Yeah, I identified with a LOT of that article. I only have a vague sense of the "pursuit of happiness" thing myself (maybe because we're introverts!), but I think the concept is engrained in most Americans - "right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" - whether they've really thought about what it means or not.
Just thinking about the ways in which our culture encourages us to be happy, I came up with three possibilities:
1. There's this idea that you should be happy with your career - that you are wasting your life if you're not doing something you love - when in actuality, it's extremely difficult to find a career that will pay you to do something you love.
2. The increased awareness, diagnosis, and treatment of depression seems to put a lot of focus on the importance of being happy - and the need to fix things if you're unhappy.
3. As much as we say that money can't buy happiness, we put an awful lot into material goods intended to make us happy. The pursuit of that kind of happiness turns life into a competition - who's got more, how to get more, wanting what someone else has.
I can see how all three of those things might be detrimental to one's well-being, despite the goal being the exact opposite.
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carisma_sensei
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Date: Feb. 23rd, 2013 02:21 am (UTC)Just thinking about the ways in which our culture encourages us to be happy, I came up with three possibilities:
1. There's this idea that you should be happy with your career - that you are wasting your life if you're not doing something you love - when in actuality, it's extremely difficult to find a career that will pay you to do something you love.
2. The increased awareness, diagnosis, and treatment of depression seems to put a lot of focus on the importance of being happy - and the need to fix things if you're unhappy.
3. As much as we say that money can't buy happiness, we put an awful lot into material goods intended to make us happy. The pursuit of that kind of happiness turns life into a competition - who's got more, how to get more, wanting what someone else has.
I can see how all three of those things might be detrimental to one's well-being, despite the goal being the exact opposite.