What is happiness？In my view，different people have different opinions.Some believe that happiness is that they have much money so that they can buy many things.Others regard happiness as having a good job or making progress in study.A famous person Mahatma Gandhi says that，“Happiness is when what you think，what you say，and what you do in harmony.”Actually，happiness is a true feeling from our inner heart.Therefore, I don’t think happiness is to give it a clear boundary.We will get different happiness in different situations and life stages.At childhood，mother’s embrace is the most beautiful paradise.When you gradually grow up，falling in love and friends’company are the happiness.When you are old，love is more like a pot，the longer the taste.This is the happiness.
But ,have you ever thought of why we could feel happy? According to Dan Gilbert, a Harvard psychologist,and the author of Stumbling on Happiness, challenges the idea that we’ll be miserable if we don’t get what we want. Our “psychological immune system” lets us feel truly happy even when things don’t go as planned.
They did a research between the paraplegic people and someone win the lottery.But they found the fact is that a year later,lottery winners and paraplegics are equally happy with their lives.So,actually something bad have less impact,less intensity and much less duration than people expect them to have.
Sir Thomas Brown wrote in 1642, “I am the happiest man alive,I have that in me that can convert poverty to riches,adversity to prosperity.I am more invulnerable than Achilles;fortune hath not one place to hit me.”But what kind of remarkable machinery does he have? It turns out it’s precisely the same remarkable machinery that all of us have.Human beings have something that we might think of as a “psychological immune system,” a system of cognitive processes,largely nonconscious cognitive processes,that help them change their views of the world,so that they can feel better about the worlds.
Because our “psychological immune system”, we could feel happy.
Next, for why do we want to be happy, an English philosopher David Hume said “The end of human diligence is happiness, hence the creation of art, the invention of science, the enactment of laws, and the transformation of society.” That is to say, people have other needs on the basis of happiness. If you are not happy, you don’t have other needs. There is also another reason for this question. It is “Happiness can help people achieve greater success in all aspects of life.” According to Sonya Lyubomirsky, Laura King and Ed Diener’s research, a happy person is also a successful person. And “When other things being equal, happy people have better relationships with others.” is also an important reason for why do we want to be happy. In modern society, it is impossible for people to have no relationships with others. So to have better relationships, it is important to be happy.
So how to get happiness?First,close with a quote from Mark Twain: "There isn’t time ,so brief is life for bickerings, apologies,heartburnings,callings to account, there is only time for loving and but instant ."so to speak for that good relationships keep us happy.For example, if you have good relationship with your team members,you not only can achieve task efficiently, but also lean happily. if you have good relationship with your roommates you will feel relaxed and happy when you return to dormitory. Second,happiness lies not in the mere possession of money, it lies in the joy of achievement,in the thrill of creative effort(Franklin Roosevelt American president)from this sentence,we can know accomplish can make us happy.
Third,Happiness is everywhere. Sometimes you just have to look around to see it.Happy is feeling.happy also can be small things,friends care,parents love,but someone would ignore this little happiness.
Reference:1.TED:Dan Gilbert:我们为什么快乐
2.Robert Waldinger:如何才能幸福
3.Baidu
4.Wikipedia
