Happiness

Happiness

What is “Happiness”? Can it really be achieved in one’s life span?
For me, happiness is a state of mental being, where one is just content, if only for one moment. Happiness can’t be bought or even given. It’s just personal gratification for an achievement or one’s overall position in life.  
Shankar Vedantam, the author of “C’mon, Get Happy”, has a strong understanding of what people’s perception of happiness truly is, and unfortunately, it is simply a fantasy that is out that person’s grasp. It is so easy for people to say who they are going to be and what they are going do in life, but when time presents itself, it’s up to them to actually go and try to bring those things into fruition. The writer added a strong point made by Daniel Gilbert, a Harvard psychologist, which basically was that as kids, we were spoon fed how to be happy when we get older. Unfortunately, these lessons imparted by ‘unhappy’ parent are merely based upon what they believe they were lacking to make them happy. The perception of happiness should be a personal standard and not a compass for everyone to follow. What might have made my parents happy could be the very thing that makes me miserable because everyone is unique.
In life we are taught that in order to be happy we must be rich, smart, good-looking, slim and clean-cut and the list goes on. However, as we get older and more mature, and discover life lessons for ourselves, we then decide what exactly it takes to make “Me” happy. Whether it be chilling everyday watching a ball game or a favorite show, or watching stocks and buying them as you feel led, everyone has a special thing that they can definitively say makes them happy. So even if you are not rich, smart, good-looking or even clean-cut, as long as you can search yourself and find out what it is that you want, you would be one step closer to obtaining happiness.
Lastly, Gilbert argues that we are incapable of correctly predicting “what makes...