Perspective on Different Ways to Achieve Happiness

What is truly happiness?

There are seven billion people on this planet named Earth, and to further specify there are just over three hundred million people living in the United States alone. Does one know what they probably all have in common? They all want to achieve happiness or better known as “The American Dream.” But in order to gain gold standard wealth, it starts from the positive upbringings within. Short term happiness is explained in “A critique of positive psychology” by Richard Schoch (2006) where Schoch goes into detail on what gives people happiness using the data of neuroscientists, behavioral scientists and psychologists as his sources for his own conclusion. Schoch’s approach is rather unbiased using facts and sources of data to back up nearly every “opinion”. Simon Critchley (2009) essay, “Happy Like God” gives a more “philosophical/biblical approach” hence the aforementioned title. Critchley dares to question the world by stating “To be happy is to be like God” (449). He then discusses how this is possible by further breaking down his bold statement. Lynne McFall (1989) discusses why the greatest happiness is to know that one doesn’t need happiness. And how happiness is a factor where if one man considers his living conditions happy it could be seen as poor conditions to another man. This is labeled as “Pig happiness”. Happiness is almost wanted by nearly everyone whether experiential or materialistic, philosophical and biblical, or complete happiness knowing that you don’t necessarily need happiness at all.

This mostly-universal desire for happiness whether experiential or materialistic is sometimes studied by careers such as neuroscientists and behavioral scientists. This is best explained by Schoch in “A cr...

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...ter known as innate happiness. Or if one just plain believes that happiness is only an opinion and is necessarily not needed at all like McFall’s article “Pig Happiness” Where McFall supports her P theory by using symbolic scenarios and comparing them to each other. One factor remains unchanged. There are still seven billion people in the world, and over three hundred million in the USA. This means there are over 300 million ways of achieving happiness. Choose one.

Works Cited(MLA)

Lynne , McFall. Pig Happiness?. 12. Santa Barbra: University of California and Bentley University, 2012. 410-412. Print.

Critchley, Simon. Happy Like God. 12. Santa Barbara: University of California and Bentley University, 2012. 448-450. Print.

Schoch, Richard. A Critique of Positive Psychology. 12. Santa Barbara: University of California and Bentley University, 2012. 451-453. Print.