Preview

Documentary Summary: Happiness Is Real

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
135 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Documentary Summary: Happiness Is Real
Summary
Happiness Is Real
ABC News 20/20 documentary, “Happiness, how to find it, understand it, and achieve it” by Bill Weir. Happiness is what we most want in life. Happiness cannot be bought, paid for, or found. It must be created. Happiness is a choice. Create your own happiness. Many people aim for happiness. Some through money, marriage or department stores. Our goal in life is to achieve happiness. Bill Weir reports on how to get happy, how we are hard wired for unhappiness and the extremes people will go to achieve happiness. Abraham Lincoln says” Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.” Weir also visits the happiest places on earth, and these countries might surprise anyone. America is so far down

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Ron Carlson’s “Happiness,” is about a trip with a father, his two sons Nick and Colin, and brother Regan, visiting the family’s cabin in Utah to fish for the last time as the Father says goodbye and makes sure his sons are prepared for him to pass. Carlson suggests the central idea is that family needs to remember the happy times to prepare for the hard ones and uphold the traditions. Carlson uses setting to focus on the happy memories the family shared and the importance of tradition. Carlson uses language such as similes to imprint the landscape into the reader’s mind, symbolism to show how deeply rooted the traditions of the family lay and diction to bring the tradition alive. Carlson creates a calm and humorous tone.…

    • 1147 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Happiness is something that everyone desires, however, everyone has a different perspective on what it is and how to find it. For many, happiness is elusive. These two articles, “Happiness is Other People” by Ruth Whippman for The New York Times and “The Secret to Deeper Happiness Is Simpler Than You Might Think” by Ginny Graves for Health, proposes two different paths to find happiness. Graves (2017) claims that happiness resides in the inner-self while Whippman (2017) disagrees and, instead, advocates pursuing happiness from healthy relationships. Both authors are targeting an unhappy audience who is seeking advice and, between the two, Whippman makes a more compelling and persuasive argument for her claim.…

    • 785 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Happiness is something most people want to have in their lives. Some people consider happiness as something they can never attain. Others constantly strive to become happy. Happiness can be achieved in many ways, it all depends on what a person wants or needs to happen in order to be happy. Finding “happiness” is the one single element that is keeping one in nine Americans from attaining their higher needs.…

    • 885 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Some individuals ask how are you so happy? But what they cease to think is that how are they not happy and what do they do to fix that. It is all the greed and pride that people see the happy side of things. all things lost in life are a sign of false pleasure from material objects. “With luck, you’ll find happiness by the by, if not, your time won't be wasted ( Darrin McMahon).” These statement could not be more true about happiness, time is on your side.…

    • 467 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Sharon Begley in “Happiness: Enough Already” argues that being extremely happy may be a goal of anybody but it also can be “the end of the drive for ever-greater heights of happiness” (455). Begley claims that “being happier is not always better” (455) and an excessive happiness may affect badly to people’s life. She points out that people who reach the highest level of happiness don’t feel motivated to move forward since they are already satisfied. The author goes on insists that happiness does not last long because “negative emotion evolved for a reason” (456). She presents many cases of famous people who experienced negative emotions to create their well-known works showing the need of sadness in every lifetime. Furthermore, people desire to gain more and more happiness causing them the fear to experience sadness. Therefore, what they once considered normal sadness is regarded as a psychiatric illness now. The author then concludes that everything would be much better if “the single-minded pursuit of happiness as an end in itself” (458).…

    • 741 Words
    • 22 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Nt1310 Unit 1 Assignment

    • 1657 Words
    • 7 Pages

    The true contents of happiness are stated in the article “A Formula for Happiness” by Arthur C. Brooks, the president of the American Enterprise Institute. Brooks states that people realize life and view happiness depending on genes, one-time events and basic values: faith, family, community and work. He pays special attention to the last one. According to Brooks, meaningful work and success considered as passion can make people happier. Brooks cites as an example Franklin D. Roosevelt’s words: “Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money;…

    • 1657 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Happiness is the result of achievement, as individuals, we must figure out what we want to do once we’re out in the real world; whether it’s becoming rich and famous, or just owning a regular house in a middle class neighborhood, we all have goals that we are looking to achieve so that we can be happy but the only way that happiness can be obtained is through hard work. As Bill Rancic stated “The American Dream is still alive out there, and hard work will get you there. You don’t necessarily need an Ivy League education or to have millions of dollars startup money. It can be done with an idea, hard work, and determination.” (Rancic)This quote is explaining how anyone can achieve success in America, through hard work and perseverance. It doesn’t matter how much money an individual has, hard work and effort can get anyone anywhere in life and land anyone any kind of job they want. A lot of businesses look for people who are hard working, determined, dedicated, and enthusiastic. They’re looking for someone who’s innovative,…

