• Want to be happy?

    Happiness is a similar concept to that of the key to the meaning of life; we actively seek it and are willing to go to the depths of our strength to get it. Happiness, as many definitions as there are people and still a common goal for most human beings. I’ve been fascinated with the concept of happiness since my first encounter with philosophy in Mrs. Ivan’s class in 8th grade (this was a social sciences class and since Mrs. Ivan was teaching philosophy to high school students she exposed us to it too). As a teen, I was convinced that happiness is a similar concept to that of a…

  • Looking for happiness in all the wrong places.

    Lots of people believe that success, achievement, and material possessions make them happy. While these may improve their quality of living, the pleasure of acquiring them comes with a fear of loss, and with it, pain. If this is so, what we experience when this happens is a form of conditional contentment…fleeting and ephemeris. The truth is, our definition of happiness is not really ours. We learn other peoples’ idea of happiness and drag it with us all throughout our lives, never putting it under the microscope or challenging it in any way. Our parents and their parents’ parents taught us everything about life BUT how to be ourselves, to…