...The Question of Happiness The Question of Happiness is a text written by a former Harvard university teacher and writer on positive psychology and leadership Tal Ben-Shahar. The text is an excerpt from his book Happier, and the subject in the text is happiness. Ben-Shahar discusses and reflects the meaning of happiness. He got the understanding that happiness comes from achieving goals, but finds out later that happiness does not necessarily follow success, but that you can enjoy overall happiness, even though you feel sadness sometimes and have bad days. He comes with an example in the text on how achieving a goal in his life did not make him happy. When he was young , he also thought that he would become happier and that the emptiness in his life would change when he won, but after years of hard work and training, he won the championship, but the joy did not last longer than a couple of hours. He comes to the conclusion that “We can experience sadness at times and still enjoy overall happiness. Outline on happy and unhappy people In the first text, Ben-Shahar does not have a clear picture on how to become happy, but instead he reflects and discusses his own understanding of happiness. He comes to the conclusion that achieving a goal will not result in an individual’s infinite happiness. In the second text, “Happiness”, written by Michael Crichton, the narrator has a more clear definition of happiness. He believes that self-centeredness makes people unhappy, by which...
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...Section A – Focus on Happiness 1) In the article, ‘The Question of Happiness”, the writer Tal Ben-Shahar writes about his first experiences with happiness. It all starts when he wins the Israeli national squash championship at sixteen years old. He has been practicing for years and believes that winning the title will make him happy and fulfil the emptiness he feels inside. Ben-Shahar wins the championship and feels happier that he ever thought was possible. But it only lasts for so long. Shortly after winning the championship the emptiness comes back and that makes him question what happiness is really about. He realizes that he has to rethink his perception of happiness and what makes us happy. He becomes obsessed, starts pursuing the true meaning of it and starts studying philosophers like Aristotle and Confucius. He discovers that emotions are fleeting, and while they are enjoyable and significant, he does not believe that they are the measure of happiness. 2) Everybody has different perceptions of what happiness is. Some believe that it is buying a new car while others think that helping other people is the key. In the three texts we get three different opinions on the matter. The first text is ‘The Question of Happiness’ by Tal Ben-Shahar. He has published a book called ‘Happier’, which is where the text is from and has been a teacher at Harvard University. Ben-Shahar has been wondering about happiness since he was sixteen years old. It all started when winning...
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...describes happiness as a fulfilment of a person who is unhappy. The text is about a person who was sixteen year old when he won the Israeli national squash championship. At that time, he felt that winning the championship is necessary for fulfilment and fulfilment was necessary for happiness. When he was going to sleep, he especially felt the happiness. Later he began to lose his happiness since all worked perfectly. He would not become happy if he wins the next championship. Therefore, he began to seek answers of how to find happiness. He wanted a life where he could be both successful and happy. He read topics from Aristotle to Confucius. In the end, he did not know exactly what happiness was so he tried to figure it out. He did not know about was it an emotion, pleasure, absence of pain or bliss he asked himself. 2. Give an outline of what makes people happy and what does not, a expresses in the three texts. The Question of Happiness I think that this text wants to point out that that you cannot achieve happiness if you want to do it the same way as you did before. By winning, the same championship repeatedly does not bring happiness to a person. A person should try to win another championship or try to win something completely different. For instance if the coming days is different from the past few days then the concerned person would become happier than if all his days are the same. Therefore, if a person wants happiness then have seek it. Happiness While the...
