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An ESSAY about HAPPINESS
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Is there a relationship between death, wisdom, and happiness and the well-lived life; and what is the structure? I struggled to form an answer to this question, because I’m not sure if my real feelings on the subject are conducive to the assignment. As I feel like you’re looking for some profound and deep explanative that correlate back to the teachings of this class. I know for a fact that I don’t need 750 words to answer, and adding summaries of material that don’t affect my position is very frustrating. However, this class is part of a journey that sits under an umbrella of life lessons I have to digest in order to meet my goals, strengthen my meaning and allow me to get closer to the purpose of my life. In order to get to happiness, …show more content…
The essay is somewhat of a short autobiography of Frankl’s life, accomplishments, and the affects the holocaust had on him. However, the biggest part of this essay is Frankl’s position on pursuing happiness. To paraphrase he states the pursuit of happiness is pointless and to do so prevents one from accomplishing the very thing they’re in pursuit of. He expressed that obtaining happiness has more to do with having a meaningful life than the immediate happiness or enjoyment one can have from obtaining materialistic items, money, and fame. Frankl further states “happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue”. Translation, happiness happens or occurs afterward as a result of an action. This passage further supports my position on the relationship between death, wisdom, and happiness as it illustrates the need to get from start to the end in order to manifest meaning thus obtaining …show more content…
As you get older, and start to learn from past experiences, lessons from heart break, success and failures, you gain wisdom and really start to evolve as a human being. From birth happiness is based on needs being met and in very small measure. As you grow older and live life, your happiness is based on a much deeper need to understand and fulfill the desires of your purpose and meaning of life. There are people whose happiness is not dependent upon purpose and meaning, do not believe that there 's a correlation between death, wisdom, and happiness. Thankfully, I was raised to look beyond myself for happiness by being a loving and caring individual. Take heed to the lessons of my own actions and remain open-minded to other people’s point of views and insight as there’s always something to learn. Remember that each day is not promised and in the blink of an eye I could be gone from this earth ending my life. For me, the relationship between death, wisdom, and happiness is an intricate part of ever having a well-lived life. “The uniqueness and singleness which distinguishes each individual and gives a meaning to his existence has a bearing on
Viktor Frankl’s life in the concentration camp was full of misery. He had to work long hours, sometimes with no help. He describes one such event, when he had to build a tunnel under a road to allow for a water pipe. He worked like a slave until he was told to stop. As he wrote further, he shared his knowledge in psychiatry. In once instance, he wrote, “The condemned man, immediately before his execution, gets the illusion that he might be reprieved at the very last minute” (Frankl P.6). He experience this very scenario in the death camps as he saw countless being murdered everyday. He says that everyone thought that things
Welcome to the brave New world where most decisions no longer affect your course of the future. Happiness, something we all search for in our unpredictable lives, for some, happiness comes much faster and easier, but for many others, the notion of knowing that happiness is just too far away from them ultimately causes the decision to make the only permanent escape and that is to end their life just like poor Johnny boy. Quote “Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery. (Aldous Huxley “Brave New World”) This is quite an interesting quote made in the book as it hints to suggest that happiness and contentment are actually quite dull. In fact, the struggle to achieve such, is much more interesting, livelier, more exciting. Their opposites like unfortunate events, disappointment and temptation are what make life passionate and spectacular.
All things considered, we realize that we have to live for the moment and hope for the best in the future. Life is full of bittersweet moments and it can be as simple as birth to death, and what I mean by that is, when people die we remember all the good the person has done throughout his life. Although, his death is a bitter moment we then think to all of the good he has done in the world which would be considered the sweet, in
Dr. Frankl explains, though his psychiatric analysis of himself and other prisoners in the concentration camps, how this theory works. "It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We need to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those being questioned by life - daily and hourly." With this, Dr Frankl shows how when one losses the means to look to the future and see the possibilities that it holds, one losses the capacity to survive, because, that individual no longer understands the meaning of his suffering. In other words, the individual losses hope or gives up. Dr. Frankl also explains that the means for the suffering or the hope must be one worthy of the suffering required. "A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears towards a human being affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to through away his life. He knows the "why" for his existence, and will be able to bear any "how." With the same theory in mind as above, one can see how easy it would be to lose hope or give up if the means of the suffering wa...
...ences the individuals dealt through in the Nazi concentration camps. He writes to avoid any personal bias, as he was a prisoner himself and emphasizes the notion that man has the ability to determine what will become of his life, as he himself was able to apply this thought while living three years in captivity. His notion of finding meaning in life becomes a key factor in survival, which was ultimately able to help him and help others under his teachings, to make it out from the camps alive with a positive attitude. The need for hope, gave him a purpose to keep fighting, although others became struck down with the thought of suicide. Though Victor E. Frankl faced many difficulties and challenges while in captivity and days following his release, he comes to the ultimate realization that life will never cease to have meaning, even when under the cruelest conditions.
