The American Dream In The Promise Of Happiness By Sara Ahmed

The Promise of Happiness by Sara Ahmed is a cultural assessment and exposition of the one of the most ask questions of life and most asked and written abstract concept of “What is happiness?” Sara Ahmed by no means is trying to tell us how to be happy or how to define happiness. Rather, as she states in the introduction of her book is “What does happiness do?” Ahmed, like the great Aristotle, both surmise that we need to align our actions, our cultivations of virtue and we need to align them all; as well as align ourselves with the good. The social directive of happiness constantly encompasses our life. Whether this is by trying to sell us life books, or by the Coca-Cola slogan, “Open happiness”. The idea that happiness can be bought and

The American dream is one of the greatest ethos of the United States, established in the 19th century. This notion and inspiration stemmed because of the opportunities and possibilities that America allowed for, unlike other countries. The stereotypical white picket fence, nice car, two children, and a wife sparks for a lot of problems. There’s nothing wrong with having goals or aspirations, but not when it is almost an established goal for most Americans because it is only allowing for the green eyed monster: greed. Keeping up with the Jones’s is a great example that using objects as means of happiness is the wrong thing to do. Ultimately what ends up happening is that people keep wanting more and more. An example of this is when the new IPhone comes out. Every year the IPhone gets updated and only changes very slightly. People who just recently purchased the older model want the new one to keep up with their friends and society. Now you ask yourself is having the latest new gadget, in this case, the new IPhone is happiness? Now what about the person who buys the iWatch to complement their IPhone? People want that now. Society is creating a monetarized form of happiness, which isn’t really happiness. This is one the biggest topics that Ahmed is trying to tackle. She shows how people are being unhappy. Even though her goal isn’t to show us how to be happy, in doing she’s in a way telling us to not do certain things to avoid the propaganda of happiness that society has