Our world is full of many of the most diverse forms, types of material and spiritual concepts. One of them is happiness. This is an internal state that can be of varying degrees of intensity: joy, pleasure, bliss. Satisfaction experienced by a person can be quiet, calm. Delight, bravado are expressed by a strong storm, with the head covering the lucky one.
To each - his own happiness
Dreams, desires, preferences and mores of people are so different that for each individual person the essence of happiness will be different, and sometimes make the exact opposite of the joys of others. So, for one person a jump from the bridge with an elastic band causes a flurry of emotions, unrestrained glee, and for another - horror and fear. Someone finds rapture in courage, in a dangerous work that allows you to show the strength of your character, for others an extreme situation - you can’t imagine worse.
A lot of people who believe that the essence of happiness is a responsible attitude to life and those around them, for them the most important thing is work, social activity, positive opinion of society. But there are as many individuals striving for momentary pleasure for themselves alone, for idleness, for entertainment.
Many women dream of having simple happiness, “feminine, ” which consists in having a home, a full-fledged family, healthy children, and creating coziness. But in our time, we can observe female careerists, feminists and lady childfree, who absolutely do not want to have children and find their happiness in their absence. Great joy can be caused by food or drinks, luxury goods or trinkets, pleasant touches or lack of pain. A massage fan will dream of bodily pleasures for days on end, and a pathologically ill patient - a complete lack of sensations in the body.
Philosophical View of Happiness
Reflections on happiness are not new. The search for the meaning of life and eternal joy torment mankind for a long time, do not lose relevance today. The ancient philosophers of ancient time in understanding the essence of this sensation were divided into two directions: hedonistic and eudemonistic. The former considered momentary pleasures, sensual pleasures as happiness, and saw in them the purpose of life and the motives of human behavior. The second ones were inclined to believe that the essence of happiness lies in the complete achievement of any aspiration, and a positive assessment from the outside is necessary.
Exaggerating, one can imagine how some adherents of one ancient direction indulge in bodily joys day and night, are idle, while others are constantly searching, working on themselves and measuring their happiness see success in work and science, its appreciation by people. These opposing directions have not lost freshness over the past centuries. And today, one can observe how disagreements happen between supporters of two opinions about happiness. Sometimes even in the same family, right?
The beginning of a new era, the era of Christianity, was marked by the emergence of a new, gospel understanding of the source of happiness. The fundamental thesis is "love is happiness." Only humility, acceptance of what has befallen a person, sacrificial love for loved ones is true Christian happiness. It comes to one who sincerely sacrifices, gives himself up and accepts all trials with love. In other cases, according to this philosophy, happiness is either impossible or false.
Medicine is about happiness
Medicine is an exact science and does not tolerate philosophy. The essence of happiness, according to medical professionals, is the presence and influence on the human body of a certain set of hormones: serotonin, endorphin and dopamine. Each of these hormones acts differently on a person and causes a different sensation.
So, for example, endorphins cheer up, do not let fear and fatigue prevail. Serotonin also gives a good mood, but adds physical activity, a desire to move and brings pleasure from it. Dopamine motivates to action. With a lack of any so-called hormone of happiness, a person experiences discomfort, lethargy, loss of strength and a bad mood.
From the point of view of scientific psychology …
Scientific psychology sees other causes as a source of happiness. She calls happiness harmony between the four spheres of a person’s life: health, family, work and peace of mind, that is, complete satisfaction of the individual. If in the life of an individual there is a balance between these four components, then he experiences happiness, according to psychologists.
