After analyzing The Epistle of Paul
the Apostle to the Ephesians by
Rita Dove and the article What Makes Us Happy? By
Joshua Wolf Shenk, I have concluded that they both have a very
similar perspective on life and happiness. Rita Dove uses the bible
reference of Paul the Apostle and his many experiences to show why
the crazy course of life can alter our expectations and values of
life. Shenk demonstrates how life and the values of 268 men through
72 years can differ, but also seem to correlate. When you live life,
how should you live it? I believe that is the overall topic both
authors are trying to touch on. Happiness comes in many different
forms. The happiness most individuals value the most is the sense of
accomplishment. When a person succeeds at something he or she tends
to want everyone to congratulate them or at the very least
acknowledge the fact that that person made the accomplishment.
Another type of happiness is the feeling of being at peace with
anyone and anything. Conflict is
the one thing every person tries to avoid, but they inevitably fail
to do so. When there is no conflict, there is happiness. When there
is Conflict, there is no happiness to be found. Both of the types of
happiness listed go hand in hand because of when conflict arises and
then there is a solution to it, there is that sense of accomplishment
when the problem is solved. Both Rita Dove and Joshuas Wolf Shenk
emphasize about another type of method to discover happiness, Grace.
When one has grace in there life they appreciate the little things in
life such as, dirty laundry. Shenk
posted a video Dr.
George Vaillant which talked about how dirty laundry represents the
product of happiness of children, and grandchildren of a man that was
studied. Even though most would consider laundry a chore, and with
out a doubt it is, he believed the laundry was happiness at that
moment. By just living life, you miss out on the wondrous and
immaculate things that is life. It takes most individuals at least
half of their life to understand how to find, and where to find,
happiness. Rita Dove even stated that a group of young adolescents
weren't suppose to understand what true guilt is. Guilt is a
representation of missed opportunities of understand how to find
happiness. Both Rita Dove and Joshua Wolf Shenk believe that life can
be long and some what treacherous, but you have to be aware of what
is going on around you and take the time to appreciate all the
opportunities to have a better grasp of the abstract concept of
happiness .
I agree with you when you say that both writings complement each other and that both writers share the same perspective on life and happiness. Both writers touch on the same subjects and seem to have the same views. I also understand and sort of believe some of the things that they say, like Rita Dove stating that adolescents weren't supposed to understand what true guilt is. I believe that they shouldn't either because children don't know how to find true happiness sense they are still growing and developing. Another thing is one might find happiness in the most interesting way like doing chores, everyone is different and finds happiness in their own way.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on how you said both authors take the word happiness in the same way and how both of them had the same view of it. I also agree when the authors mention grace and how that brings happiness. I believe that is brings apprecitation in one's life, as well. And just for the fact, in that video, it made the man appreciate dirty laundry. And like you said laudry is as chore, well atleast for most people but because the guy had grace, he really didn't care. Overall everyone finds happiness in their own way, whether it could be dirty laundry or overcoming some conflicts.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your statement that " When there is no conflict, there is happiness. When there is Conflict, there is no happiness to be found." Kind of like when in a relationship, if you are not able to push through the fights, or even have fights at all, then your relationship may be lacking the strength to deal with the tough stuff. In Rita Dove's "The Epistle of Paul The Apostle to the Ephesians" on one of her last lines she states that "Anyone who feels the need to connect the outside world with an interior presence must absorb the mysterious into the tangle of contradictions and longings that form each one of us." To me, I read that as, if you want to go out of your comfort zone and explore what your capable of being and seeing and loving, you have to unwind yourself from what you're used to and allow yourself to expand. Essentially making you happy in the end. Though both authors had different ideas on how to go about finding the way to happiness, I believe they both believe their approaches to be appropriate. Joshua Shenk spent his entire life thrown into the research and studies of different lifestyles and lives, while Rita Dove into the oldest literature to see where it began. But initially, they both went back to the very basic of life to find what happiness meant to them and how it was attained.
ReplyDeleteI agree completely with your summaries of the two pieces, the common denominator was happiness and their perspective on life is indeed very similar. I loved how to pieces both got their point across in such similarly different ways. Rita Dove’s references to the bible, for me were an amazing example of what pure love is: choosing to be happy and reinventing yourself through your decision to give yourself fully over to Christ and just how crazy our lives can get before we reach this stage. Whereas Shenk takes a more scientific approach in my opinion, explaining the testing and then getting into the results that no matter how much happiness during childhood can effect happiness as an adult, the trials all the men faced throughout their lives eventually rendered their childhood insignificant. I loved getting an insight into your definition of happiness, but I don’t agree with the statement “when there is conflict, there is no happiness to be found”. Throughout my experiences if I have conflict in one area of my life it has never stopped me from finding happiness in the other domains of my life. Rita Dove’s feelings that adolescents shouldn’t understand true guilt really made me stop and think, I am still so young and have a lot of living left to do, and I completely agree with her that I shouldn’t know what true guilt is, and truthfully I’m not sure if I am aware of what TRUE guilt is. I absolutely loved your ideas on both pieces and only disagree with the comment on conflict!
ReplyDeleteI agree that there is another way to happiness through grace. The unconditional love of someone, or the small acts of kindness by people are both just the tip of the iceberg that grace can lead to happiness. I also agree that "Conflict is the one thing every person tries to avoid, but they inevitably fail to do so." Conflict is something that everybody tries to avoid, but through conflict the parties involved can come to a solution. This sort of compromise could be beneficial for the parties involved in the conflict and therefore produce happiness. So, in a way conflict could be another way to happiness that we try to avoid.
ReplyDeleteThe way you described the two pieces as their overall meanings corresponding is perfect. Both of the writings seem to focus on the ideal happiness within ones life. I agree that sense of accomplishment does play a large part in an individual’s happiness and your theory that recognition for said accomplishment ties into this, but I also believe that a bigger part of happiness is, as Shenk emphasizes in his article, a sense of family, which includes a stable marriage. While accomplishments may help one to stay afloat psychologically, without family ones happiness is put at immediate risk. I also agree with your statement that zero conflict brings ones mind to ease, but when is this at all the case? Conflict is inevitable no matter how much one may avoid it, so perhaps the true search for happiness is behind how one chooses to deal with conflict. This may tie into Rita Dove and Joshua Wolf Shenks ideas of grace and appreciating the smaller values of life. I completely agree with both of the writers with their concepts of grace being the overall solution to living a fulfilling life. While accomplishments, recognition, and family are vital to ones happiness, in the long run, how one accepts situations as a whole is what ultimately defines their psychological stability. With this comes official acceptance and discovery of a persons meaning, although this may take more than half of ones life, (as you stated) it is the ultimate answer to the big question “what is the meaning of life?”
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