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...Modern technology has increased material wealth, but not happiness We live in the age of technology. We commute by automobiles and airplanes and communicate by emails and mobiles. The media and the Internet provide us the latest information from all over the world. Movies filled with hi-tech special effects entertain us. Air conditioners and room heaters keep our life comfortable despite climatic inconveniences. Technology has changed almost every of our lives. Of course, technology may have concerns about the pollution and environmental problems. But overall most people feel that technology has benefited us immensely. Therefore let us go deeper to analyze that modern technology has increase material wealth, but not happiness on our society: Firstly, modern technology makes people's life boring, after working time people often sitting by their computer to play games or reading some information on internet. That means they do not refresh their mind and by accident they turn their own into slave of modern technology. It can make life better but it can cause you disease or stressed also. Second, modern technology has improved communication technology between cultures. With modern communication technology such as TVs, phones and computer, internet, you can see what people at the other end of the world is doing, but it can cause us some problem when speak through the phone a lot you will feel not better or headache cause by radioactive and your eye also have problem if you watch...
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...O’Riyan L. 4th period April 13, 2016 Limitations to Happiness Fahrenheit 451 does society have true happiness? Society goes through different experiences to achieve happiness. Montag starts to question different aspects of life by what is deemed as unusual. Ray Bradbury shows that happiness is trying to be achieved through the banning and burning of books. The concept of technology and conformity shows how happiness can or cannot be achieved. Bradbury uses figurative language and symbolism to express the theme of technology. In the “Hearth of the Salamander” Montag expresses that there were “two machines really. One of them slid down into her stomach like a black cobra, an echoing well looking for all the old water and old time gathered there”...
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...are increasingly and unknowingly crossing over to the digital world. The advent of new technologies and our increasing dependency on current ones have given us a plethora of benefits, such that we derive “digital happiness” from it. The article will focus on how digital happiness is equally paramount to our “in real life happiness” and how we are constantly pursuing it, up to even the future, where new technological ideas and innovations have no limits. We obtain digital happiness more intensely than in the past, as technology empowered us to identify relationships, maintain current ones, and connect us to one another through applications or websites. Technology has enabled mankind to constantly improve and innovate and with the ubiquitous internet, digital happiness has now become a click away through the satisfaction and convenience we get. However, there are always two sides to a coin too, as technology can be seen as a double-edged sword. Due to human’s incapability in certain situations to make sensible decisions, us being too caught up in the digital realm has led to detrimental effects on the society at large. Digital happiness does satisfy us personally, but has inadvertently caused the downfall of people who are unable to exercise self-control. It is intrinsic nature for humans to never stop the process of innovation and developing better technology. The future of technology revolves around the idea of simplicity and usefulness, ultimately giving users more delight...
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...A 1. Summary of text 1 In text 1, "The Question of Happiness", the author Tal Ben-Shahar tries to find out what happiness is, and how to achieve it. When he was sixteen he won the Israeli national squash championship, and until that day, he thought that winning the championship would be followed by happiness. It did, but the feeling soon disappeared again, when the day was over. The months after he was feeling more and more miserable. He knew that winning another championship would not lead to lasting happiness. So Ben-Shahar began to research what made people happy. In his research, he realized, that before he could get meaningful answers from this, he needed to find out what happiness is. His result was, that people use words to describe their happiness, but none of them describe what he sees as happiness. An emotion like this is immeasurable even how great it feels. You can experience sadness and still enjoy happiness. 2. What makes people happy and what does not? As said in text 1 you'll have to figure out what happiness is to you, before you'll know how to be happy. Success will make you happy for a while. It can be success in a relationship, sport, career, etc. Also material thing can make you happy, but this is not long lasting. Money and things might give a temporary boost of happiness, but then you quickly become bored and long for the next thing. Forgetting about yourself and your fears, problems, looks, and focus on other people, will make you feel...
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...legacy that survived in today’s Western civilization. In some ways Western Civilization has benefited from the world through technology, increasing the middle class, and developing moral value by helping the less fortunate. It is important to measure the past by examining the education system, and the financial progress of the less fortunate. Financial stability is important in Western cultures today for happiness but money is not the only stimulus for happiness. Happiness can only be measure by an individual’s prospective and not by the judgment of other. Western culture has made some net achements, and it is important to measure these benefits to determine if Western culture is happier or not. Western culture’s progress has been a net benefit to the world by developing modern technology, increasing the middle class and developing moral values. There have been advancements in technology through radio frequency, internet, and wide area networking through the telephone system. Although western culture has been able to develop these technologies, it has replaced social bonds which have caused a reduction in community social actives. The development of technology has increased the middle class population by providing profitable job for families’ financial stabilization. Some people believe that technology eliminates jobs for the working class and technology is not for people that cannot afford higher education. Researches prove that by increasing the middle class there are less...
