Just because you want a new shiny car to go with the new house you bought so you could feel happy about yourself doesn’t mean that you will be. In Jon Gertner’s article “The Futile Pursuit of Happiness” he wrote about four psychologists theories on Happiness and the one psychologist theory that I thought was completely accurate was Jon Gilbert. He spoke about how there are two types of Happiness that humans produce. His theory had me questioning myself and what I really believe makes me happy or what I think will make me happy. Gilbert proves that not only is Happiness an emotion that maybe just maybe we might be able to control how happy we are and how happy we want to be. Is Happiness a feeling that comes naturally or something that I can create myself?
Dan Gilbert states that there are two types of Happiness called natural happiness and synthetic happiness. Natural Happiness is when we’re happy because we got what we wanted. It’s comes in time, anytime, anywhere. Natural happiness is uncontrollable and unpredictable because it can comes to you when you least expect it. Say if you walking somewhere and you found money on the ground, you’re going to be happy because you figured it must be your lucky day. Natural happiness can come to you at anytime whether you like it or not. It’s the gift of reason and you cherish happiness because it’s what giving you that glowing feeling.
I felt this kind of Happiness millions of times and they all came when I least expect it. I felt Happiness walking down the street because I felt that I’m getting the exercise I need or I felt happy just with family because I know that they’ll always be there for me. Shockingly I even felt happy when my father was diagnosed with high blood pressure and had to take off work for a while. To me that made me happy because I got to spend more time with him than I used to. I used to pray for my father to be home more and I guess I got what I wanted an I see that Natural Happiness is a blessing at the right times.
Another kind of Happiness that Gilbert says that we have is Synthetic Happiness and this one is shocking to me because its true and it comes at me differently. Synthetic Happiness is when we’re happy when we don’t get what we want. This feeling is odd to me because I feel happy when what I truly wanted for myself is unreachable or possibly impossible to get, and I start thinking to myself about do I really need it. I remember when I was at the mall and I wanted to buy a binder from Bloomindales just because it was name brand and I thought it would make me feel good, feel cool about myself that I had it. I didn’t buy it because I didn’t need it, I just wanted it for show so I left it there and in the end I felt good… great actually.
“The futile Pursuit of Happiness”…what is that really? Is Gilbert’s theory on Natural Happiness a way to say that people feel obligated to have happiness in their life? Is synthetic Happiness healthy for us because it teaches us a lesson about ourselves that we need to rethink? I think these theories are brilliant because people need to understand that maybe Happiness is not just a feeling or an emotion, that maybe it apart or us or something that we can control to make us feel better in a situation or just make us feel Human.
