Happiness Review and Its Analysis

Happiness -- its true value and the right means of achieving it -- has been pondered by many people including Plato and Socrates, Stoics, church fathers and Aristotelians. Philosophers have had different arguments including that happiness is a matter of: faith, passion, reason, pleasure and/or contentment, mind and/or body. Some of them have also argued that happiness is a way of being or feeling.

Who is happy? Who are the people who are happy? Does being happy depend on one's age, race or sex? Does wealth contribute to happiness? Does happiness come from a particular trait or job, friends, age or income-level? With a spiritual dimension? With an active faith or with close supportive relationships? (Myers, 56) Happy people are usually those who feel that they are in control of their lives.

Those with little or no control over their lives such as citizens of undemocratic countries, very poor people, nursing home patients and prisoners suffer from lower morale. They also have worse health than those who are happy. Happy people are also often optimistic people.

In recognition of the fact that the majority of the people are reasonably happy, researchers are now trying to find: Who is the happiest? Does happiness favour people with a particular race, gender or age? Does one have to have a particular job/income level or traits to be happy? (Myers, 58) If conditions of happiness is equally available to people of any race, gender income-level or age, then who is the happiest? Through the difficulties of life, some people's capacity to be happy is not diminished.

In fact in was found that the people who were happiest in 1973 were still comparatively happy ten years later, despite changes in their family status, residence or work. Happiness and the level realizable The human mind with is capacity to create, plan, analyze and communicate has significantly evolved over the last 100,000 years, when Homo Sapiens first appeared on earth.

However, in spite of the changes, the mind did not evolve to make us feel happy, have more humour or to make us write love poems and tell people we love them. The mind evolved for a more serious purpose to make us survive in a dangerous world. The mind became more skilled at foreseeing and avoiding threats with each passing generation.

The mind became more skilled at analyzing everything and judging whether it was: Good or bad? Helpful or harmful? Safe or dangerous? Such situations include; embarrassing ourselves in public, not having the money to pay bills, getting speed tickets, rejection, upsetting the people we care for, losing our jobs, getting terminal diseases, or any other of the thousands of situations that fill us with worry. Consequently, we spend a significant amount of time worrying about things that, most of the time, will not occur.

Psychological evaluations of well-being supplement the determinants of material and physical well-being with the evaluations of subjective well-being. The indicators of happiness do change with one's age, for instance one's satisfaction with health and social relations become more significant in older age. Emotional terrain also greatly varies with age (teenagers, unlike adults often have changes in moods in less than sixty minutes.

In terms of gender, females are doubly more vulnerable than males to displaying their anxiety or depression, while men are five times more vulnerable than women to cases of antisocial personality disorder and alcoholism. More intense sadness in women particularly in bad circumstances must be viewed in light of their bigger capacity for happiness under good circumstances. Even though women report slightly more happiness than men in cases where positive emotions are evaluated, the net result is approximately equal hedonic balance for both men and women.

In terms of race, whites and blacks, similar to men and women, score roughly the same on tests of self-esteem, which reflect how happy one is. The case was the same with disabled and non-disabled persons (Wallis; Myers, 63). Happiness in relation to wellness, money, and relationships Everyone wants to be happy. Myers in his article studies different factors that affect happiness. He states that in terms of money, once a sufficient amount of net-worth is reached, money no longer seems to play such a significant role in one's happiness.

He further observes that the Forbes 100 wealthiest people in the U.S. are only a bit happier than the average U.S. citizen. However, he also noted that people's activities were very important to their well-being. It is important that people participate in professional or personal activities that they have a passion in doing. Myers also mentions that when people participate in work experiences that they enjoy, or when they use their natural talents they are more likely to be happy.

On the matter of whether religion helps or not, Myers distinguishes between repressive forms of faith and religions, as the factors that affect one's state of happiness. He further notes how faith helps individuals to survive during difficult times and that one being religious active offers him or her, a supportive social community (Myers, 60). A necessity to one's survival during the prehistoric times was belonging to a group. The importance of human relationships such as friendship has been studied.

For instance, individuals in stable marriages are twice satisfied and happier than those who have never married. Some individuals are happy, regardless of their philosophy in life, because of heritable factors such as psychological traits. Altruism and extraversion, for example, are influenced genetically and quite useful in the pursuit of happiness. One's physiological balance is also a key ingredient for the achievement of happiness. Physical exercise, good food and good sleep are underestimated factors, as happiness essentially depends on how individuals live and not how they think.

It is thought by many that close relationships may aggravate misery or illness or they are full of stress, this is somewhat true. However, benefits of close relationships often outweigh the disadvantages. People with several close friends with.