Should I even want to be happy?
The pursuit of happiness is our god given right, to be selfish. We do everything with a person in mind. More often than not, that someone is us. We go through a constant cycle of selfishness and happiness. We are selfish pursing happiness, then after achieving it, we are even more likely to be selfish after being happy. We are prone and programed to do what will make us feel satisfied even if it is an overall good-natured service or deed. Why does the mindset of the giver matter to the receiver? Overall, it does not give most individuals what they need making them take even more.
An example of a good deed which has a selfish under belly is donating our time helping in a soup kitchen. Most people will say they do it “because it makes me feel good.” It may make us feel good somewhat, but not for what it may seem. We could easily say that we help because these people need food, shelter, positive attitudes, etc., but it’s about us not the people who actually need the help. In the end, the needy people still get their soup and we still get to feel fulfilled, thought the grounds are built from selfish intentions. When every whole hearted act has a selfish underlining when can we actually take these acts to our own hearts? We can’t, that would be thanking someone for something for thinking of themselves. We already do that enough in this world.
The pursuit of happiness is a selfish act. It throws us into a vicious cycle of happiness and selfishness. In the article, “How Happiness Changes With Age”, Heidi Grant Halvorson talks about what made her happy when she was young compared to now. All the things she describes are selfish in one way or another. She also says teens achieve happiness when they are doing things such are partying. Halvorson finds herself achieving happiness with alone time such as reading a novel or a relaxing bath as an adult (Happiness Changes). Both are completely different scenarios but take us to the same place. We act for our own benefit, which changes our needs. This shows us that happiness is being selfish and does not change with age, as it always coincides with each other.
Selfishness brings us happiness, but happiness can also bring us selfishness. When we are happy, we are more selfish than we were to become happy in the first place. The truth is that when we are happy, we have an “everything is fine” state of mind which in turn, we do not feel the need to reach out to others (Against Happiness). The effect of feeling everything is fine the way it is will discourage us from helping. We feel that if we do the deed, we will be okay because we are only thinking of ourselves. Being happy can cause us to think completely differently and we can “overestimate their [our] control over environmental events (often to the point of perceiving completely random events as subject to their [our] will), give unrealistically positive evaluations of their [our] own achievements, believe that others share their unrealistic opinions about themselves [us] and show a general lack of evenhandedness when comparing themselves to others” (Against Happiness). Happiness affects our minds from thinking rationally to completely irrationally.
Happiness and selfishness go hand in hand. The two create an endless cycle of cause and effect. We get into the toxic cycle and roll from one to the other. From the journal, Some Key Differences between a Happy Life and a Meaningful Life, the team came to the conclusion that “happiness is mainly about getting what one wants and needs, including from other people or even just by using money,” which confirms the cycle. We get what we want from being selfish then continue to be selfish because we have what we want. The pursuit of happiness has been engrained in society long before any of us alive today were a thought. It is in our nature to be selfish beings in search for our own happiness. The search may be primal, although that does not mean we cannot monitor it and the effects it has on us.
Works Cited
“How Happiness Changes With Age” The Atlantic. Heidi Grant Halvorson, 28 May 2013, 2nd March 2014
“Against Happiness.” The New York Times. The New York Times, Jim Holt, 20 June 2004. 2nd March 2014.
“Some Key Differences between a Happy Life and a Meaningful Life” Journal of Positive Psychology, Stanford/Florida State University, 2nd March 2014
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Counterintuitive Fall 2022 
Feedback provided. —DSH
Hey, Marcus. Early feedback is always better than late feedback for work that still has a deadline pending. Let’s do this.
P1. Hmmm. I don’t trust your first sentence. I deeply resist the notion that happiness, the feeling, can make me selfish, a motivation or personal characteristic. Hunger might make me selfish because it’s a lack of something I am compelled to seek for my own benefit. But if happiness fulfills me and meets my needs, I won’t be competing with others for anything.
Maybe you mean striving for happiness makes me selfish. Maybe you mean trying to achieve or accumulate what we think will make us happy (like eating when we’re hungry) is selfish, or makes us selfish.
If I’m wrong, you’ll prove it to me and I’ll learn something. Get it on!
Grammar, punctuation, and syntax problems are highlighted. Do you want to see color in other paragraphs too?
You’re confusing about the truth and the underlying meaning. Readers won’t necessarily think the explanation “makes me feel good” is selfish. You need to be clearer about that. Feeling good about helping others only seems selfish if you look hard at it. So “that is the truth” isn’t immediately clear. Then you complicate by promising an underlying meaning. Then you don’t deliver it; instead you speculate about what “we could say.” Is the “it’s about us” the underlying meaning? If so, then your “truth” actually is your “underlying meaning.” There aren’t two meanings.
I’m outdoors bringing in the trash cans. The sun of an early spring day catches me by surprise. I almost weep with joy that warm weather is ahead. Happiness? I want to say yes. Selfish? I don’t see how. Is happiness selfishness? Not this type maybe.
I’m outdoors bringing in my neighbor’s trash cans. She works days and I don’t, so I help her in this small way. Happiness? Probably not. Selfish? It doesn’t seem so. She has never once thanked me or even mentioned this small kindness. Maybe she’s been thanking someone else. I resent her thoughtlessness. Happiness? Certainly not. Selfishness? It would seem so. I’ve been doing this service for a reward. Do I stop doing it? If I do, I prove that I was being selfish, seeking the happiness from my neighbor’s appreciation, perhaps more.
So, is happiness selfish? Maybe pursuing happiness is.
P2. The first time you name the author, use both first and last names; every time thereafter use just the last name. Articles are punctuated with quotation marks, not italics; publications, like the magazine, journal, newspaper, book, or website in which the article appeared, are italicized. In this class, we don’t name the article or source in parentheses following the citation. We simply write in such a way that readers can tell what material is attributable to the source.
Serious syntax problems that would be hard to highlight. Maybe we need to examine this paragraph together as an exercise.
We can tell the author is in trouble when he starts to talk in formulas, like those you’ve used in P1 and P2.
—Happiness CAUSES selfishness.
—When we are happy we act selfishly.
—Happiness IS selfishness.
—When we achieve Happiness WE’RE STILL selfish.
—Being Selfish MAKES US Happy.
—Selfishness brings Happiness BUT Happiness brings Selfishness.
—When we achieve Happiness WE’RE EVEN MORE selfish.
—Happiness fulfills us and Fulfillment makes us Selfish.
—Happiness makes us Arrogant and Arrogance makes us Selfish.
—Happiness and Selfishness go hand in hand.
—They create one another.
The problem isn’t that you want to describe a self-perpetuating cycle, Marcus (as I see now that I’ve read all the way through); it’s that you didn’t say so at the top, so that your argument, as it unfolded, would confirm the basic premise instead of making me want to challenge every new claim as a misunderstanding of the previous one.
There’s no substitute for a strong introduction.
Thanks as far as color in all the paragraphs please do i know my grammar is awful.
Feedback provided (grammar notes). —DSH
Some of the notes require more than simple color-highlighting, Marcus. A student tutor at the Writing Center might be helpful to you. Otherwise, we should meet briefly to discuss a few formatting rules you may not know.