“Do we know anything about what actually makes people happy?” This is doubtlessly one of the most resounding question that this video has brought into discussion.
Professor Ronald D. Sieger defines happiness as something fugitive: "we run after it, but we seem to have a great deal of difficulty of finding it." I would like express my very own persective about happiness is: I see no path that could lead us to happiness, beceause happiness is the path itself. That is why a truly happy person is the one that can enjoy every moment of the great detour of life.

Another interesting question raised during this interview is the next one: "Do people hold misconceptions about how to achieve happiness?" And the professor mentions something so awfully true: "It turns out that we human beings are actually terrible at predicting what will make us happy." I have to admit I simply could not agree more. The first step we must take if we want to pursue happiness is to realise that we are all different in the way we perceive the world. There is a statement that Aristotle once made that is shockingly available even these days as it was more than two thousands years ago: "Different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life." For this mere reason, it is crystal clear that the path to happiness is not meant to fit within given borders. Each human being is unique and therefore each one of us has the right to establish their own stairway to happiness.

Furthermore, it is also mentioned that many of us admit that achieving a certain something, whether it is a carier acomplishent or money and the list could go on, is going to give us enduring happiness. At the end of the day though, it turns out that this things rarely work because it is hard to sustain happiness; each one has a genetic "set point", which is a level of happiness to which we tend to go back to, no matter if life decides to pamper us or not. Related to this issue, there is the so called "'Hedonic Treadmill" aspect that needs to be adressed, because this explains it all. The hedonic treadmill could be defined as the tendency of a person to remain at a relatively stable level of happiness despite a change in fortune or the achievement of major goals. According to the hedonic treadmill, as a person makes more money, expectations and desires rise in tandem, which results in no permanent gain in happiness. The hedonic treadmill theory explains the oft-held observation that rich people are no happier than poor people, and that those with severe money problems are sometimes quite happy. The theory supports the argument that money does not buy happiness and that the pursuit of money as a way to reach this goal is futile. Good and bad fortunes may temporarily affect how happy a person is, but most people will end up back at their normal level of happiness.

The fifth question the professor raised, the one regarding the ways to achieve happiness, specifies that researchers have identified five broad paths to happiness. But there is one that caught my attention, the third one, which implies savouring, really tasting the moment, not rushing forward trying to get to the next one. From my very own point of view this paths suits the best the concept of mindfulness, even though mister Siegel puts all five paths toghether, fitting them into this concept. And despite of the fact that mindfulness reffers to being in the present both physicaly and mentally, I would like to specify that if we would only live in the present, without thinking about what will happen next in our lives we would just be stuck somehow in a present "circle"; having no perspectives or plan to implove yourself would stop making you fell happy after an extended period of time has elapsed. I perceive the mindfulness practice as something tremendous to be used in those moments when you need to take a break from your routine, to "disconnect" from everything and everyone and just connect with yourself, but I just could't see mindfulness as a way of life.

All in all, happiness is a complex mental and emotional state, perceived differentelly by each one of us. Therefore, is all up to you to try find your own path to happiness. And do not forget one detail: for every minute you are angry, you lose sixty seconds of happiness.

Diana Buta, Seria 1, Grupa 3

So if happiness cannot be achieved , at least we are trying to be happy for a short period of time, as many times we can. This is another problem because we believe that certain things may bring us moments of happiness, and only after having those things we realize that we might have been happier without them or with something else instead. Juvenility, nature, free time, family, are a few things we should appreciate at the moment we have them, not after we lose them . The major defect of human being is that he can’t live in the present. We always think what to do next or what we have done, and never appreciate the moment. I am lucky or it is because of the way I was educated , but for me comes as natural to try to BE PRESENT(“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is mystery , today is a gift, that’s why it’s called PRESENT?.)

As about mindfulness , I believe it is an extraordinary way to improve our lives. Paying attention makes you present and being present makes you happy more often. Accepting whatever arrives makes us more open to what this world means, what this universe created here or makes us more aware of what we really are: beautiful creatures capable of extraordinary things.

“Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy”(Guillaume Apollinaire)
ANA BILEGAN grupa 2 , seria I

Today, more and more research on how to increase positive moods are made because not everyone is born with a sunny disposition, but the experts agree that we can all learn how to bring satisfaction into our lives.About this idea talks the professor in the first part of the interview.While watching this interview to my mind came the Aristotel's idea about happiness: "happiness is an end, an end result off all the things a person does".Everything we do is for a reason, to achieve something else.Aristotel believes that something else is happiness.There are a few ideas in this video that captured my attention.
First of all, the question: " what is happiness " caught my attention and i don't find an answer because happiness is hard to define and if you ask different individuals what is happiness, there are a wide variety of answers you would hear.It is difficult to define happiness because it means different things to different people.
Secondly, I don't agree whit what the professor said , that people are unhappy.Yes, people think a lot about the past or the future and they never focus on the present , but i think that exist lots of small things that can make a person happy.For example: a sunny day, a piece of chocolate or a good song.
Moreover the professor talks about how people create myths about what would make one happy: family, youth. health.I believe that each of us has the own recipe for happiness.
An other question that caught my attention is : "Why is sometimes difficult to become happy?".Nowdays for many people happiness is a direction and when they find a place they no longer feel this because after they are used with something it no longer maintain their happiness.Happiness may come and go like the seasons.
Finally, what is happiness?I still don't find the answer but i think that happiness is when what you think, what you say and what you do are in harmony.

Happiness is a too broad of a term, because it takes too many different shapes and forms thus true happiness is impossible to achieve.

First there is desire and the will of achieving them. If a desire is met,one is filled with a sense of good,or tranquility. Secondly there is joy, which is a pleasure of the mind. Thirdly there is love which is considered to be one of the most important forms of happiness. There are many other to be considered.

All these cannot exist alone,but only if their opposites are present. There is no man who knows what good is without having experienced something evil beforehand. Therefore one cannot be happy without being sad and without any change ,which is known routine ,one cannot say that he is either happy nor sad.

Having this in mind there is one more matter that is to be mentioned: that one cannot achieve happiness through a method not discovered or shown to him. Let’s take an exotic fruit as the object of our study: none can say it is good tasting or bad tasting before taking a bite from it, and therefore cannot know the pleasure of eating it, which is in itself a form of happiness . In a broader view, some never discover the joys of reading , snowboarding ,eating chocolate or any other activities that bring a bright ray of light in a rainy day.

Considering this , someone who hasn’t experimented many things ,nor curious , can easily say he is absolutely happy.In conclusion , it is my opinion that the less we know ,the fewer things we desire and the less we wonder we wonder about things, the happier we are.

Achieving happiness
Happiness is a goal that we reach harder and harder as we grow up and get old. Walking on the street in a sunny day might give you a solid example for my statement. There you meet people of all ages, sex and nationality, and you can feel their vibes transmitted: positive or negative.
In the early years of the life, when you are a child, everything around you seems to can be used to bring you entertainment, no matter how useless the object or how silly the action can be. As a child you know how to be happy and everything comes natural to you; you do not need to think or to plan to feel that way. Your soul is pure and because of that you are focused on the important aspects of the life, seizing all the moments.
Once we start to grow and to begin to think a bit too much, happiness becomes a concept more and more difficult to obtain. We are setting our lives on reaching some goals that we believe that would make us more than we already are and we make everything is possible to complete the “challenge”. No matter how we do that, the result is important.
But what is curious is that once we have the wanted thing, we might feel good for a while and after that, the emptiness appears, because we have missed the process, we have skipped the essence of gaining it.
We have to stop worrying about future or past aspects of our lives and just go with the flow.
Happiness is the most unstable feeling in human’s hearth and is the one that seems to depend on a various number of external factors. A few are the ones that can reach a certain level of spirituality, to be happy just for the simple fact that they live, that they can wake up every morning to see the daylight, happy for breathing and really feeling the air flooding the lungs and keeping the life in the body.
This should be the way of going through the life. We are humans, the supreme race, all the gates are opened for us but we just have to learn how to “change the room”, as a child learns how to walk and talk.
There is enough happiness for everybody, and it does not cost a thing!

Daiana Bîrta, Grupa 2, Seria I