When I first read this prompt, I quickly began writing. I sat and looked over my work and deleted all of it. I'm going to take a different approach on this essay. I'm going to talk about Abraham Maslow. Maybe you know who he is by his "Hierarchy of Needs". In it he describes what motivates individuals, from base needs to self-actualization. It starts with the most basic of all needs, breathing, sleeping, sex, eating and the sort. Next tier is safety. Employment, self, family, morals all fall under the safety tier. Third tier is love and belonging. Forth tier is one of the important ones for the sake of this essay, esteem. In other words, self-respect. We'll get back to this after the fifth tier, which is self-actualization. This means, morality, creativity, acceptance of facts among others. We're interested in the last two. From this we can surmise that self-respect comes before happiness. Happiness is a relatively new phenomenon. It is also very subjective, as everyone has their own opinion on what makes them happy. Before one can be happy, one must have self-respect, according to Maslow. Happiness on the other hand comes only after one has figured out how to survive, become secure, become loved and feel like they belong, have self-respect, then and only then can they become truly happy.
As I stated before, happiness is an individual act. For the vast majority of you happiness will revolve around some external item. Be it money, material items, or the phrase "I'll be happy once I......Insert random thing that will make you "happy". For the most part, those of you whose happiness revolves around something external, well, it will always elude you. Your happiness will last about as long as it takes your neighbor to get a new car or a pool. Once your friend goes on a more extravagant vacation, the happiness you once had will fade, and the journey to find happiness will start once again. This is why, as some philosophers say, happiness is internal. Someone who is happy will have peace of mind, or have solace in the fact that “God” loves them. These are examples of the vast minorities view on happiness. Most of you will think money will make you happy. It’s easy to think that, we’re brainwashed into thinking that, but do some thinking of your own. Realize that we are insatiable and that if you bank your happiness on external items such as cars and houses, you’re only fooling yourself. So, to summarize, you must have self-respect to become truly "happy". Happiness is a new phenomenon and is an individual feeling that can only be described by that particular individual. An attempt to homogenize the word is doing a disservice to what a wonderful feeling true happiness can be.
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I totally agree I think happiness is only temporary until something better comes along. I like how you made the point about having your happiness fad as soon as your friend gets a new car or goes on a better vacation. It is so true we all say we want happiness for our friends but what we really mean is we don’t want them to have anything better than us because when they do we won’t really be happy anymore. It’s sad, but its life it doesn’t make us bad people just makes us human. I also really like how you brought up Maslow’s hierarchy. I think it really helped affirm your position of the matter. I agree happiness comes from having self respect. One cannot be truly happy if they lack self respect. As always your post was very entraining and well written look forward to next week!
ReplyDeleteI strongly agree that happiness is something very temporary. I don’t know how someone could live without having self-respect. It is the most important ingredient to life, you have to have it in order to be happy and feel good about yourself or anything. "We'll get back to this after the fifth tier, which is self-actualization. This means, morality, creativity, acceptance of facts among others. We're interested in the last two.” I like that. It is really sad to see people who do not respect themselves, it gets you wondering if they are happy at all. I think that when a person does not have a self-esteem or any self-respect for that matter, becomes trapped in their temporary happiness. They do things to please people but not themselves. Their hurting themselves in order to make others happy. Acceptance always becomes a problem early in life. A person is confused and they have to feel accepted somehow and they would do anything to get it, even if it means going against their dignity. “Be it money, material items, or the phrase "I'll be happy once I......Insert random thing that will make you "happy". OMG very very true. You know how people always say “Money can’t buy you happiness” and it sure can’t buy you internal happiness. I really enjoyed your blog.
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