In his memoir, Man’s search for Meaning, author Viktor E. Frankl, a neurologist, physiologist, and a holocaust survivor, argues that humans are motivated to find their meaning in life. Frankl develops this argument that humans are motivated to find their meaning in life by using his personal experiences during the holocaust and what he felt and saw as him and the other victims endured torture in the concentration camp. Ultimately, Frankl makes brief connections between the emotional states of the victims throughout their days and he makes connections to other homicides throughout history. Frankl’s purpose is to detail the daily labor and mentally taxing abuse he faced during the holocaust in order to make the readers feel sympathy and respect
Viktor Frankl, the author of the novel Man’s Search For Meaning, a holocaust survivor and also known for his theory of locotherapy, explains the hardships that the holocaust brings while living in a concentration camp. Throughout his experience, he confesses that it is hard to have hope and faith in order to live. He gave strongly worded advice to other inmates and was also a doctor to the victims. He is seen as a powerful, bold, and courageous character towards everyone he meets. His stories and incidents that occur throughout the novel portray locotherapy, which is described as the search for meaning in life. By setting goals and looking toward the future can help to push through hardships such as the holocaust.
While being held prisoner in the death camps, Frankl began to observe his fellow inmates. He payed close attention to the prisoners who survived and those who did not. Frankl concluded that those who felt they had meaning in life such as hope in seeing loved ones at home, unfinished business or great faith had better chances of survival than those who had no hope. This quickly became the basis of his theory. Frankl extrapolated that philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was correct in saying, “He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.” (Frankl 126).
Living unhappily is something else,” (35). This hit me because I have lost many family members in the last four to five years. Yes, I was unset after lost my uncle, great grandpa, great grandma, and here very soon I will lose my uncle because he will be taken off life support. This is sad but this is not a reason for me to continue my life unhappy. Yes death is something that takes some people a long time to grieve about, but you shouldn't be unhappy for the rest of your life for it. People just need to move on and accept that death is a part of life. I mean would life really mean as much if there wasn't death. Something else that relates to this aphorism is when my step dad lost his brother. He was so devastated after losing his younger brother,after months of watching him grieve I had, had enough. I regret this, but I ended up getting really angry. I asked him, “What is the point of being here if all you do is sit and cry?” That is a good example for your children and he seemed to snap out of his depression. I believe if I had not talked to him that today he would continue to live life very unhappy. What's the good in
Viktor Frankl knows that without meaning, people will rely on something like power, materialism, and hatred to define who they are as a human being. The kid to grew up with a dream to be a doctor, lived that dream with more knowledge that he thought he would have. He was a man who survived the Holocaust, but he was never a Christian or anything like that. He was someone who relied on his own beliefs and on self enlightenment. Like people who are buddhists. He did not rely on something greater that him. But somehow he found a way to be happy. When he was in the holocaust he realized that the people who knew who they were survived longer. The people who had no idea about who they were lived a shorter amount of time. Then he discovered Logotherapy.
The Buddha stated that to live means to inescapably experience sorrow and dissatisfaction. Each new obstacle needs to be analyzed and understood so a solution can be found. Suffering cannot be avoided but the four noble truths indicate how each person can respond to it (Ellwood, McGraw, 121).
She wanted nothing more than to be happy. As she was growing up, she never wanted to be anyone else, she never wished for anything else.
Frankl faced through his life in the concentration camps, the one that was the most crucial to his future success was the inner struggle to find his purpose. During his final years in the death camps, Frankl often gave speeches to fellow prisoners about purpose, potential, and why they all needed to survive and fight on for the prospective future. This was a coping technique for him as well as useful for the other people in the camp also: “ But I also told them that, in spite of this, I had no intention of losing hope and giving up. For no man knew what the future would bring, much less the next hour”(Frankl 82). This unrelenting desire to not only survive, but to thrive, is the reason that Frankl made it out of the camps. His mindset would not let his body give up or give in to death. As a psychiatrist, Frankl passed along his wisdom to other prisoners in his conversations with not only friends, but enemies in the camp as well. What’s ironic is that in such unbearable conditions for a human being to handle, Frankl and other prisoners who were liberated transformed into more developed versions of themselves. While people In their pain and chaos, they discovered something more meaningful than anything they could have possibly imagined of finding outside of the camps; they discovered their inner
For our Economics subject, we watched The Pursuit of Happyness, a movie based on Chris Gardner, a salesman who was not making that much money and eventually experiences homelessness with his five-year old son. He faces problems when his wife is unwilling to accept his goal to become a stockbroker and leaves him. However, he perseveres even under all this stress.
What does it mean to be happy? Happiness is a sensation that people want to have, and a lot of it. Above all else in the world, it’s what we seek and long for. Though this feeling can be found in many different places and at many different times, it isn’t easy to acquire. For some people, happiness might be found in exercise and sustaining good health. On the other hand, others can discover it when they go on vacation and relax. The idea here is that we each have our own things that make us happy.