Shawn Achor's The Scarlet Letter

In the TED Talk, Shawn Achor shows us the advantages of being happy and how positive emotions can lead to a better output performance; however, in the novel The Scarlet Letter the main character Hester Prynne willingly makes herself unhappy to cleanse herself of the sins she has committed. Hester has convinced herself that if she stays long enough and endures the torture of her daily shame that eventually she would become more saintlike and possibly gain a better sense of happiness. Achor’s philosophy was to encourage people to do what they have a passion for in order to bring forth job performance and to build a sense of happiness in present time. Hester’s main passion in life was her needlework because it soothed her and allowed for her to

express herself, but since Hester believed she had to purge herself of all the joys in her life she decides to stop sewing. What Hester is doing is a sharp contrast of what Achor thinks because he says that if you raise someone’s positivity in the present then they can experience something called the happiness advantage, which helps the brain to perform better under stress.
Even though Hester is under an abundance of stress coming from the Puritan community, she still remains to be a strong and confident person. Achor said that no matter how happy some people seemed to be they still carried a large amount of stress and I think that applies ot Hester because on the outside she tries to not let others know how she is feeling but on the inside she is trying hard to fix the situation at hand as best as she can. Ninety percent of the long-term happiness we experience is not predicted by the outside world, but by how our brains perceive the world around us and that is how Hester continues to have a remnant of hope left in her that the rest of her life will not be like the way it is now. Hester knows that each day will bring another set of trials, but she knows that some day she will see herself as as survivor. The scarlet A will soon serve as a symbol of Hester’s transformed self as the A shifts from meaning adulterer to it now meaning able.