Reflection: What Makes People Happy

Reflection: What Makes People Happy

People have different thoughts and beliefs about what makes them happy or self-sufficient. Besides, people have different definitions of happiness, which also affects their ingredients of what makes them happy. It is a fact that happiness is a mood and a good thing, but it fades just like moods swing with time. No one is capable of holding onto their happiness when it’s time to pass comes. Thus, happiness does not endure, nor does it satisfy because one can lose it at any given time.

I believe happiness is the good feeling that people usually have sometimes in life. There are several reasons thought to be sources of happiness by men, and people pursue them in search of self-satisfaction or accomplishment (Slavitt, David and Boethius 83). Some people think that having good relationships, jobs, or any social behaviors such as charity work makes people feel happy. Regardless of the source of happiness, it always necessary and pleasant to be happy. Happiness helps people to pursue their ambitions and achieve life goals because it instills self-drive in humans. It may also have implications on the lives of people around us

Human beings look for happiness in several ways, some of which cause suffering and pain (Slavitt, David and Boethius 42). I also concur with Boethius’s definition of joy, ‘So happiness is necessarily that state that is perfect and that includes within it everything a man could want’ (Slavitt, David and Boethius 61).  People look for happiness by doing several things, leaving no space for others to the same. As Boethius says, ‘now, all men strive for this condition, although they do so by various means. The desire for happiness is inborn, instinctive in the minds of men. But they are led astray by false ideas of the good’ (Slavitt, David and Boethius 61), false images blind the pursuit for happiness from a philosophical perspective.

Some men think that having vast wealth is a source of happiness, so they work so hard to acquire many wealthy possessions in the hope that they will be happy in the end. Other people consider honor and respect as true happiness. Such people try to get accord of respect and recognition among their fellow citizens. They also attempt to live distinctively to create a perception of difference in class, which marks their honor among people. Some people even believe that power is the source of true happiness. They try to create the perception of being powerful by either associating with rulers or work to rule themselves.  Another group of people thinks that fame can give happiness so they attempt to gain it by whichever means they can. Others also hope to find joy in pleasures.

I agree with Boethius about a category of men who combine the avenues to happiness to fulfill their desires or get the self-sufficiency they wish. “There are also those who mix and match, going after wealth so that they can use it to pursue power, or they work for power to get rich or to increase their fame” (Slavitt, David and Boethius 62). Men do many different things to be happy, but philosophy has a different approach towards what makes men truly happy.

Philosophers have different thoughts about what people think to make them happy:  wealth, honor, power, fame, or voluptuary pleasure (Slavitt, David and Boethius 63). Epicurus, on his theory of happiness, places pleasure at the peak of his list for good or happiness, arguing that the other sources of joy are mental. Besides, the other pillars of the true satisfaction of men are not bad things. They are just the beliefs and thoughts people have because it is impossible to dismiss what the brain think is right or true. Therefore, people pursue those things because of the view that they will be happy or self-sufficient at the end of the day, and unity exists among men who seek similar stuff for happiness.

Philosophy offers different answers to the same question about what makes people happy or self-sufficient. Philosophers argue that wealth, fame, honor, respect, power, and pleasure do not make people happy. The arguments about these assertions say that people with the things as mentioned earlier are not necessarily happy.  Wealth gives the ability to satisfy wants; people have needs that even money cannot meet. Slavitt and Boethius argue that even high offices do not provide happiness as people think; they only give honor and respect, which is not a fulfillment of that one might want to have or feel (63). Socrates also argues that people who continuously look for fulfillment in material or worldly things such as money and honor are less likely to be content when they finally get them  (Kavaloski). This philosophical response also suggests that money, fame, honor, and respect are not the sources of true happiness.

Philosophies suggest that the things that people believe they need to be happy give birth to other needs, which takes away that happiness. Power gives rise to fear, body pleasures also bring regrets for actions during the search of satisfaction “glory might turn out to be deceptive or vulgar” (Slavitt, David and Boethius 73).  Therefore, all the paths those humans take in the search for happiness lead in the wrong direction. They do not provide the happiness they promise.

I agree with Boethius’s definition of true happiness is “that which makes a man self-sufficient, powerful, respected, famous, and happy” (Slavitt, David and Boethius 83). Besides, Boethius argues that true happiness exists in God due to several reasons. God is the highest of all good; since men conceive of Him as good, happiness in itself is God.  Boethius supports this statement by this quote; ‘most high God is full of the most high—which is to say the perfect—good.’ However, most people around me do not acknowledge that God is the source of true happiness. My family, friends, and relatives also believe in the conventional approach to finding happiness, especially in wealth and fame.