Angelique Vasquez Professor Susan Lago English 1100-41 17 December, 2013 After the storm is a rainbow Happiness is something

that cannot be defined or explain other than it is an emotion a person temporarily feels. Questions like what is happiness and how can happiness be determined has found their way into our heads at least once in our lives as well as in Mark Kingwells and Jennifer Seniors essays. There has been a great amount of time spent researching to find answers for these questions. However, we have learned that there is no single answer good enough to fully answer these questions. No matter the answer someone comes across, those looking for it will always be unhappy with the outcome. It seems to me that those who question happiness may be asking the wrong questions. Mark Kingwell and Jennifer Seniors passages agree on that the search and the constant questioning of happiness can only result in unhappiness. My search of happiness begins with the search and understanding of sadness. Sadness I have found is a necessity in our lives. It is one of the keys to true happiness. For as long as I can remember I have been putting the thought of moving out of my house as soon as I graduated from high school to be set in my mind. And when I was handed my diploma on graduation day I was excited and so over filled with joy that I will finally be able to move out and start my life. I was now going to be known as an individual, independent, a college student. The excitement had not died down on move-in day as I said farewell to my friends and family members. I saw myself as being happy for once. This is what I have been waiting on. Actions were finally being put into play. But Jennifer Senior makes a point in her passage that I

soon learned to be true, no matter where they live, human beings are terrible predictors of what will make them happy (Senior 426). I had made the decision to leave home and all that I know and love, thinking I would be happier somewhere else. I was wrong, I feel incomplete without having those I love around me. The late Christopher Reeve once said I didnt appreciate others nearly as much as do now (Senior 426). This is not what I was excepting to feel being away from home. My friends know me as talkative, energetic and forever smiling. But my friends are not here, here I am on my own and I feel alone. We as humans define and remember our experiences by their highs, lows, and how they end. At this point in my life I am in the lows. My imagination had carried me away and got the best of me as well. In Seniors passage, she writes about Gilberts philosophy being that Imagination is the poor mans wormhole (Senior 426). Before moving away the thought of moving away was what kept me going but now I know this is not what I wanted. Senior then elaborates on how our imagination is limited and how we can be disappointed by the things we covet most. However, I have come to realize that without such sadness one cannot appreciate such happiness. Senior lightens the mood in her passage by writing were much more likely to cope well with situations we never thought wed be able to survive (Senior 426). This gave me hope and now I encourage this school year. Because if I can survive the loneliness and all the school work I will be facing then I know there is nothing I will not be able to accomplish. Happiness floats and though it is gone from me now I know I will feel it again soon enough. Chris Peterson designed a test called the Authentic Happiness Inventory. This test determines a persons level of happiness on a scale from 1 to 5 based on age, education level, gender, occupation, zip code, religious views and your own brain chemistry. I scored a 2.96. My score was below average for all categorizes except for educational level, where I stood on the

50% mark. Chris Peterson warns that these are not representative respondents. These are just people who had logged on to their website and took the happiness measure. Jennifer Senior gives an example of what Peterson meant in her passage, she writes that hundreds of mental patients from Chicago could have decided to take the test, while only fifteen Buddhists in Baja did the same, which would result in a very skewed perception of the well-being of Chicagoans and Bajans (Senior 422). Even after knowing that the results of the Authentic Happiness Inventory may not be accurate I am still content with my personal score. It is as if I need to be reassured that I was happy for some reason. Some people cannot appreciate what they have or feel if they cannot physically see it or hold it. Jennifer Senior states that theres an untold distance between knowing happiness and knowing about it (Senior 475). When someone gets their results from the Authentic Happiness Inventory all they finding out is how happy they are. What is unknown is what makes them happy and if the happiness level is where its suppose to be. In contrast to Seniors finding of Chris Petersons Authentic Happiness Inventory, Mark Kingwells passage briefly writes about two psychologists from the University of Illinois named Edward and Carol Diener. The two reported in Psychological Science magazine that their study of surveys from more than forty countries demonstrated that money, education, and family background were less important in determining ones level of happiness than was basic genetic predisposition. In 1996, several genetic and behavioral studies appeared in specific journals that offered evidence to support the conclusion that ones achievable degree of happiness is genetically determined (Kingwell 414). In other words they believe that your happiness level is already set in stone and nothing you do will change when or of how much emotion you will feel. Other studies show that someone who goes to work in overalls on the bus can be and feel just as happy as a person who wear suits and ties and drives a Mercedes. Mark Kingwell explains that

Everyone thinks they know something about what happiness is; very few people manage to convince anyone else that they are right (Kingwell 413). Just because someone is rich or is well known does not guarantee he or she is happy. You are either happy or youre not, there is no lying to yourself about it. Ive learned if you feel the need to convince others of your happiness you are just lying to yourself. There is no direct answer to what happiness is or how we can measure it but I believe in these two authors search for happiness they realized to just enjoy when they are happy and when they are not because that makes the time being all better. This goes for all those who question happiness; enjoy it while you can because soon it will be gone. There is no single answer good enough to satisfy a simple three worded question what is happiness. Happiness is something that comes and goes just like any other feeling we have. It is not an object you can store away for later like a squirrel hiding nuts for the winter approaching. It is also something you cannot control or pretend to be. Sadness is not always as bad as we make it out to be.

Works Cited Kingwell, Mark. In Pursuit of Happiness: Better Living from Plato to Prozac. 1998. Writing and Reading across the Curriculum. By Laurence Berhrens and Leonard Rosen. 12th ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, 2013. 413-16. Print. Senior, Jennifer. Some Dark Thoughts on Happiness. 2006. Writing and Reading across the Curriculum. By Laurence Berhrens and Leonard Rosen. 12th ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, 2013. 422-30. Print.