my understanding of happiness 我对幸福的理解

My view on happiness

What is happiness? It is a common asked question, which is not easy to respond to. However, it is easier to answer what happiness means to ourselves, because we all have our own definition of happiness.

Some people said that the definition of happiness depends on what kind of life we are living and what kind of life we want to live. To a beggar, the definition of happiness may be sufficient food and clothes; to a scholar interested in literature, a book and a cup of coffee are the origin of happiness; to me, a university student, happiness is living a meaningful and rewarding campus life. Although these things which make people feel happy may sound easy and simple to others, but these things are real and achievable. The definition of happiness varies from different occupations, different regions, different religions, different ages, and more importantly, it varies for different people.

However, some people argue that happiness has anything to do with external environment, such like food, money, clothes, it is up to our minds. No matter we are poor or wealthy, as long as we have positive thinking and love our lives, we can feel happy. I can’t agree more on the argument that happiness is a the state of people’s minds and only can be done by ourselves.

There are thousands of ways to classify happiness according to thousands of standards. Because whether we are happy or not depends on how we think about things in life and different types of happiness come from different thinking. Therefore, some people think happiness can be classified by its origin. Meanwhile, as far as I am concerned, happiness can be divided into different levels according to how delight we are and how long can this feeling last. The lowest level of happiness is pleasure, and it occurs when we are happy with our current lives. This kind of happiness cannot last so long as it is easy to be affected and changed by other things. The highest level of happiness is self-achievement, which happens when we achieve our goals through our individual efforts. This kind of happiness, on the contrary, is lasting. Because we can learn a lot from the process and the things we learn are buried deeply in our hearts and would influence us from now on. However, as it is the peak of happiness, we may go through trials and failures before we get our success and feel happy.

Therefore, the way to achieve happiness is simple and straightforward: first, knowing where you are and where you want to go. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that the biggest enemy of the human being is himself. Only when you can figure out you want, can you try to make it and achieve happiness. Secondly, insist on what you think is meaningful and never give up. Sometimes, happiness just comes after sorrows, so do not turn back until you achieve happiness. Happiness is everwhere in life as long as you love life.