A seemingly simple question consisting of a mere three words. But, how many of us can truly answer it with a confident 'yes'? Not many I would suppose. Others would probably start to question - What is happiness?
When you're at the age of 4 or 5 years old, you'd probably define happiness as being able to catch your favorite cartoon on television, being able to eat loads of ice cream or your parents buying you a gift or toy that you had wanted very badly. A couple of years down the road, what made you happy then and now are possibly very different things. You're probably in secondary school and having a group of close friends that generally care and understand you, being 'accepted' by your peers, doing well in your studies would probably be some of the things that make you happy. As time flies (like it always does), we age. Things and situations change. So does our definition of happiness. Hence, to most of us, happiness is an emotional state of being content, experiencing pleasure and joy. Happiness is also highly subjective, varying from person to person. Another feature of our so-called happiness is that it is transient; it comes and varnishes very quickly. The point that I'm trying to drive at is that although it seems as though what constitutes to our happiness is very subjective and constantly changing, one thing that remains unchanged is our pursuit towards attaining happiness itself.
Aristotle proposed that happiness is the ultimate goal of mankind. According to him, happiness is not as what most of us perceive it to be. Happiness is NOT about feeling good, nor is it about experiencing pleasure and joy. Rather, it is the overall quality of one's ENTIRE life; something that makes our lives wonderful as a whole. He also suggested that young people in general can't be happy. Stunning? Yes, but looking at that statement from Aristotle's perspective, it is entirely 100% logical. Young people have just 'started' to live their lives, still having a large part of their lives left untouched to experience life itself, how can they possibly claim to be happy? On the other hand, an old man who's living out his remaining days on this earth, can look back and reflect upon his entire life experiences and truly say that yes, his life is good and he is happy.
Hence, the question of 'are you happy' is actually somewhat simplistic to begin with and yet hard to answer. 'Cause the majority of us cannot really answer it since happiness is not something that is achievable at this very moment. Each day, our actions and their consequences, they contribute towards our eventual goal of happiness. For now, all of us can only be content with the pursuit of it. So next time when someone asks you 'are you happy?', you may not be so hesitant to reply 'It's hard to tell now, but many years down the road, I know I'll be :)'
aiyah uber wols but anyway...
These are the rules: Each player of this game starts out by giving 6 weird things about themselves. People who get tagged need to write in a blog of their own 6 weird things as well as state the rules clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 peoples to be tagged and list their names. After you do that, leave them each a comment letting them know you tagged them and to read your blog!