Are you Happy? Why?

After reading about the Professor Tal Ben-Shahar, who teaches how to be happier to his students at Havard University, was much clearer what is Happiness for me. According to Ben Shahar, when we talk about Happiness we must consider two important aspects: Meaning and Pleasure. The professor says that we are full of unmeaningful activities, activities that we do not enjoy. In addition, we spend most of time thinking of fulfilling our goals and when fulfilling them we experience "relief". Nevertheless, we must not mistake relief for happiness since feeling relief is pressuposing a previous negative experience that is temporary; we think we are happy at the moment we reach goals, but it is not like this. He also says that doing activities we enjoy and activities that give us a meaning in our lives increase Happiness. People have to appreciate the simple things of life in order to be happier.


Considering what Tal Ben-Shahar says, my answer to the question is: no, I am not. On one hand, I am not happy because despite all I have experienced, all my academical achivements, my education, my personal efforts and even my friends have made me feel very happy but they have actually been temporary. Therefore, I have felt relief and not happiness, itself. On the other hand, I'm constantly suffering because there are many things I want to do, there are important goals I haven't been able to get. One of these goals and the most important of them is being together with my girlfriend. She is all what I desire since I am completely in love with her. I would be happy if I were with her. Unfortunately, she lives very far from me and for that reason I can't be able to see her and have the divine relationship I want. There are other aspects which are absolutely personal. I hope all people who visit my Blog and read this post can be able to understand me. As a result, I think human beings are always pursuing goals during life, it is something innate. We always need more and more until we think we feel happy. However, it is clear that we can't be happy all the time, we must experience pain, stress, sadness and lots of other things in order to feel and know what happiness is.