Thursday, September 25, 2014
Happiness
I find comfort in Paul's epistle to the Ephisians. Being raised Catholic, I've always been told "place your faith and trust in God, and you will always be happy." I feel this eludes to placing your trust in others allows you to live a happy life. As Joshua Wolf Shenk reads into case 141, a person is being questioned as to what happened to their happy nature. Seeing what you could have become as opposed to what you are is something that can bring many down, as can not living up to the expectations of those you trust and look up to. This ties in with Paul telling us to trust in The Lord. People don't typically pride themselves in disappointing the one they refer to as their god, nor do they want to disappoint their parents. Letting down those who look over you in the quickest way to become unhappy. It is human nature to want to impress those we look up to, or those who have taken special interest in us. Once we realize what we are capable of, we begin to look inward as to why we want to impress certain people and why they matter to much to us, and in the end it is seen that once we achieve pleasing our superiors, we can't help but be happy with ourselves.
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I agree with your point of view in regards to the reading from "The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Ephesians" about placing your faith in God means to place your faith in others faith in others because I, too, was raised Catholic and that was a recurring topic in church sermons. They taught to rely on each other interdependently to reach a happiness. On the other hand, the notion I received from "What Makes Us Happy?" is that the source of our happiness is developed with our acceptance of what is. Whatever our circumstances may be, happiness or perceived happiness is dependent on our outlook; whether it is a source of happiness or misery. Such is the notion generated from the anecdote from Case 47 from Alan Poe. Happiness can only be reached by our perspective on our situation because there is so much diversity in the world, that there is no possible to determine a set standard for applying happiness to all humans. It’s because of this that we have a hard time trying to find happiness in the way that someone else did, but regardless, we still try and that is the basis of Vaillant’s work. While, yes, generally (as in for the greater majority of people), happiness is generated from people we hold to a higher esteem, this seems to contradict what Shenk is attempting to prove about Vaillant’s view which is that intimacy and relationships with other people affect our happiness because it isn;t solely derived on their judgement.
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