1.) Dan Gilbert: The Surprising Science of Happiness

Background: Synthetic Happiness is what our mind creates when things don’t turn out exactly as we plan. In the video linked, Dan Gilbert argues his case for this synthetic happiness and how it effects our minds. He argue that we will synthesize happiness no matter what situations life throws at us. He also discusses who we must keep realistic expectations of our future so we are less disappointed reaching for unachievable feats.

Intent:  This is the basis of my argument for happiness in our lives. Synthetic Happiness is there to pick us up when we fall and keep us going. It makes the best out of unfavorable situations that we are bound to face on our journey through life. The other part of Gilbert’s argument is important to my essay as well, but it does not support my argument. We can keep realistic expectations, but that keeps us stuck in place. Dreaming big is what keeps us constantly progressing forward in life and keeps the journey going.

2.) A Downside to Manufacturing Our Own Happiness

Background: This is a refutation of the concept of synthetic happiness. The stance is that we minimize the distance between where we want to ideally be and where we actually stand. This makes us less likely to dream big and progress forward and be content with where we are. Furthermore this article argues that we must become aware of this synthetic happiness and refute it to gain better control of the bias in our brains that accepts poorer situations.

Intent: Part of this argument fits in very well with my argument. We must always progress forward and can not stay content with where we are. Synthetic Happiness can not be completely refuted, but that belief of never being content in important. Synthetic Happiness shouldn’t be fully embraced because if it is none of us will try to do anything and just be happy with where we are at.

3.) The Curse of Too Much

Background: We believe we want more then we actually do. The media is always feeding us information that warps are perceptions and constantly makes us crave more and more. We are told we need things to be happy when in fact our own lives are full of happy things already. By becoming warped into this idea of more we will never be satisfied and always crave what we can’t have.

Intent: I ended up not really using this content of this article. It was important to my initial direction that focused more on synthetic happiness. The belief that we shouldn’t always crave more fits nicely with Gilbert’s argument of keeping grounded and realistic expectations of our futures.

4.) 5 Ways to Get Happier

Background: This Forbes article is spawned off of Dan Gilbert’s Ted Talk. It discusses ways to be happier in our lives, without needing the particulars that synthetic happiness thrives off of. These are some of the points. No matter how bad things feel we can always find positives and finding three of them can help us realize that things aren’t as bad as they seem. We can try to not blow things out of proportion and be realistic about how bad things are. We should question our assumptions because it keeps us from just accepting things for how we think they should be. Also, altering how we talk to ourselves can change our perception of scenarios and set us up for happier events in the future. The final point is to just surround ourselves with happier people and places because we feed off of that.

Intent: This article does a great job of taking the argument presented in the TED talk and dissecting it’s core to be applicable elsewhere. Synthetic Happiness is an automatic function, but understanding how it works can help us use it to our advantage. We all talk to ourselves and taking control of that let’s us change how we feel about certain things. We often assume things are bad and will stay bad, but fighting that assumption is important. I use the core of this in my paper, but a lot of it fell off with my thesis change.

5) What makes us happy?

Background: We often depend on external circumstances to determine our happiness, but that does not dictate true happiness. Living comfortable and being able to support ourselves is important to our happiness, but having an excess of money doesn’t make us happier. As humans we adapt to situations and adjust our happiness, but those adjustments usually don’t last long. We spike in both direction, but we usually level off.

Intent: This goes hand in hand with my thesis. We dream of winning the lottery, but upon winning it we aren’t as happy as we thought we would be. It’s that victory that really provides the strongest emotional response, and eventually we level off after the victory. External circumstances adjust our happiness, but it’s achieving those victories that give us true happiness. By constantly moving our goal line we can have those small victories and stay happy.

6) Manufacturing Happiness

Background: We often rely to much on external stimuli and become greedy people. Better ourselves is important to happier in outlives. We can try to reach and make connection to other people, we can try to be more active, and observe the beauty that is around us in every moment. We can learn new things and help others because it makes us happier and others happier.

Intent: Honestly, 95% of this article is useless to me. That 5% however is crucial. We are responsible for our own happiness. When we don’t try to better ourselves we become less happy and less satisfied. Progress is incredibly important to being happy and making little goals for ourselves to accomplish will keep us moving and make us happier overall.

7) Does Progress Equal Happiness?

Background: Happiness is a result of progress. We always think that finishing a project will make us happy, but what keeps us happy is progressing our work on that project. This translates to personal growth and progression in life and relationships.

Intent: I unearthed this source when I came to it’s topic from my own conclusions. When I searched progress equaling happiness this terrific article came up. Progress is the key component of happiness, it keeps us moving towards our goal and making sure that we keep progressing keeps us happy. We can never reach a destination because that will stop our progression. By constantly adjusting our goals and setting big ones in general we can have the satisfaction of each step there. This also gives some refutation to my topics counter arguments. Some people are unhappy in life, but that is usually because they are stuck. They either haven’t set goals, achieved their goals, or can’t move towards them.