What Happiness Is by Eduardo Porter Cyber Assignment
Please post your summaries of the essay. Please include the names of all the participants. Also, include a works cited.
posted by Professor Wanda's Posse at 10:57 AM
Saturday, March 15, 2014
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4 Comments:
Laisa Oliveira
Yessica Beltran
Nohemi Victoria
Victor Chen
Mark Lopez
Professor Sabir
English 1A Saturday
15 March 2014
Outline: What Happiness Is
Outline
Thesis:
Under this optic, economic growth is the outcome of our pursuit of well-being. It is what makes us happy.
3 Major points:
“Most psychologists and economists who study happiness agree that what they prefer to call ‘subjective well-being’ comprises three parts:satisfaction,meant to capture how people judge their lives measured against their aspirations, positive feelings like joy; and the absence of negative feelings like anger.”
1. Satisfaction:
It is in our human nature to do what will satisfy our basic needs as individuals to make sure our personal happiness is met, whether or not we are aware of the consequence. we are all searching for happiness some may not succeed right away but that should not stop one from seeking other methods “we extrapolate from a few experiences to arrive at broad, mostly wrong conclusion”
2. Positive Feelings Like Joy:
We explore all the different possibilities of joy until we find one that give us the gratification we after. “For if happiness is what people strive for, one needn’t waste time trying to figure out what makes people happy. One must only look at what people do. The fact of the matter is that people mostly choose to work and make money.”
3. The Absence of Negative feelings:
The absence of anger and depression would leave someone with space for only happy emotions. Someone who is happy does not frown, they smile and they do good deeds because they either want to make themselves feel better or prevent themselves from feeling bad.
“And some research suggests happiness and suicide rates move in opposite directions. Happy people don’t want to die.”
“Legend has it that Abraham Lincoln was riding in a carriage one rainy evening….when he caught sight of a pig stuck in a muddy riverbank. He ordered the carriage to stop, got out, and pulled the pig out of the muck to safety. When the friend pointed out to a mud-caked Lincoln that he had just disproved his statement by putting himself through great discomfort to save a pig, Lincoln retorted: “What I did was perfectly consistent with my theory. If I hadn’t saved that pig I would have felt terrible.””
Concluding Sentence:
“Still, it remains true that American citizens - and the citizens of much of the world - expend enormous amounts of time and energy pursuing more money and a bigger GDP because they think it will improve their well-being. And that will make them happy.”
SUMMARY
Eduardo Porter “What Happiness Is”
The selection from “The Price of Happiness” by Eduardo Porter is about people’s belief that money will make them happy and how going after it does bring joy. In the reading, he claims that “economic growth is the outcome of our pursuit of well-being”. People want to be happy and since they believe money will contribute to that, they push themselves to do better at their jobs, which leads to economic growth. Eduardo also states:
“Most psychologists and economists who study happiness agree that what they prefer to call “subjective well-being” comprises of three parts: Satisfaction, meant to capture how how people judge their lives measured up against their aspirations, positive feelings like joy; and the absence of negative feelings like anger.”
In his conclusion, Porter suggests that most of American citizens--along with people from other countries--dedicate a lot of time and effort into climbing the mountain of success to receive a better amount of income because they think it will “improve their well-being”.
Works Cited
Porter, Eduardo. “What Happiness Is” Models for Writers: Short Essays for
Composition, 11th edition. Editor: Alfred Rosa and Paul Eschholz.
Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2012. 456-460. Print.
Athena Knowles, Anne Norris, Dorothy Middleton, Nadia Cade, Leslie Tovar
Professor Sabir
English 1A
15 March 2014
Eduardo Porter Summary
What Happiness Is Summary
In Eduardo Porter’s “What Happiness Is” he describes happiness as a “slippery concept, a bundle of meanings with no precise, stable definition” (457). Porter uses examples of how some believe the pursuit of economic stability will bring them happiness, yet find their day to day joys can impact and change their evaluation of whether or not they are “happy.” In his essay, it is noted that we also make choices that will make us instantaneously happy, even though sometimes the long term effect will make us unhappy. He states that citizens of the world have a common view on how they connect happiness to their well-being. He ties economical growth to happiness and well being; however “his approach has limitations,” because we still make choices that do not benefit us in the long run (458). Overall, we as citizens spend most of our time in the pursuit of happiness. Mr. Porter suggested that happy people tend to live better lives, because they have a sense of calmness and satisfaction via other adventures in their lives. He suggests that when we look at suicide rates we find that they have dropped dramatically, because people are so busy with being happy, they don't want to die (457).
Works Cited:
Porter, Eduardo. “What Happiness Is.” Models for Writers; Short Essay for Composition. Ed. Alfred Rosa and paul Eschholz. Boston: St. Martin’s Press, 2012. 456-460. Print.
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