Happiness

What makes us happy by Joshua Wolf Shenk is an amazing article of how explored an old Harvard study. This study followed 268 men with a goal of learning what happiness means. The author explains how these men are affected by their childhood. He explains that it is some form of defense mechanism. In one case there was a boy who ate every meal alone for the first six years of his life and was greatly affected by it. He had social anxiety and was very shy. Joshua explains how relationships, joy and health play a major part in happiness. In The Epistle of Paul the apostle to the Ephesians, the author explains how she was raised with religion and the story of Paul. She explains how Saul was visited by an angel and turns into Paul but she can’t get over the fact of how there is nothing left when Saul turns into Paul. She then realizes that to love and be happy you must learn to forgive yourself. In my opinion this story has very little to do with happiness. I agree with Joshua about how happiness is a combination of joy, health pain and our past. Our past has everything to do with our future happiness as Joshua says everything is a defense mechanism. Through our past we learn to adapt and react to future events. For example if you are neglected as a child, you will most likely look for attention as an adult. Joshua also explained how drinking and smoking affect and sometimes ruins lives. There are so many things that can dictate happiness, whether it be a stable job family or being healthy. In my opinion happiness is whatever you make out of it. Everyone is different and everyone find joy out of different things. So happiness cannot be formulated or engineered. It is a combination of our surrounding (which include a job, relationships, joy) and our past. This combination of things makes it impossible to discover happiness because everyone finds joy and happiness in vastly different places. Happiness is what you make out of your life and only you can dictate it.