    • 1718 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    What Happy People Know

    • 3635 Words
    • 15 Pages

    Dan Baker and Cameron Stauth 's What Happy People Know is a great book, I would recommend it to anyone to read because, "the same basic principles about happiness apply to virtually everyone, across all age groups, nationality, cultures" (Baker & Stauth, 2003, p. 40). It compares and contrasts what happy people know and do in comparison to what unhappy people know and do. The book teaches the reader how to change their outlook on life from a negative to a positive one. I will begin this report with a brief explanation of what the major underlying factor of unhappiness is. Next, I will briefly talk about the qualities of happiness, according to Baker and Stauth (2003). And lastly, I will reveal just what it is happy people know, also called the happiness tools (Baker & Stauth).…

    • 3635 Words
    • 15 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Greek Dialectical Journal

    • 703 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Yet when you take a break from all the money spending and spend time with friends, nature, and family it is easy to see that you can find happiness everywhere especially the smallest things. You do not have to be economically viable in order to find happiness.…

    • 703 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    "Happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly often attributed by the living to the dead, now usually attributed by adults to children and by children to adults." -Thomas Szasz-…

    • 563 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Happiness is an immense feeling of joy, content, well-being and satisfaction when something positive happens or when there is a good outcome comes about in someone’s life. Some important things consider about happiness is that it does not need to be achieved by external factors such as wealth and status. These are temporary ways to happiness, where the happiness will not last. Instead, happiness can be found in other ways that can last longer. It can be found when building relationships with others, and seeing growth as person. Additionally, another thing to understand about happiness is that you can achieve it during times of darkness. In the documentary Happy, we watched a particular woman face adversity. This woman had become permanently…

    • 325 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Definition Of Happiness

    • 789 Words
    • 4 Pages

    First happiness helps helping. People who are happy tend to want to help other people than a person who is not. They are more likely to have spent some of their time or money helping others (Post). A way to increase happiness is by volunteering. People who donate to charity or spent money on gifts for others were found to be happier than those who did not spend money on others, and this was regardless of income level (Anik). While it has been assumed that giving also leads to greater happiness, this has only recently been started to be scientifically proven. For example according to actionforkindess.org, “when participants in a study did five new acts of kindness one day per week over a six-week period, even if each act was small, they experienced an increase in well-being compared to control groups.” Also “In another study, participant who were given five dollars or twenty dollars to spend on others or donate to charity experienced greater happiness than people given the same amount to spend on themselves” (Let’s put the things). The amount of money that the people were given did have anything to do with how much happiness they had. When someone is happy it makes them want to give more to others than when they are sad. This can lead to a higher tendency to give and so on (Vallant). This not only affects Americans but it is consistent across many different cultures as well. It makes sense…

    • 789 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    “Happiness is at a dead end” (O’Connor, 2009). This is how the award-winning psychotherapist Richard O’Connor begins his introduction in “Happiness: The Thinking Person’s Guide.” It’s a pretty strong declaration coming from a professionally trained western doctor, but not without reason. The comment was not made at the condemnation of happiness, but more as a signpost declaring we westerners have veered off course, quite some time ago, and arrived at a dead end in our search for happiness and attaining the good life. According to O’Connor, we first veered off course when we began thinking the road to happiness and the good life was down Prosperity Lane. That philosophy has its roots in our culture too with reason. A lot of evidence seems to indicate that income and happiness are positively associated. This is because income is related to a variety…

    • 2722 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Common misconceptions of happiness are due to the origins of which it is derived from. Charles Spurgeon who was a famous preacher once said, “It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness”. Through the works of Alfie Kohn, Heron Jones and Daniel Barwick, the concept of gaining the experience of true and genuine happiness must derive from an individual broadening their views to see what truly matters in life. In every work, the authors demonstrate the fact that genuine happiness cannot come from the dependencies that are placed on wealth and social standing. Each work uniquely describes that the assumption of prioritizing success will guarantee true happiness is entirely false. Lastly, that ultimately the pursuit of general happiness is on the path of the pursuit of genuine happiness.…

    • 1381 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The pursuit of happiness in American society means that you have to be making money. We pursue money and liken it to happiness. We assume that the more of it we have, the happier that we will be. Unfortunately, this is not the case. If you take a moment to look a millionare and billionares they are just as unhappy if not moreso. This I believe is because the old adage is correct. Money cannot buy happieness. This is because if we base how happy we are on how much money we have we will always be worried about losing money.…

    • 390 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays