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*Im just looking for general feedback, but also ways to improve the second half of my essay
(what happiness is rather than what it isnt) as I feel like that half is weaker than the first half.
I also altered my thesis since posting it so any feedback on my new thesis (last couple of
sentences in paragraph one) would be appreciated. Thanks.

Jessie Haas
Professor Lisa Fitzgerald
English 1
20 September 2017
Essay One Draft

If you asked one hundred people, What is happiness? you may very well get as

many different answers. The question is vague and concerns a topic that cannot be quantified

in a lab; there is no objective answer. The response will vary across cultures, time periods,

and individuals. Yet many of us take for granted that we know what happiness is, and that our

definition of happiness is universal, understood by all (What Does It Mean to Be Happy?

Markman). If we believe we know what happiness is, then we have ideas about how to

achieve it. Our definition of happiness shapes our efforts, or lack thereof, towards being

happy. Understanding how and why we define happiness the way we do, and understanding

what happiness is not can help us shift our focus from things that wont bring us happiness,

and instead focus on defining and achieving our own self-fulfilment and happiness.

If you were to conduct a survey on the definition of happiness, although the answers

would vary from person to person, there might be some common themes, with two standout

responses: happiness as good things happening to you, and happiness as general life

satisfaction (What Does It Mean to Be Happy? Markman, Happiness and Its Discontents

Haybron). But both of these definitions have their shortcomings, both in accurately capturing

the scope of such a large question and in failing to lead to happiness if one believes the

answer lies in either definition.

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Across many cultures, the idea of happiness being linked to external good things

happening to us is prevalent (What Does It Mean to Be Happy? Markman). If asked What

would make you happy?, many people would think of acquiring material things,

achievements, or milestones, such as receiving a large sum of money, landing a dream job, or

getting married, but research shows that even though those things may temporarily cause

happiness, people adapt very quickly to new life circumstances, and the things that once

made you happy, even if they are still present in your life, no longer bring your emotional

state above neutral (Defining and Measuring Happiness 7-8). Your dream job, your spouse,

or a large inheritance eventually feels like the norm and isnt enough to make you happy

anymore. Even people who have won the lottery are not any happier one year later than

people who did not win the lottery (Defining and Measuring Happiness 8). If your

happiness relies on fortunate events, you will be constantly thinking ahead to the next thing

that will make you happy, only to start the process over again once you attain it.

The obvious answer to the question of happiness, for many people, is overall life

satisfaction. If the individual circumstances of your life, even the very good ones, do not

make you happy, then surely a better way to measure happiness is through a big picture

approach: are you content overall? However, this understanding of happiness is not without

issue. A person living in poverty who cannot afford to go to the doctor or buy a car that

doesnt break down every month might be miserable all the time, but when he drives by a

homeless encampment on his way to work every day he might be satisfied that his life is not

worse. A doctor in a war-torn country may feel her life has meaning and is worthwhile, and in

that sense is satisfied with her life, but if she is constantly living in fear of a drone strike, she

might not be happy. In these examples, satisfaction seems more like resignation (Happiness

and Its Discontents Haybron).

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It is important to question and unpack our views of happiness, as our definitions

might be contributing to unmet expectations or complacency. If you believe you will be

happy as soon as you achieve some goal, you might be confused as to why, after a certain

amount of time has passed, you are no happier than you were before. You might fall into an

endless cycle of waiting for the next thing that will make you happy. If you believe happiness

can be summed up as simply as life satisfaction, and you consider yourself satisfied with your

life, you might think theres nothing else you can do to achieve happiness, even if you dont

feel particularly happy. By examining our views, and challenging them, we are able to see

that in many cases, we play a much more active role in our happiness than we might have

thought (Defining and Measuring Happiness 7). It is probably easier to assume happiness is

something that just happens to you, or is a judgement of the big picture view of your life and

nothing to do with the smaller things in life that we have more control over. If you get rid of

those myths about happiness then youre confronted with the idea that, barring genetic factors

or exceptional circumstances, you are in control of your happiness, and you must be an active

participant in it to achieve it (Defining and Measuring Happiness 7).

The first step in achieving happiness is mindfulness about our ideas of happiness, and

mindfulness continues to play an important part in understanding and achieving happiness.

The idea that mindfulness, or being present in the moment, is linked to happiness has been

present in many religions and philosophies for centuries, or even millennia, but research on

happiness is starting to back these ideas up. Wandering minds, anxieties about the future, and

regrets about the past are all linked to lower levels of happiness. In an age of endless

distractions and instant gratification, mindfulness is probably harder than it sounds, but it is a

step towards happiness that is in our control (Defining and Measuring Happiness 10-11).
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Another idea about happiness that is shared by numerous religions and philosophies is

happiness as fulfilment of the self. As philosopher Daniel Haybron says in his essay

Happiness and Its Discontents:

There is a long history of philosophical thought, with roots stretching back at least to

Plato and Aristotle, and the Vedas in India, that conceives of human flourishing in

terms of the fulfilment of the self. Human well-being, on this sort of view, means

living in accordance with your nature, with who you are. On this way of thinking, we

might regard happiness as a central part of self-fulfilment.

There is not one path to happiness, although there are some guidelines that researchers have

laid out, namely feeling good, doing good, and engaging fully (Defining and Measuring

Happiness 10). Your path may be one of those, or it may be something different. The

important thing is you know yourself well enough to know which path is yours, and you

follow through with it. Again, mindfulness is important here too, for in order to discover your

path you need to be self-aware, present, and engaged.

A goal like happiness can be overwhelming. When you think that if you are not

happy then your life will not have been worth living, you create an enormous amount of

pressure on yourself to be happy. If the answer to happiness lies in mindfulness and self-

fulfilment, then maybe part of the answer is reframing the narrative to be less about finding

happiness, and instead more about finding your path and living according to your nature. In

the novel Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham, the main character, Philip Carey, is

given a Persian rug by a man named Cronshaw who tells him the rug holds the key to the

meaning of life. It isnt until later in the novel that Philip realizes what Cronshaw meant. The

pattern of a Persian rug represents a human life, and every pattern, every life, is different.

Happiness is only part of the pattern, Philip realizes, not any more important than pain. Philip
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muses, His life had seemed horrible when it was measured by happiness, but now he seemed

to gather strength as he realized that it might be measured by something else. Happiness

mattered as little as pain (Maugham 527). Instead of happiness being the end goal, a person

could get satisfaction simply from creating the pattern. And if in the end, your pattern was

your own, chosen by you, then you will have achieved your personal fulfilment. So maybe

happiness boils down to one thing: choice, or the freedom to live according to your nature. Be

mindful so that you can know who you are, so that you can follow your own path, so that

maybe you will stumble upon happiness along the way.

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Works Cited

Defining and Measuring Happiness. Positive Psychology, 2011, pp. 712. EBSCOhost,

ezproxy.lbcc.edu:2048/loginurl=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.

aspxdirect=true&db=c9h&AN=71429338&site=ehost-live.

Haybron, Daniel M. Happiness and Its Discontents. The New York Times, 13 Apr. 2014,

opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/13/happiness-and-its-discontents/.

Maugham, W. Somerset. Of Human Bondaage. The Modern Library, 1915.

Markman, Art. What Does It mean to Be Happy? Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 20

May 2013, www.psychologytoday.com/experts/art-markman-phd.