A Happy Life May Not Be A Meaningful Life Analysis

Respond：A Happy Life May Not Be a Meaningful Life

Daisy Grewal, who holds a BA in psychology from UCLA and PhD in social psychology from Yale University, put an article on scientificamerican on February 18, 2014 —“A happy life may not be a meaningful life.” This essay points out that happiness and meaning do not always go together. From the survey psychologists made, it seems that what makes us happy may not always bring more meaning, and vice versa. Feeling happy was strongly correlated with seeing life as easy, pleasant and free from difficult or troubling events, while none of these things were correlated with a greater sense of meaning. They also find that money is positively correlated with greater levels of happiness. However, having enough money seems to make little difference in life’s sense of meaning. Therefore, perhaps instead of saying that “Money doesn’t buy happiness,” we ought to say that “Money doesn’t buy meaning.” Additionally, in Baumeister’s study, “givers” reported higher levels of meaning in their

Based on my own experience, I found that, in my childhood, when I got a new toy from my parents, I can be really happy and satisfied, because I was a “taker”. However, when I grew up, and give my parents a gift, I felt a sense of meaning, but not only happy, because I was a “giver”. I think it is because society has taught us that giving is a noble behavior since we came to the world. Giving something means making others satisfied and happy. Giving makes society more harmonious. Reciprocal giving can make the world more peaceful. The only way to realize our personal value is to make contribution to society. However, taking means no cost and acquisition. Everyone wants to get something without a price; therefore, takers are usually happier. From this essay, I think it is better to be a giver than just become a