Some Reasons For Unhappiness

The true American dream of the pursuit of happiness might now directly change into the pursuit of material wealth because some people are becoming unhappy. I assume our immeasurable desires make us unhappy. Psychologists define unhappiness as a mental or emotional state of distress that is distinguished by negative or upset emotions fluctuating from contentment to intense misery.

I started my journey “reasons for unhappiness,” by interviewing some Montgomery College students, and I continued interviewing many other people: my friends, co-workers and relatives. Then, I did some research and watched a great documentary film called “HAPPY” and some more videos from websites to strengthen my case.

Next, I examined people different reasons and views for their unhappiness. The first reason is seriousness of their unhappiness. Some people are not happy because they have extra weight on their body, and others are unhappy because they lost someone they deeply love. Also, they have complex reasons from one another. Some people believe they hate their job because they don’t have enough money to afford what they want to buy. Others are not happy because they don’t have a job. Health is also another concerning reason. Some people are unhappy because they don’t have good health and others are not happy because they don’t have money to buy cigarettes.

After I studied different types of unhappiness, I found out people can become unhappy in two different ways. One way to be unhappy is having bad relationships among families, co-workers and friends. Another way is having personal problem, such as health.

There are also several ways to become happy. These can be reading the Holy Bible, traveling aboard and learning about different cultures, creating great social interaction with your neighbors, or building freedom of choices.

Introduction

Pressures we carried in our lives can produce destinations for our happiness or unhappiness, such as a final exam for a student, an interview for a job seeker, an experiment for a scientist, or a touchdown for a football player. These conditions are major deciders for our happiness or sadness. Even though it is obvious that every one of us seek a single outcome -joy, there are still many reasons for unhappiness.

I believe our happiness can be achieved by feasible dreams or heart desires, but not unobtainable dreams that put us into miserable situations. My assumption is limitless desires for everything we could ask for and even more have made us to not appreciate life and to no be happy. During my study, I found several reasons and research papers about unhappiness, but I mainly focused the dimension, complexity or differentiate, and unhealthiness of unhappiness to support my hypothesis.

In this trying research, my goal is study the danger of unhappiness and its consequences and to find recommendations that fulfill a person life with full of happiness. In addition, the purpose of this report is to scrutinize or avoid our unhappiness because I believe it may cause demise. I have included some people life experiences and interviews and expert analyses.

Methods

According to Ian Sample article, “How to be happy?” the Guardian newspaper in November 2003, most of us are born with a certain amount of happiness, and our happiness is a best way to achieve our goals. However, unhappiness has been an endless problem for most individuals. Thus, I started by interviewing to proof my assumption. I interviewed some Montgomery Community College students, my friends, my families, and my co-workers, and all the interviews was fun, and besides it helped me to get supportive evidences.

After I had numerous interviews, I watched a one and half hour documentary film called “HAPPY”, directed and written by Roko Belic, on Netflix. The documentary has an extraordinary journey from small town India to the modern city Japan in pursuit of happiness. Also, it has actual life stories of individuals from around the world and influential interviews with some top experts and scientists. It also explores the secrets behind our most valued emotion, happiness. I watched the documentary many times, and I carefully took a note about why people are happy or unhappy.

Next, I composed some information about happiness from different website articles, such as the Guardian daily newspaper. In addition, I watched several videos, on TED.com, about happiness and unhappiness, which help me to prove my hypothesis come up with strong conclusion and recommendation.

Results

Depths of unhappiness

Nancy Etcoff, a professor of the science of Happiness at Harvard university, in her talk, “Happiness and its Surprises” on ted.com, explained that humans are very sensitive of negative things; hence, they can easily be unhappy. During my study, I mainly focused on the profundity of unhappiness because some people unhappiness was a slight lower-amid gloom. For instance, they were unhappy because they got a parking ticket while parking in “No Parking!” areas. I tried to avoid this common and ordinary unhappiness, which have easy solutions. For instance, if someone is unhappy about his weight, he can exercise.

Also, it was pretty difficulty for me to record consultations about unhappiness. While I was fully concerning to get a negative life experience, some people I interviewed were giving me a commonplace sadness because they concerned about protecting their depressed stories.

In general, the majority of my interviewer stories were very common unhappiness. They were simply unhappy in particular situations and overlooked it right away. However, some have emotionally wounded for long period of time, which allowed me to see how unhappiness deeply affected people lives.

One of my good friends told me about his agonizing marriage story, and how it affected his life. He told me that he found his wife cheating; however, he has been willing to keep his relationship for the sake of his children. Even though he is still unhappy about it, he mentioned that he fears if he wanted a divorce, he will lose his children. As a result, he chooses to be unhappy and lives with his children than getting divorce.

