Definition Essay On Happiness

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Modern Science defines ‘Happiness’ as the positive range of emotions that we feel when we are content or full of joy. Coca-Cola believes it’s a little simpler than that. Happiness, they believe is anything that can bring a smile to someone’s face.

Happy. What a tricky word. Does it mean being free of all cares? Do we suddenly let go of all our baggage? The new science of happiness helps us find deeper meanings.Defining happiness can seem as elusive as achieving it. Most of us probably don’t believe we need a formal definition of happiness; we know it when we feel it. We want to be happy, and we can say whether we are or not, but can it really be defined, studied and measured? And can we use this learning to become happier? Psychologists say …show more content…

The quest for true happiness is one that every person will adventure on. Great philosophers, religious leaders, writers and thinkers throughout human history have asked themselves this basic question. Through their wisdom we can learn and maybe take just one more step on our own happiness …show more content…

Sir Thomas Brown wrote in 1642, "I am the happiest man alive. I have that in me that can convert poverty to riches, adversity to prosperity. I am more invulnerable than Achilles; fortune hath not one place to hit me." What kind of remarkable machinery does this guy have in his head? Well, it turns out it's precisely the same remarkable machinery that all off us have. A system of cognitive processes, largely non-conscious cognitive processes, that help them change their views of the world, so that they can feel better about the worlds in which they find themselves. Like Sir Thomas, you have this machine.Unlike Sir Thomas, you seem not to know it.As it turns out, the notion that we should be able to manifest our own individual happiness is a relatively recent concept in human history, starting in the late 17th century and continuing to develop during the 18th. Before then, suffering was considered the norm and happiness was thought to be a matter of luck. In fact, hap is both the Old Norse and Old English root of happiness—and it means luck or chance. We synthesise happiness, but we think happiness is a thing to be found. Natural happiness is what we get when we get what we wanted, and synthetic happiness is what we make when we don't get what we wanted. And in our society, we have a strong belief that synthetic happiness is of an inferior

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