Introduction
Since the emergence of the term happiness in the times of Plato and Aristotle, the topic of happiness, its philosophical meaning, and its application to the real world became a case of many discussions. People use the term to express overall emotional conditions or deep inner feelings. Although historically, people defined happiness as the satisfaction of people’s needs, the term happiness includes a broader specter of meanings nowadays. This essay will explore common criteria that people apply to happiness and define two that suits the author’s personal understanding of happiness.
Main body
The most common misunderstanding regarding the meaning of the term is defined in the formulation of the term itself. The opposite term of being happy – unhappiness is rarely used and usually implies that something unfortunate happened to an individual. However, the term is not used as a description of the absence of happiness, which could only mean that most of the time, people are neither happy nor unhappy. In this case, the following question is, if the feeling of happiness rarely occurs in an individual’s life, how could he possibly know when he is feeling happy? An Individual’s perception of happiness also alters the case: some people connect the feeling of comfort to happiness; other people perceive happiness as a part of achieving personal goals.
Although happiness could not be measured physically, the individual’s mood, level of comfort, and satisfaction of needs could be estimated through a number of questions. In an article by Roessler and Gloor (2021), the authors provide research results showing that measuring happiness regularly increases people’s happiness levels. The authors described the case as an example of the Heisenberg effect, in which the constant awareness implied changes in the participants’ behavior (Roessler & Gloor, 2021). Although all participants possessed different views on happiness, the results showed that 16% of the participants felt happier, and 26% became more active (Roessler & Gloor, 2021). It could be that the key to an individual’s personal happiness is his awareness of happiness.
Conclusion
In conclusion, there are two most important criteria for happiness: the individual’s life priorities and awareness of happiness. According to this criterion, happiness is individual for everyone, and the state of happiness could be improved and extended by an individual’s focus on the goal of achieving happiness. Judging by that, I can say that I personally have achieved happiness and keep trying to become happier every day than I was yesterday.
Reference
Roessler, J., & Gloor, P.A. (2021) Measuring happiness increases happiness. Journal of Computational Social Science, 4, 123–146. Web.