Happiness

As I ponder over the different aspects of happiness and which one is more dominant in our society, I can't help to think of all the types of happiness being a big part of our society. With each new culture we are around there will be changes in the views of happiness. But my overall thinking of the the happiness that would be in our society I would have to say would be Stoicism. The reason why I feel that way is because as we go through life we experience pain, suffering. Its a fact of life, there is no way to escape it or get rid of it. In the reading it states "when you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on". This i feel is stating what life is. We might have something dramatic happen to us, such like a sudden death of a family member. Do we close ourselves from the situation and try to wait till it passes by? No we cope with it, we are sadden about the loss but we deal with it and reflect on the great life that individual had. Our society always is dealing with sudden distractions or sorrows. I feel like we deal with it pretty well, if not our society would fail and we would not be able to deal with life. We reflect on what happened and move on. According to me views on happiness I would say our society for the most part has similar views as I do. Coping with a loss of a family member or even something that has even happened within my own life; Divorce is what I had to do. When my parents separated, I could have changed my views of happiness and try to get away from the situation by going and experiencing happiness other ways like, drinking, partying, and things like that. But i knew the situation and the separation of my parents would never leave, it would always be there and eventually I would have to face the situation. And now for my views of happiness as stoicism I have coped with it and have moved on to experience other happiness in my life.

As a child, I feel like they should be taught the ways of the world. It is better for one self to experience in a since "defeat" when young rather then be sheltered there whole life and then get into the real world and think they are on top of the world, and in all reality they are not. Those kids that are sheltered and when young get everything they want, as they grow up and see that they can't get everything they want when they move out they tend to go over the "deep end" and end up messing up their lives. So as I think on the situation with the musical chairs and the prizes. If all the children receive the same prize just so one does not get their feelings hurt then they will expect it again and again. They will never experience defeat, failure or sorrow till its to late and they find themselves experiencing it and not knowing how to cope with the situation. Of course if they all received the same prize, all the children would be happy but in the long run not one would be happy as they grow up and get on their own, and experience the real world life.

Each theory of happiness has a great explanation of the cause. But the theory of happiness that I feel has the most meaning and is helpful to the world is Stoicism. Just like the first question I answered. Everyone is going to experience pain, sorrow etc. and we need to cope with it. Doesn't matter which culture we are in, or what. We need to deal and cope with the situation. We can still experience happiness out of the situation. no matter what, maybe not in the moment like a child getting rape, you can't really experience cope real well with that and experience happiness in the moment but if you look past the situation and problem, happiness will always overcome and out way the sorrow and pain. The one that is least helpful to the world in my opinion is I believe is Hedonism. And the reason why I feel that way is cause I think of the quote, "Eating my sorrows away", really? can we do that, No way. People think they can do that in order to get away from pain and that is how they can have happiness. I really don't feel like that gives us happiness. Just like sleeping around, drinking all the time or anything of immoral thinking. I feel like they do those things to try to experience happiness but in the long run they still have to face to pain and even within the happiness can be pain, for example drinking all the time, they have the pain and no happiness the next day when they are feeling terrible and living by the toilet. But that is just my thoughts and feelings.