographic.jpg
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happiness


Comments

Lukasz Mroczek said…
I don't believe in the American dream. I'm always aware that things we don't have or activities we don't do always tends to be something that will make us happy but it's only some kind of illusion. You simply have to find out what happines is for you and create happines prescription. I don't try new activities very often, but I do it whenever I have opportunity to. The last one I've tried was dancing rumba disco with my girlfriend. Generally my life is satisfying because of people around me and some achievements I've done.
Unknown said…
As it was mentioned in the article American dream is an abstract concept that has no direct definition of success thus it's definition constantly changes as time goes. Not only that but everybody can interpret this concept differently. For someone American dream is a pocket full of cash, for someone, it is mental and physical health and well-being, for other people it might be an opportunity to travel across the globe.
I don't know because I don't keep track of what activities I do, but one I can say for sure that sometimes it's better to stick only with an activity that you are really good at.
I guess positive results of my actions.
Unknown said…
1. Probably the American dream exists, but not for me.
2. The last thing I did was ignore my fear of speaking to the public. Getting rid of fear gives freedom, I will feel freer if I stop being afraid that I will say something that is incomprehensible or wrong, and if I gain freedom I will be happy.
3. Inner harmony. I already experienced that age when I thought that a cool car is the limit of dreams, of course, I still want a Ferrari, but this is not the limit of dreams, it's a beautiful car, which if I do not have I will not be upset. I'm more interested in harmony in action, for this I want work for pleasure and knowledge as a tool to work.
Unknown said…
Why don't you like to try new activities? This why you might miss really great things due to moment of inconvenient.
Unknown said…
What helped you overcome you fear? Any technique you can share with us?
Illia Lukisha said…
Do you believe in the American dream?
Rather no, then yes.

How often do you try new activities and what was the last one you tried?
The last time I tried something new was trampolines hangar, and liked it.

What makes your life satisfying?
For me it's traveling and communion, because the purpose of life for me not 'to change the world', but make someones life better, even just you saying 'have a nice day!'.
American dream becomes less and less obtainable with a globalization and competition all around the world. You cannot escape mega giants like Google or Microsoft anywhere on the globe, and it is pretty much imposible to compete against them to become milionaire on invention or something like that. But working hard towards your dream is much more reliable method for achieving the goal one put for oneself. I try to do something new every now and then, like moving to study in another country, doing something that is considered taboo etc. I think you can become happy if your expectations of something meet reality.
Unknown said…
I don’t believe in american dream. I think they show us only one side of humans life- the good, and happy one. I don’t believe that being wealthy makes people happy, and it is a main goal in humans life. However I believe that you have to work towards your dream, and nothing comes from nothing. You will not achieve anything if you do not put some effort to make it.

I often try new activities. The biggest pleasure is learning new languages, and I always think which language I will learn next. The last new activities I tried was doing some paintings and drawing. Also I started doing photos with an analog camera.

I must admit that life itself is satisfying for me. Looking at nature, experiencing it, feeling like being a free man, loving my homeland and all whole world. Just observing the world and feeling it makes my life satisfying.
Kristina Moroz said…
On the one hand, money can give you and your family what you want. But on the other hand, when you refuse everything what makes your life happier and complete for money it's pity. In my opinion, it should be balance and healthy relationships between people to be happy and some kind rich. You need to do what you love.
So I've tried to draw again and it was amazing.
Unknown said…
Do you believe in the American dream?
Yes, absolutely but in almost every case of success or big fortune there is always a second bottom and sometimes it's really bad.
How often do you try new activities and what was the last one you tried?
As often as I can, last new think was wakeboard and I love it!
What makes your life satisfying?
I feel satisfied when people are able to rely on me and when I know that my opinion mean something to them.
I agree with the statement "Success isn't given. It's earned". I don't know whether it means that I believe in American dream or not. The idea of working as hard as possible seems reasonable for me because you can only work hard when you love what you do, when your work or hobby makes you happy and bring you joy. For most of people good work or work of their dream is the one that brings them more money but mostly it's not. Most such people wake up early in the morning and go to their routine work that doesn't satisfy or suite them just because at the end of the month they will get 10% more salary than they would get on the job that could possibly develop them as a person or opened new boundaries.

Not so often but now I mostly try to renew the ones that I loved some time ago. I am going to start playing basketball that I had been playing by the age of 15.

That's really hard question. I think that getting to know something new or some extreme makes my life full of emotions and satisfying as well.
Unknown said…
3)Lack of PJATK in my life
2)Well, I like to try new activities and I really try to try more, but usually I have either no time ormoney
1)Well, I think there is something good in american dream. Like i would like to have good house and a good flat, good family and job that can satisfy me)
Patryk Górski said…
Do you believe in the American dream?

Well, it's hard to listen to someone, who achieved a lot and tells you "come on, it's easy". It may not be easy for you, so you have to think about their approach, is it worth it.

How often do you try new activities and what was the last one you tried?

I've started to learning new programming language almost one year ago, and now I have job in it - it's a great feeling.

What makes your life satisfying?

Achieving my goals
Thank you for the article. I do not believe in the American dream. In the USA, lives several billion people, they all cannot be rich and successful. But perhaps mass media trying to show us that in America it is not necessary to try hard to live successfully. With a well-developed country, even a homeless person has some sort of confidence in the future. I also think that you can not be happy all the time. In this case, we will not be able to realize that we are happy. In life, there are ups and downs. Sometimes for a sense of happiness, you need some kind of trifle, an insignificant detail. And the main thing is to find it.
Unknown said…
For me happiness consists of many factors, so I am satisfied when my beloved ones are happy and healthy, when the weather is fine, when I live an active interesting life, when I do what I love and the ones I care of are close to me. I always like to learn something knew. This year I was on a sailing weekend with my friends and it was a new experience, I was so excited, I was jumping with happiness. But too be satisfied you always have to move forward and do something for it, in my opinion.
Cecylia said…
I think happiness is a state of mind which we can get by changing the way of our thoughts. If we accept everything in our live, accept things, we cannot change and be okay with it. When we just enjoy every moment in our live, without thought „it could be better” and enjoy it as it is, we have the state of pure happiness. It is not so easy
for most people. People want more and more and more. The problem is that we just have to be happy with things we have. For example what is better, thought „I bought new TV oh my god I am so happy” or “I bought new tv but I am unhappy because if I earned more, I could buy much better TV”. By thinking this way we just going further away from happiness. Why would we do like that? I does not make any sense. Trying new activities is also very good idea. Recently I’ve started jogging. Very simple activity but it can make really good things in your brain. It causes throwing hormones such as dopamine which chemically makes you feel better. You can even get addicted to jogging because of that, which mean that you get happiness from doing something, what is good for your body. Doesn’t it sound awesome? It does not have to be jogging but I can be any form of physical activities. I started to be happy when I realised that I have to be satisfied from every single thing and look for every single good thing in a bad things. That makes my life satisfying.

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