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...outside our mind, trying to make us believe that we are in need of all these qualities and then, finally, can feel an emotion such as happiness. In “The Question of Happiness” Tal Ben-Shahar, teacher and writer on positive psychology, describes from own interest and experience how believing in “reaching happiness as a goal” brought him further away from mentioned. Winning, which for Ben-Shahar was the ultimate access to everlasting happiness turned out to make him more desolate than he had ever been before. The emotional pivot was a result of a manipulated way of thinking from outside factors, but having this in knowledge he now search for an inner happiness. A happiness which, furthermore, cannot be found without having its contrast; sadness for instance. Outline From his own experience Tal Ben-Shahar, in text one “The Question of Happiness”, claims that happiness cannot be measured since it is a feeling. Therefor happiness will be experienced throughout different degrees and situations. Moreover Ben-Shahar points out that there is not a perfect recipe to happiness, but that contrast among feelings and having something to reach, to motivate yourself into, are some answers that will bring you closer to the phenomenon of happiness. In text two, “Happiness” filmmaker Michael Chrichton takes us one step closer to the answer; what is happiness? According to Chrichton the feeling occurs when we are not paying attention to it. It will occur while thinking of something that have...
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...text is about the man Tal Ben-Shahar who talks about happiness. How that he for five years had trained so hard to play in the Israeli Nationals squash championship, and won. Although it gave him immediately satisfaction and he were happy, then after a while, the happiness slowly fainted away. He questioned why only hours after his big win, why he is not happy anymore. He tries to convince himself that the feeling he has is only, the temporary low following an overwhelming high. As the mouth goes by, he finds that it is not. He then realize that he has to think different on happiness. He then surges obsessed after the answer to the question: where to find lasting happiness. His conclusion is “We can experience sadness at times and still enjoy overall happiness” Text 2 outline: You cannot buy happiness; you can buy the latest smartphone, the newest car etc. However, that happy feeling, that wound last. Michael Crichton says “If you want to be happy, forget yourself” he claims that people that lives for others and dedicated their lives to the more unfortunate is often very happy. You have to get busy in life in order to live it, you have to forget your own self-importance, and help others, before you can help yourself. The key to happiness is not materiel things. If we look at the first surveys of happiness, they started in 1946, and then we can see that people actually become more and unhappy, in the progress of the technology. Japan’s economy were completely transformed, as the...
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...English assignment A The texts in section A focus on happiness 1. Write a summary of text 1 “The Question of Happiness” in about 150 words. Tal Ben-Shahar was 16 year old when he won his first Israeli National Squash Championship. He though by winning the title he could fill the emptiness there is over him. Even though he has his training he felt that something was missing, he didn’t had all the normal things others have. He believed in the sentence he made himself “Winning the championship was necessary for fulfilment. Fulfilment was necessary for happiness.” And that was the logic he operated after. He went out for celebration with friends and family and when he went back to his bed he somehow felt alone and unhappy so he decided to turn his life around and starts a new one. He therefore becomes obsesses and reaches out for answers from books, philosophy to modern psychology help. He didn’t found what he was looking for, but found something else. He asked himself the question; “how can a person be both successful and happy?” 2. Give an outline of what makes people happy and what does not, as expressed in the three texts. When he asked himself the question about both successfulness and happiness in one category or how they can be related to each other, he actually ask how you can define the words. We’re often told that happiness is what is on our minds, despite on the experience of our lives. But happiness isn’t an illusion, because we all felt it more or less...
