English Essay, Comparing Stories of Finding Happiness
Submitted by: Submitted by tbramlette
Views: 198
Words: 1089
Pages: 5
Category: English Composition
Date Submitted: 04/28/2013 09:13 AM
Ivybridge college of tiffin university |
English Essay |
Week three |
|
Tiffany Neves |
3/31/2013 |
|
They way Daniel Gilbert describes happiness is that our minds have a self defense trigger. When something major happens in our lives that tend to cause us to be unhappy, such as divorce, our minds are immediately coming up with excuses and reasons for the divorce and to make it so we aren’t feeling as bad about the situation that just happened. For example our minds might try to make it seem as though the other person was constantly nagging you, so our minds would have us think, “why would you want to keep living with someone who was like that?” According to Robert Thurman the key to happiness is to realize that in a way you are nobody. You exist no matter what and just because you make a mistake or make someone mad you are still going to exist. Even if you pass away you still exist, it is just your body that has died. These belief systems would be similar in the facts that our minds are on the path to the same goal, trying to make sure we are happy. However, the paths that our minds may take according to Thurman and Gilbert end up being different.
The Buddhist experience would be a great escape for someone who is becoming overwhelmed with trying to find satisfaction through an external source. If we are constantly trying to find peace and happiness through objects then sure we may find that happiness for a short time but eventually we will get bored and move on to having to find something else. This over time can become exhausting for us physically and especially mentally. If we just try to do as Thurman describes and find our selflessness then we will, “feel magnificent, vast and unbound.”(p. 472). When we find our selflessness we are able to enter a state of mind where there seems to be nothing: nothing to worry about, no one to please, just emptiness. This may sound scary at first but once we are able to enter this state of mind Thurman says we will...
