Choosing to Be Happy Essay example -- Sociology

Choose to be happy. This is what mom has evermore said, since a very young age and shut away to this solar day she tells everyone. For so long, it was just mom talk, those things your mother says that is supposed to make you stop and think. Yet, being too young, dumb and full of it, to really register what she means. Curiosity emerges and suddenly there is a need to understand what it really means to be happy, what constitutes Happiness? So follow up with some research, unveiling the bookstore, gliding in and out of the rows and rows in the self-help sections are others, asking the same question. What is happiness? Where does it come from, are we born with it or do we make it guide? Happiness is but a belief, an idea, a theory but theories, beliefs, and ideas have the possibility of being wrong. Can someone learn and choose to be happy? In this paradox it is hopeful to find some close truths about happiness and what is the need for this emotion. With our individual characte ristics, patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting are we already born to be either happy or sad? What are the basic perspectives of the psychoanalytic and Humanistic nature for the people who make up this world who are always happy? Since the time of Aristotle his telos, or the end goal, was the same for all people, happiness. In Aristotles world, there are strongly knit groups where no strong banknote exists between public and private life. Everyone shares the same goals and values, so the pursuit of happiness is a cooperative initiative. That may have been the case back then, but in this day and time, not so much. Finding happiness and even defining happiness varies from person to person, between cultures and generations.Why not start with one of the gr... ...s bathroom be figuratively compared with jargon, the light at the end of the tunnel and the silver lining behind the dark cloud. These are expressions of the optimistic outlook of happiness, they guard hope of a better a nd brighter future even in the midst of what could be termed as a bad day or the worst day of their life.Works CitedEngler, B. (2009). Personality Theories, An Introduction. Belmont Wadsworth Cengage Learning.Geoffrey Nunberg, P. (1993). The American Heritage Dictionary. New York Houghton Mifflin.Merriam-Webster. (2003). Merriam-Websters Collegiate Dictionary. Boston Merriam-Webster.Ostwald, M. (1999). Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics. Upper Saddle River Prentice Hall.Soukhanov, A. (2012, April 28). Encarta Dictionary. Retrieved April 23, 2011, from Encarta DictionaryEnglish(North America) http//www.encarta.com/dictionary