Argumentative Essay: The Value Of Happiness

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A person's life cannot be filled with happiness alone. Happiness is wrongly forced upon people and is not realized as only one aspect of a person's life. Other emotions, even the emotions that are labeled as negative are necessary and even beneficial. These emotions should remain in a person’s life to create a life with balance. There is such a thing as too much happiness. Happiness is necessary for a healthy and enjoyable life, but a person should not be one hundred percent happy all the time. Feeling other emotions, such as sadness, fear, and anger, are of equal importance as happiness.
Positive psychologists agree the focus should not be on curing mental illness but on achieving happiness (Seligman et al.). The level of happiness these psychologists …show more content…

It has been proven that those in a negative mood have a better memory than those in an uplifted mood. Memories can be corrupted and influenced by a positive mood. When in a negative mood, one is better at reasoning in a debate because he or she will use anger to find information and research to back up the argument being made. The same anger allows a person to be more open to the opposing

views. Fear allows a person to know that there is a possible danger and to be more attentive in the dangerous situation. A person who is happy may become complacent while one who is not content will push oneself to be better. Because life is good, a person may believe there is no reason to do so. (David)
Forcing happiness on someone will not make him or her truly happy. A person may appear to be happy by putting on a smile, but a false sense of happiness cannot last. Once the peak of happiness is reached, one can only come down. If one were to be one hundred percent happy all the time and never came down it would just become the new normal. Without the variety of emotions the experience of being happy would no longer have the same excitement and appeal. The lack of negative emotions would be dehumanizing and cause one to have a bland existence. To live a full life one must experience the full range of