Complexity of unhappiness

In my study, I also found that unhappiness can have a different involvedness between ages and situations. For instance, My nephew, age 10, want to play game during weekend if he didn’t allowed to play a video game in weekends, he would be unhappy. And, some college students believe that they are not happy because of some “bad” professors. Their repulsions are even though they have a good or bad grade, they are not happy by the way they are learning in some classes. However, some other college students have different ideas, they believe that the reason why college students are unhappy because of stressful college course, which has various pressures and expectation, and most time these prevent students to earn good grades.

Also, my co-workers have different explanation for their unhappiness. Most of my co-workers think they are not happy because of low payment in the company. In contrast, my unemployed friends feel miserable because they couldn’t find a job.

How unhappiness impact a person health?

During my interviews, some people give me feedback of unhappiness concerning to heath. They said that when they feel like there are too many pressures or demands on them, they become stressful. For instance, when they are worrying about tests and schoolwork, they might lose sleep. When they have busy schedules, they might eat on the run. Also, everyone experiences stress at times; adults, teens, and even kids, but there are ways to minimize or to manage those health problems. However, not like the following story.

Markus, my co-worker in JCP, told me a poignant story of his ex-girlfriend. He told me that his ex-girlfriend became drug addicted because she was unhappy in her life. When she took drugs, she felt “false” happy. Thus, she continued to use drugs because if she didn’t take drugs, she believed she would have a stressful day. Markus was unhappy by her situation and he tried to stop her for several months. However, she couldn’t listen to him. Finally, she ended up death while taking drugs.

Discussion

During my study of reasons for unhappiness, I found out about two ways of unhappiness which support my hypothesis: one there is dependent unhappiness, and there is independent unhappiness.

Dependent unhappiness is unhappiness that we feel when we lost what we had. For instance, if suppose we keep expecting from others: friends and co-workers including our relatives, we finally end up unhappy because people are capable of making mistake. Daniel Kahneman on his talks, “The Riddle of experience vs. memory” on ted.com, explained even though every one of us want to make happy one and another, still people are becoming unhappy because what other people did to them.

Independent unhappiness is melancholies that happen when we have desire that has never-ending. For instance, when we comparing ourselves to others. When we want more of something things weather it is bad or good. We are not pretty skillful about thinking quickly before we act, so we need not be disgraceful about our own deeds. If we can solve problems in our life then there is no need of worry, but we still deeply stressed and become unhappy plus hurt our health with the thing we can’t solve.

During my studies, I have perceived whether it is dependent or independent unhappiness, people are becoming unhappy because they don’t have a limit for things. Most of our unhappiness came from the unrestricted desire of achievements. We should have to know our capabilities and potential what we’d, and has to keep little expectations from others as much little as possible also from ourselves. Even though our unhappiness is bring those various types of problems and different reasons. Some reasons are depth and some are easy, and some reasons are complex and have health issues.

Recommendation to become happy

They are many recommendations for our unhappiness. J.D. Roth, a founder of award-winning website Get Rich Slowly, in his article, “The Psychology of Happiness: 13 Steps to a Better Life,” on GetRichSlowly.org, has recommended how to avoid unlimited desires and some step for a better life. Also, he mentioned that people should not compare physically or socially to one another, and to focus to their personal goals. In addition, getting away of unhappiness might have different recommendations, but all have the same impact, which is becoming happy again. No one ever found happiness alone, gazing at his navel. Happiness is not personal. It is relational. If we improve our relationships, we will surely boost our happiness. Thus, traveling aboard and exploring new things, becoming closely connected or associated with neighborhoods are some of freedom of choice: doing what someone loves to do and knowing limitation: avoiding life pressures can help us to get away from unhappiness.

Work cited:

Sample, Ian. “How to Be Happy.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 19 Nov. 2003. Web. 25 Nov. 2012. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2003/nov/19/1>.

“The Psychology of Happiness: 13 Steps to a Better Life.” Get Rich Slowly – Personal Finance That Makes Sense. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2012. <http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2008/08/25/the-psychology-of-happiness-13-steps-to-a-better-life/>.

“Nancy Etcoff: Happiness and Its Surprises.” TED: Ideas worth Spreading. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2012. <http://www.ted.com/talks/nancy_etcoff_on_happiness_and_why_we_want_it.html>.

2005, World Values Survey. “Happiness Net Statistics – Countries Compared.” NationMaster.com. NationMaster, n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2012. <http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/lif_hap_net-lifestyle-happiness-net>.

“Daniel Kahneman: The Riddle of Experience vs. Memory.” TED: Ideas worth Spreading. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2012. <http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kahneman_the_riddle_of_experience_vs_memory.html?quote=655>.

“Happy.” IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 08 Dec. 2012