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...All the technology surrounding this future society is supposed to bring happiness; the three-wall TV, seashell radios, speedy cars, robotic dogs, snake-like medical tools, and even sleeping pills. However, with all this stimulating "connection", people are not actually interacting with each other and are becoming ignorant, allowing government officials to discriminate between what they can and cannot read or do. Society is fooled by all this fancy technology and believe that is really what happiness is. However, as Montag finds out, the technology is taking away happiness by separating people from nature and each other. Fahrenheit 451 illustrates how real happiness cannot be achieved through technology and material...
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...Happiness Summary of the text “The Question of Happiness” The text is about this sixteen years old boy, which won the Israeli national squash championship. He thought that the championship he had trained for, for five years would make him happy, and fill that emptiness he always had. It did right after he won the championship it really alleviate the emptiness. He was ecstatic and happier than he had ever could imagine him self be, but after they had celebrated the victory, and he came home to sleep at night, it came crawling back. The emptiness. His happiness didn’t come from squash anymore, so he tried to find out what happiness really means. He used a lot of time to search what the word happiness really meant, books, internet and philosophically. Nowhere could he find what his emotions was telling him and fleeting too, but he experience one thing, and that was sometimes you can have a really hard and bad day, and you can still enjoy overall happiness in the end. Outline of what makes people happy and what does not In text two Michael Chrichton writes that happiness isn’t something you can buy or get. Some people even say happiness is an illusion, but we do know it isn’t. Everybody have experienced happiness, maybe only in minutes, for some it is days and a few people are happy 24/7. Happiness is the thing that matters for you, that could be friends, family, the one girl or a pet, even the small things, like a letter or you see you friend is happy. The rest is commercial...
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...Memorial of Rootedness “What is happening here- with these driven from their homeland no less than those who have remained?”[1] Martin Heidegger believed that man’s rootedness, or autochthony, is being threatened and lost to today’s technology and thoughtfulness. I believe that Heidegger would have been appalled by the white man’s actions towards the Ibo people in the Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. Heidegger would have probably told the white men to let them be in their own rootedness. He may have not stood by all their views and traditions, but no man’s traditions should be neither superior nor inferior to another’s. As one of the characters in Achebe’s novel says, “What is good in one place is bad in another.”[2] The quote suggests that the Ibo people’s view was that of ethical relativism. This suggests that they know other cultures may view their beliefs as bad or unmoral, and they accepted this. This also suggest that the Ibo people accepted the cultural relativist view that good and bad differ from one cultural groups to another. Ethical relativism is the doctrine that there are no absolute truths in ethics and that what is morally right or wrong varies from person to person or from society to society. Ethical relativism means that there are no set ways of life. Every person has their own set of beliefs that differ from another person, even within the same society. I believe to fully believe in ethical relativism that there would have to be no judgment placed on...
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...the less pain), the better. Ethical Egoism: Consequences are to be judged according to the amount of benefit they afford to the actor. The more beneficial, the better. Each person's sole obligation is to do what will be best for herself. Consequentialist theories generally have three parts: 1)Theory of the right: an act is right iff it maximizes good. 2)Theory of what's good: Pleasure, happiness, excellence of character, wealth, power... 3) Whose good matters? Everyones (universalist). Only the actors [only mine] (egoist). Utilitarianism: (Mill) Consequentialist theory of right: actions are right if they produce the best consequences. Theory of the Good: What makes consequences good is that they include more happiness and less misery. Egalitarian Distribution: Every creature capable of experiencing happiness and misery counts equally. ' Act Utilitarianism: Acts are right iff they produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Rule Utilitarianism: Acts are right iff they are consistent with rules which, if followed by everyone, would produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Deontological Theories: (Kant) Duty-centered theories, which hold that a person's 'duty' is assigned by moral rules and principles of reason. Some deontological theories (Kant) imply that the consequences of our choices are irrelevant from the moral point of view, and that all that matters is conformity of conduct to moral principles. Kant’s Categorical Imperative: ...
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