I'm Ang

There are a plethora of ways to go about thinking about happiness. Many believe that people consciously decide to be happy or to be unhappy. While I do believe that a person’s decisions and attitude play a significant factor in their general happiness, I don’t believe it’s that simple. Anything that deals with the human brain has to be more complex than that! Feelings and emotions are complicated and difficult to self interpret, so while others may view you as “happy,” you may not view yourself as happy.

Great question Charlie! As with all of my questions, I will take this to google:

“the state of being happy”… hm. That’s not very helpful. Happiness is very subjective, and everyone has their own opinions on how people can become more happy. Psychologists define it in different ways, but in general it’s seen as having more positive moments than negative ones. Most researchers of positive psychology can also agree that genetics play a big part of how happy we are, yet there are also some that would disagree! With the science to prove either side, how will we ever know for sure what will make us happy, or if we can even control the extent of our happiness? I hope to delve further into both sides of this argument in the weeks to come. 🙂

As a high school senior, I did a statistics project attempting to study what makes a teenager consider themselves “happy.” I wanted to know what people who consider themselves to be happy do in their daily lives that could influence them into seeing themselves as happy. I will probably cite back to this project often, because I now have my own personal, but very limited, data on teenager’s activities corresponding to how happy they viewed themselves. 

I have also become increasingly interested in how mental health plays a very under appreciated role in everyone’s lives, especially teenagers. I hope to develop a better understanding of the way mental health can be improved with the average person and how it can help people view themselves as happier. In my opinion, beginning to work on one’s mental health is the first step in achieving happiness.

Over the next few weeks I expect to consider various different aspects of people’s lives, and how it impacts happiness. There are many theories on what is key to making someone “happy.” Some argue relationships make everyone happy because of our desperate need to have companionship, others argue that you cannot truly be happy with someone else until you are happy alone. There are millions of theories on whether or not activities such as playing music, reading, singing, dancing, or playing sports can make you a happier person. The problem is that science can actually prove and disprove many of these theories. Some theorists say you can never truly achieve happiness, that it is forever a destination never reached. Is it as simple as repeating an activity that brings you joy over and over? Or is it like the concept of “tomorrow”: something you can only strive for and never actually reach.

I hope to discuss all of this further in the next ten weeks through my Passion Posts 2-10! I am not at all a science girl, but I truly think each person’s happiness is super important and we don’t spend enough time working on ourselves. See you next week!

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite happiness quotes: