Happiness Enough Already By Sharon Begley

Happiness is often perceived to be the ultimate goal in life. But a deeper look into all that happiness entails reveals that happiness is the driving force behind what makes life complicated from the start. We do what makes us “happy,” but how do we know the full value of happiness if we do not give notice to other emotions? Grief helps us to assess our losses, anger allows us to make us push on towards our goals in the face of problems, and jealousy allows us to see what others have and strive to achieve our best, only further revealing that happiness cannot be the only emotion worth recognizing. The perception of happiness stems from the feelings we get from other emotions and is often idealized to the point where other emotions feel unacceptable

Because of the way our emotions make others feel, it sets a standard for how we are allowed to act at all times. We can only be sad for a certain amount of time, angry for so long, and frustrated for a while before the people around us decide it is time for us to overcome our feelings. This creates the problem of masking our emotions and unintentionally lying to ourselves to keep others “happy”. In the article “Happiness: Enough Already” Sharon Begley argues that “ Everyone wants mourners to ‘snap out of it’ because observing another’s grief isn’t easy”(Begley 457). Emotions are uncomfortable and are meant to build connections between people. If not for the grief we would not be able to understand the extent of how something impacted us personally, and we would not be able to find happiness when reminiscing on past moments. By subduing grief as a natural emotion that comes along with loss, as people, we are single­handedly making sadness/grief a disease, rather than accepting it as an ordinary emotion. Also because society focuses on ‘being happy’ so eminently, we forget the negative effects of being constantly happy. In the article “Happiness: Enough Already” Robert Biswas­Diener explains how happiness promotes a sense

Rather than trying to find happiness in everyday life the promotion of the American Dream and the ‘desire industry’ have caused American citizens strive to achieve a false sense of happiness and begin neglecting to express other emotions. From this we see American citizens disregarding normal emotions in order to conform to the status quo of how they express themselves. For instance in the article “Balanced Psychology and a Full Life” Marin E.P. Seligman states, “... when people fluctuate within a relatively ‘down’ range of positive emotion but live in a society like the USA that promotes an upbeat disposition, they can feel discouraged and even defective” (Seligman 1380). Which reveals that living in a society that only promotes being ‘happy’ can lead to people thinking that all emotions besides happiness are unacceptable to feel. And when neglecting those other emotions citizens are digging themselves into a bigger pit of despair and fueling the happiness market. For example in the article “A Critique of Positive Psychology” it states, “...economist do regard happiness as something you can buy...happiness has become the ultimate luxury item” (Schoch 452). America has ingrained the idea of happiness into something that can be purchased into its culture. The concept that the perfect body will make you happy so people buy personal trainers, the idea that looking